There's this fantastic little interlude in last year's (Oprah endorsed!) Freedom where Jonathan Franzen sends his protagonist Walter Berglund and his aging former rock star friend to a Bright Eyes show at Washington DC's 9:30 Club somewhere around the turn of the century:

He was the real deal, a boy genius, and thus all the more insufferable to Katz. His Tortured Soulful Artist shtick, his self-indulgence in pushing his songs past their natural limits of endurance, his artful crimes against pop convention: he was performing sincerity, and when the performance threatened to give sincerity the lie, he performed his sincere anguish over the difficulty of sincerity. Then the rest of the band came out, including three lovely young backup Graces in vampish dresses, and it was all in all a great show—Katz didn’t stoop to denying it.

What I love most about that section is that it lets me imagine Franzen going to one of the shows on that tour (or more likely, the one before it from the set-up) and having his inner skeptic grudgingly lose an argument against his the earnest believing angel on his shoulder.

That is, there are plenty of reasons to convince yourself not to love Conor Oberst and all of his loneliness and outrage, but (for me, at least), there are so many more reasons to love him instead. (Obviously, the screaming kids agree, but so does at least one other thoughtful fellow at the Awl). First among them for me is his ability to turn out compelling album after compelling album, but there's also the way that he's grown from a sad shaky kid to a guy who's maybe gotten over some of his inner demons and can consistently put on a really great show that still throws some politics and social justice to the kids without seeming grating. When I arrived, I thought that I'd hang out with the early-arriving all-agers at the front long enough to snap a few photos and then retreat back into the crowd. While I didn't join the surge to rustle his hair or touch his hand when Oberst hopped off the stage to sing to the front row, once the show really got going with a songs spanning most of the band's recent discography, I couldn't bring myself to leave until he'd gratefully acknowledged all of the members of the band (it was the end of their tour) and finished the encore with People's Key closer "One for You, One for Me". I may have inadvertently sung along to more than a few of the songs along the way, too.

More photos, including opener Kurt Vile (who was also great!), after the jump.

Kurt Vile & the Violators

Bright Eyes