Karla Rendon
Editorial Director
The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles reached maximum capacity on Tuesday as Conor Oberst played an intimate show for 80 people.
Oberst’s fans were greeted with complimentary copies of his new CD “Upside Down Mountain” and an exclusive question and answer session hosted by Scott Goldman, vice president of the Grammy Foundation.
“Each song has three different lives,” Oberst said on how to keep his songs fresh and resist from getting boring.
“The first life is how I think of it and how it sounds in my head, the second life is the recorded version and the third is how you decide to play it on stage,” he said.
Oberst said he had grown beyond his self-proclaimed “snotty-nosed punk who liked to piss people off” phase, and instead has settled into being a more mature and thought-provoking lyricist.
“I’ve gotten more into a pattern,” Oberst said when Goldman asked how he’s grown as a writer. “I would just do it to make time pass and now I write 10 different verses for each song and in the end, only three of those verses actually make it into the song.”
After the Q&A, Oberst immediately performed one of his newest songs, “Hundreds of Ways.”
“Hundreds of Ways” is an energetic folk song with thoughtful, optimistic lyrics about there being several ways to get through the day.
Although the audience was seated, fans sang along and bobbed their head to the happy tune as Oberst and his lively band swung their hips to the rhythm.
Oberst captivated the audience by creating a pattern of playing energetic songs followed by more of his mellow efforts.
Although Oberst’s set list mainly consisted of songs from his new solo album, he performed a handful of songs from one of his previous bands, Bright Eyes.
Contrast to the lively song that is “Hundreds of Ways,” Oberst performed a more serene song called “Old Soul Song (For the New World Order).”
“This one is about the in-between times you forget about and realize that those times were your whole life,” Oberst said, followed by the soothing melody Bright Eyes fans recognized.
The song soothed the audience with its melancholy lyrics and sad melody hugging the audience with its sorrow.
The venue was small enough to even make fans sitting in the back still feel closer to him than the fans that sat in the front row at Oberst’s performance with folk musician John Prine at the Greek Theatre the previous Sunday.
The acoustics of the Grammy Museum made each guitar chord crisp, the drums roar and Oberst’s vocals clear as crystals to fill the entire room with his talent.
The second-to-the-last song of the set was from his Bright Eyes days titled, “First Day of My Life.”
A sweet and straight-forward love song, couples in the audience sat closer together as Oberst’s band exited the stage, leaving him alone with just the intimacy of the song and the audience.
The show concluded with an ode to Prine with a cover of his 1971 song “Pretty Good.”
A fantastic and spirited choice of song, the audience danced in their seats as Oberst filled the room with one last folk-infused tune then gratefully thanked his fans for their attendance.
Karla Rendon can be reached at karla.rendon@laverne.edu.
