Monday, August 02, 2021

Bright Eyes

The Eastern under construction, May 2020 (photo from Google Maps)

Bright Eyes is an indie rock band from Nebraska founded by singer-songwriter and guitarist Conor Oberst.  The band consists of Oberst, multi-instrumentalist, producer Mike Mogis, and arranger, composer, and trumpet and piano player Nate Walcott, along with a rotating line-up of collaborators drawn primarily from the Omaha indie-music scene.  Between 1998 and 2011, the band released a series of albums that evolved from an initial "diaristic folk music" into a form of pop.  

Bright Eyes went on an unofficial hiatus in 2007. In June 2009, Oberst announced that he wanted to "retire" the Bright Eyes moniker for good, and would be making one final album with the band. "It does feel like it needs to stop at some point," he said. "I'd like to clean it up, lock the door, say goodbye."  That final album, The People's Key, was released in 2011. Bright Eyes performed their final show in Honolulu on November 21, 2011.

However, in January 2020, Oberst announced the return of Bright Eyes, and a new album, Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was, was released in August 2020.  This summer, the band launched their first tour in ten years, including a show at Forest Hills Stadium in New York on July 31.  

Due to the popular demand and the pent-up desire to hear live music again, Forest Hills Stadium sold out and a second New York show was added, this one at Terminal 5, an indoor facility.  But that show was subsequently cancelled, along with two nights scheduled for here in Atlanta and one in Alabama. The Atlanta shows would have marked the debut of a brand new live-music venue, The Eastern. The band issued the following explanation:

Due to the complications of managing a large touring party during a pandemic, Bright Eyes have made the difficult decision to postpone a handful of their indoor Summer 2021 shows. Over the past few weeks the band have joined the rest of the world in having to recalibrate and reassess their safety measures on an almost daily basis as new information is reported. The well being of the musicians, crew, friends and family on the road are of the utmost importance to them. Conor, Mike and Nate are aware that decisions they make for their traveling workplace have widespread repercussions for all immunocompromised family members within their touring party's orbit and have therefore made the personal decision to postpone four shows during this time of unprecedented uncertainty. Bright Eyes will always prioritize the health and safety concerns of their touring team and are committed to providing a working environment everyone is comfortable with.

To be clear, the CDC didn't issue any proclamations or warnings about these particular events, nor did the cities of New York, Atlanta, and Birmingham shut down the shows.  Oberst and the other members of Bright Eyes simply decided they didn't want to do them.  They didn't want to endanger themselves and their entourage, and they didn't want to be complicit in some sort of potential superspreader event. The risk wasn't worth the reward, and they cancelled the shows.  Other shows at outdoor venues, where there's better ventilation and a lower probability of transmission, will still go on.  

The sad thing is that we had this covid virus very nearly beaten.  Earlier this year, vaccines became widely available, and across the country - around the world, really - the number of new covid infections plummeted.  However, due to vaccine hesitancy, refusal to follow masking and social distancing guidelines, and (mostly) Republican governors terminating unemployment benefits and forcing people back to work, we never reached herd immunity, and new variants of the virus evolved among the unvaccinated population.  

Now, the number of infections is once again increasing.  Here in Georgia, the number of new infections over the past seven days now averages 2,995 cases, a number not seen since March 1 of this year. After spiking at nearly 9,700 new cases in mid-January, the 7-day average was as low as 266 cases as recently as June 29, 2021.  It probably would have been "safe," at least relatively, to hold an indoor concert back in late June or early July of this year, but the anti-vax idiots ruined everything and it now looks like we'll be facing a new, "fourth wave" of variant-driven covid infections.

Republicans - the reason we can't have nice things.

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