I used to listen to Bright Eyes’ early music in more or less the same way as those early impassioned (“mostly female”) fans you’ve described here. My obsession faded somewhere between the I’m Wide Awake days and Cassadaga; at the time, I do remember feeling a little disappointed when Conor started trimming the emo qualities from his music. Reading this interview now, I can sympathize with his desire to grow as an artist and move past the style of his older work. It’s actually funny to me to consider that Conor, who to myself and many others was branded as an emo hero of sorts, never actually identified with that image. Though I would tell him that when I saw him play back in those days, the hair-swept-in-face, drunken performance he delivered was exactly the one I came to see.
I used to listen to Bright Eyes’ early music in more or less the same way as those early impassioned (“mostly female”) fans you’ve described here. My obsession faded somewhere between the I’m Wide Awake days and Cassadaga; at the time, I do remember feeling a little disappointed when Conor started trimming the emo qualities from his music. Reading this interview now, I can sympathize with his desire to grow as an artist and move past the style of his older work. It’s actually funny to me to consider that Conor, who to myself and many others was branded as an emo hero of sorts, never actually identified with that image. Though I would tell him that when I saw him play back in those days, the hair-swept-in-face, drunken performance he delivered was exactly the one I came to see.