Bright Eyes

(King Tuts, Sunday)

Conor Oberst may be a genius when it comes to music, but an intoxicated Glastonbury performance where he insulted John Peel and the festival itself showed that he can be a very frustrating live act. If he's with it and knows where he is, nobody can touch him live. If he's over-indulged himself, he can be one of the worst as well.

Thankfully he has learned his lessons from Glastonbury and comes on stage looking clean from drink. His band consists of violins, cellos, guitarists, percussionist and they barely fit on the King Tuts stage. Despite a disappointing sound quality, early numbers like "Lover I Don't Have To Love" sound absolutely huge.

Bright Eyes mainly play songs from "Digital Ash in a Digital Urn", and Conor Oberst is joined by Nick from New York band the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in his backing band. The highly charged emotional folk fills the tent beautifully, and despite not moving around much, Conor has natural stage presence.

Finishing with his most popular acoustic song, "First Day Of My Life", the crowd spill out of the tent feeling as if they've seen one of the performances of the weekend. The dramatic, sweeping sounds may not be something that would have suited the main stage, but amongst those who have fallen in love with the music of Bright Eyes, there is a feeling that we had all seen something pretty special.

review by: Matthew Shaw

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