Bright Eyes - 11/07/05 - Somerset House

Time to catch up on some gigs I've been to in the past month:

Somerset House, or more accurately the courtyard in the centre of it, as a gig venue is really pretty, and was even more so with a lot of pink clouds in the sunset. The Faint were less so and seemed almost entirely uninspiring but couldn't really be begrudged their place as some of them were in the band for our hero Conor:



…well, something like that. After an onscreen countdown in fast-forward (we got several more of those rather well executed during instrumental build-ups in a few songs) he came on a short while before it got dark, and to a place which was still half empty, possibly due to the attacks a few days previously but more likely because he isn't that well known here yet.

Indeed, the crowd actually seemed to dwindle throughout, probably due to the fact that he only played one song from accessible indie-country I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (the rapturously received acoustic and very pretty First Day Of My Life) and 11 from glitchy, claustrophobic, Digital Ash In A Digital Urn.

It didn't feel like he was wilfully ignoring what the people wanted at the expense of a show though, because the live versions of those already great songs were a revelation, the 10-piece band seeming unnecessary at first but soon bringing out an extra energy and grace to some which is often not their in their comparatively awkward album forms. Every song worked, but Down In A Rabbit Hole, Arc Of Time and a furious version of Easy/Lucky/Free to close were particularly extraordinary, and we were treated to a great version of older song Lover I Don't Have To Love too, fitting in well enough to show that the idea that this album is a sidetrack from his real direction is an oversimplification.

Finally something which I thought about as a result of Tom's article on FreakyTrigger, criticising the playing of Sigur Ros and Bright Eyes on 6Music after the two minutes silence. It might easily have been thought that an album full of fear, dread and confrontation of death would have fitted the mood at the time, but it was apparent pretty soon that this wasn't the case, and I think that this is because pretty much all Bright Eyes songs are essentially, whatever else is involved, about Conor and the myth/reality/whatever of how fucked up he is. To enjoy his music is to accept this, and if anything it worked better as escapism, going to a place where all your problems are caused and magnified by yourself.