Better Oblivion Community Center Opens Business @ Gothic

Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers offered a weary audience some sweetness and solace as Better Oblivion Community Center

A better oblivion seems a good goal . It’s something we all need from time to time to counteract the crushing, insidious day-to-day specificity of the world – especially right now. Thinking of that – and the meaning of Better Oblivion Community Center‘s name – occupied me while I was waiting to see them at The Gothic Theatre last Wednesday night. Like many others in the audience, I was also excited to check off another legend from my concert bucket list: seeing Conor Oberst in person.

Two of rock’s heavy hitters came together on the same stage.

When Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers walked out on the stage, the packed venue let out a sigh of pent-up anticipation. Two of rock’s heavy hitters – one that’s been a force for a couple of decades, another with just as much gravity, but built over a much shorter time span – came together on the same stage. To add context: the buzz from the January release of Better Oblivion Community Center – the new band’s almost-surprise eponymous release – moved the show from The Bluebird to the Gothic because of overwhelming ticket sales.

They deserved the response – and more.

Incredibly well-paired, Oberst and Bridgers’ voices populated an hour-plus set of melancholy and brilliant melodic tunes, all dripping and weighty with day-to-day circumstance. Bridgers’ clear voice – strong, passionate, youthful – contrasted with Oberst’s seasoned, jaded, raspy one. They belted out anthemic, howling versions of “Didn’t Know What I was in For,” “Big Black Heart,” and “My City’” with existential screams that settled, hushed like coffee shop conversations, over crunchy, rough-hewn chords.

They harmonized over softly strummed chords and delicate picking, too, with stories of quiet desperation in “Service Road,” “Sleepwalkin’,” and “Chesapeake.” The blend recalled the fury of John Doe and Exene Cervenka – though with more finesse and less punk rock anger (apologies to X’s iconic duo).

The band introduced a new song – “Little Trouble” from a seven-inch just released that week – that lifted the room to a welcome, bouncing, happiness. It was obvious then that Bridgers and Oberst together bode an inevitable history of lifelong fan memories. They wielded that kind of power, swimming in the glow of pink, blue, and red stage fog.

It was obvious then that Bridgers and Oberst together bode an inevitable history of lifelong fan memories.

Singing lines that paid homage to the lyrical excellence of Elliott Smith, Paul Westerberg, Alex Chilton, and to one of Oberst’s former selves in Bright Eyes, they painted intensely detailed pictures of the crushing weight of living through each day, one at a time.

A rousing cover of The Replacements’ “Can’t Hardly Wait” was a perfect tribute to their roots. Later with Bright Eyes covers “Lua,” “Bad Blood,” and “Easy/Lucky/Free,” and covers of Bridgers’ “Funeral” and “Scott Street,” they re-interpreted past rock lives of their own, too.

As Better Oblivion Community Center riffed about the exhausting self-realization that marks endless early adulthood, I dove into self-reflection. All of us, swept up in a community of understanding.

Therein lies the beautiful – and maybe comical – tragedy of the band’s name. It goes beyond the allusion to such a pedestrian, generic gathering place in everyone’s mundane, everyday existence. Each of us is looking for release, or oblivion, in the face of each minute after minute, trying to survive. And we’re aching to find a community – someone to revel along with during the search.

It’ll probably take more than a few songs or a few rock concerts to find it, too. But Better Oblivion Community Center provided a viable and hopeful dose of the right stuff that night.