Backstaged

Yesterday afternoon I bought one of the two last tickets for a Conor Oberst concert that my friend Crystal had a ticket for Monday night. Oberts is the lead singer of Bright Eyes, which is an indie band I like but not one that I have a lot of music from. He was singing with his new band, the Mystic Valley Band Monday. I bought the ticket with hesitation, wondering if I should spend money on a band I’d never heard before.

My friend Crystal and I went, and immediately I developed one of those fleeting, from-a-distance crushes. Oberst and his band were fantastic. Everything from his unusually low voice to his stage presence to the interesting and artistic lyrics in his music really impressed me.

After the show, Crystal and I attempted to go backstage but were stopped by a hulk of a German security guard. Even the Scottish guy with green hair shaped into spikes who worked as a stage crew couldn’t convince him. We gave up and tried a different tactic, exiting out the side door of the guarder robe. There the band was, sitting outside the door drinking a beer. We ended up talking with them for a bit, though Oberst wasn’t there. Later he walked past us several times, and I felt too much like a groupie to ask one of the band members to introduce us. I’m not easily star struck. I have a hard time elevating singers to a deity-like level. There was a part of me, however, that wanted to meet him just for the sake of saying I had, so I kind of wished later I would have just surrendered a little dignity and asked for the introduction. Crystal wasn’t so reserved and got to shake his hand as he was about to get in a cab.

Lessons learned: Germans are different concert-goers than Americans. There is no heckling or arm waving.