On ‘the way to Cassadaga to commune with the dead,’ Bright Eyes made a pit stop.
Well, they weren’t really heading to Cassadaga, N.Y., but the indie rock band Bright Eyes did make a stop in Johnson City Wednesday night as part of their east coast tour which heads to New York City for its grand finale on Nov. 19.
It’s not every day that the Binghamton area attracts contemporary artists to a venue that isn’t on campus, and each of the different artists mocked Johnson City’s location. They asked the crowd to tell them the difference between Binghamton and Johnson City.
When the audience was questioned about what they do for fun, several people yelled back, ‘Drugs!’ At one point, Bright Eyes lead singer Connor Oberst pointed out that ‘we really are in the sticks ‘
About 830 tickets were sold and the venue was filled with everyone from scarf-wearing, skinny-jean-clad teenagers to swooping-haired adults. Drunk girls paraded about the venue bringing the smell of alcohol and permanent marker X’s stamped on their hands.
Within the first 10 minutes of standing around waiting for the opening band, the reporter was accosted by a girl ‘ probably drunk ‘ who told him not to look at her girlfriend.
It was that type of crowd.
When the first opener, Nik Freitas, took the stage, he was met with a lukewarm reaction from the crowd. It would take the rousing bluegrass type music from The Felice Brothers to get the audience to put away their cell phones and stop chatting with one another.
The Felice Brothers played a crazed set. The guys had a bizarre hick-like feel (almost like they drank too much of their own moonshine), but they seemed to enjoy themselves and got the crowd ready to sway violently ‘ not mosh ‘ to Bright Eyes.
Looking at the crowd, one would not expect the mix of hipster-looking young adults and boys wearing Hollister Co. T-shirts to be unified by the indie folk-rock music of Bright Eyes. Perhaps it’s Oberst’s angry lyrics about modern society, like, ‘Because the truth is that gossip’s as good as gospel in this town,’ that draws in the mix of people.
If only one observation on the demographics of the crowd could be made, it would be that it was filled with tall men and drunk girls hanging off of them.
When Oberst and his bandmates finally took the stage around 10 p.m., the crowd was more than ready to have a good time.
Oberst seemed disinterested in the audience, yet the more he seemed not to care, the more it drove the audience wild as hands flew up in the air to bid for his attention.
Bright Eyes played a set list mixed with old favorites and new hits like ‘Four Winds’ from the new album ‘Cassadaga.’
Keren Brody, a senior psychology major, said she was so excited about the show that she had been telling people about it for four months.
‘The show was amazing and I’ve seen them in concert before,’ Brody said.
After Bright Eyes’ initial set the crowd cheered for about five minutes demanding an encore. They were successful and brought the band, along with the two opening acts, back onstage.
The encore turned into a big jam session, including a Tom Petty cover to the last song, which Oberst said he hoped would be ‘the last song Dick Cheney hears before he gets a stake through his vampire heart.’
Imran Battla, a sociology graduate student, said he thought the jam session encore was great.
‘The show was really fucking awesome; it was just amazing,’ Battla said. ‘Getting a band like Bright Eyes was a good move on the part of Magic City Music Hall. If more bands like them were brought in, it’d be good for local development.’
Toward the end of the show, around the time Oberst made the comment about the vice president, he told the crowd, ‘There’s a new American Revolution coming,’ which received huge applause.
But the question is, will the young apathetic crowd drop their cell phones and blogs and actually do something?