Albums by this artist

Read Music/Speak Spanish (2002)

'The Happiest Place On Earth' single (2001)

Concerts

July 24, 2002
North Six, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Desaparecidos

North Six, Brooklyn, N.Y. (July 24, 2002)

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» JOHN EVERHART | CONTRIBUTOR

Desaparecidos North Six, Brooklyn, N.Y. July 24, 2002

Much hype surrounded the sold-out Desaparecidos show at Brooklyn’s North Six. There was an MTV news feature, the Rolling Stone article proclaiming Conor Oberst’s main project Bright Eyes the number one “band to watch in 2002,” and a high-profile tour of theatres supporting Jimmy Eat World and The Promise Ring. Setting up their equipment, the band seemed impervious to the accolades, loose enough to sing along and feign karate movements to the new Flaming Lips record blaring over the PA.

After a tedious impromptu sound check (they’d missed theirs earlier in the day), the band ploughed their way through an hour-long set consisting primarily of tracks from their debut album, Read Music/Speak Spanish. The songs, scathing diatribes against globalization and the pitfalls of consumerism, were arresting, with Oberst’s histrionic wail rising over the discordant guitars and new wavy keyboard fills. Opening the show with the vitriolic “The Happiest Place On Earth,” with its skewed, ambivalent take on patriotism (“I want to pledge allegiance to the country where I live / But opportunity it don’t exist / it’s the opiate of the populace”) and the inherent destructiveness of technology (“In the computer’s blue glare / The bombs burst in the air”), the tone for the evening was set, one of catharsis channeled through the socio-political ideals of Noam Chomsky.

A ferocious take on “Mall of America,” with its self-reflexive lyrics (“they say it’s murder on your folk rock career to make a rock record”) and morose cultural analysis (they can dress dead bodies up in tight designer jeans), was a visceral highlight. “What’s New For Fall,” a b-side from “The Happiest Place On Earth” single, saw Oberst derisively chastising corporate clothing chains, seemingly as an allegory for our in-today, out-tomorrow society, as the band thrashed their way through the song’s Fugazi-via-Cursive angular dissonance.

The band encored with a sloppy rendition of “Manana,” its incisive chorus of “we will love, we will work to change each other,” an illustration of the conflict at the heart of The Desaparacidos, the struggle to maintain idealism in a world when as an individual you’ve been rendered completely impotent, unable to exact change at a broad level unless you’re a multinational corporation or the WTO. And Oberst spat out the words with such fervor that you couldn’t help but want to believe that he was capable of making a difference.

JOHN EVERHART |