On the second Saturday of September, fans lined up outside the Big Easy venue in Spokane waiting in anticipation for Bright Eyes’ concert. The crowd was composed of a few awkward, young children accompanied by a parent, a plethora of over-eager teenagers, as well as a middle-aged couple sitting at a table sipping some overpriced alcoholic beverage. At seven o’clock the stage was set, and Nik Freitas, a singer/songwriter with a mundane, folky vibe, walked on stage to open for Bright Eyes. It was apparent that the crowd was impatient and overall displeased with his performance, as the volume of conversation gradually increased and faces turned to one another in place of the stage.

After nearly two painful hours of waiting for Bright Eyes to appear on the stage, they walked out one behind the other − Conor Oberst’s appearance greeted with a unified high-pitched squeal emerging from all of the girls in the audience. The music started with the members taking frequent sips from their cliché, red Solo cups, which meant that it wouldn’t be long before Conor began to spray mist every time he emphasized a lyric. The crowd began to subtly sway and murmur lyrics under their breath, with the exception of one crazed fan, who pulled people around by their hips in an attempt to get them to dance while screaming the lyrics in an obnoxious tone, and doling out high fives to every other bewildered fan.

The band’s most recent album − “Cassadega” − was released this past April. That said, the band did an adequate job of mixing up old and new songs throughout the night. After about an hour of bone-chilling music with lyrics so depressing they make you happy, Conor thanked the crowd for coming out and the band disappeared backstage into the darkness. The fans relentlessly cheered for an encore for a good ten minutes before their enthusiasm began to decline, which was when the backstage store began to open just enough to let a ray of light through the crack. The crowd went up in a roar again, the door opened just a little more every time the volume increased, and then suddenly closed again.

This scenario happened several times, adequately testing the fans’ patience and dedication to the band, passing about a total of 20 minutes before the band emerged once again. They remained for a good thirty additional minutes, closing − for the second time − with the song that several fans had been screaming in request the whole night: “Lua,” from the band’s 2005 album “I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning.”

Groups of girls seemed to push a little more aggressively to get as close as possible to Conor before the show ended, flashes from cameras lit up the crowd, and looking around one could notice a handful of fans with closed eyes obviously savoring

this bittersweet moment. The night seemed to close quickly with the flood of people immediately turning to leave, choosing not to linger but exit in one mass group to disperse into the night.