Conor Oberst at the Electric Ballroom

Last night was the Conor Oberst gig at the Electric Ballroom in Camden. I was luckily enough to get a ticket for this – well I did order them ages ago and the two tickets I got where numbered 7 & 8. When I checked the ticket sites a few weeks ago it was all sold out. Met up with my “gig mate” Sim and went for a quick tour of Camden. Great place, I must try and get there again soon. After some tapas, we went to the venue around 7.45pm and there was a small crowd already at the front of the stage. Decided some drinks where needed and surprisingly, it was quite cool in there. I was expecting it to be a really hot room with no air-conditioning. About half-an-hour later the support act came on – an odd welsh trio with some good songs. After this, another trip to the bar was needed and a quick purchase of a t-shirt – I’m loving my concert t-shirts at the moment. Then it was back amongst the crowd to wait for Conor to appear.

All of a sudden the Mystic Valley Band came on and then he appeared to a rapturous cheer. Straight into the music with Sausalito – now I should be able to write down what order the playlist was but I was too busy singing, foot stomping, trying to see (damn too short sometimes) and trying to take pictures to write/remember it (a kind person commented below with the setlist). But he did play all the songs off the new self-titled album except for the strange ditty “Valle Mistico” and there was a few songs that I didn’t know. These were sang by other band members, which was quite a cool thing to do. My most memorable songs of the night were: Eagle on a Pole, Lenders in the Temple (one of my favourites and just beautifully sung), Moab, Get-Well-Cards, NYC – Gone, Gone (really got the crowd going – shame it’s so short) and at the end before the encore, I Don’t Want to Die (in the Hospital). At the very end he played Breezy, I have never heard this song before (had to look on the net to find out what this song was called) but it was just fantastic. A real heartfelt song.

It was such a happy experience, shame it had to finish (when he waved goodbye I foolishly waved back as if he could see me with a 6ft guy in front of me). Just thinking about the concert now just makes me smile. My friend said “there was a lot of love in that room”. I just wish there was more space for dancing and that everyone else was moving about more. I really wanted to clap/wave my arms in the air more but there wasn’t much of that going on. But there was always a great applause and cheering at the end of every song. Maybe that’s the way it should be, obviously going to see the Prodigy at V made me think that clapping and arm waving always happens at every concert! I would love to see him again especially in the States, as I would imagine that would be very special and maybe more dancing would be involved. I think that I was one of the few there that knew all the words to nearly all the songs. On that note, I would like to apologize to anyone near me for my singing, I was very out of tune and as loud as possible.