Indie's brightest star

Bright Eyes is the next-best thing to a pop sensation for those of us who are disenfranchised with pop sensationalism. During an era in which even good musicians are sneered at for their heavy occupation of FM radio, Bright Eyes has slowly grown to Billboard-chart-topping popularity.

This adoration within the college community was expressed in full when Conor Oberst and company brought their song and dance to the Center for the Arts Mainstage Theatre Monday before Fall Recess.

Oberst, the humble-seeming leader of the Omaha seven piece, took to the stage in an uncharacteristic rock-star style. The group played the instrumental intro to "Take it Easy, Love Nothing" until the last moment when his presence on stage was needed.

He then offset the typically arrogant maneuver by remaining to the far right of the stage, bent over to play a hip-level piano and sing head-down into a microphone at the same height.

This was consistent with the way Oberst generally negotiates his massive appeal. He acknowledges it without embracing to its fullest extent.

He reacted in no way to the audience's rush to stand at the foot of the stage in a seated auditorium.

Between each song, fans shouted requests and professed their love.

"Conor, I love you!" was among the evening's refrains, to which Oberst eventually replied.

"I love you too," he said. The sarcasm pooled at his feet. "I don't even know you, and you don't know me. If you did, I bet you wouldn't. But let's keep the illusion going as long as possible."

Oberst began emphasizing on "Fevers and Mirrors," three releases ago, that his fans assume to know him by way of his overtly diary-entry lyrics. Yet he still has to remind his audiences that they do not.

Bright Eyes performed a surprising but pleasing amount of older material from "Fevers and Mirrors" and "Lifted." Slight lyrical and instrumental variations kept the songs fresh for familiar ears.

A few of the older tunes were missing the inspiration to truly impress, but mostly, the group took full advantage of playing their orchestral arrangements in a space as acoustically friendly as the CFA Mainstage.

Praise be to God and all his loyal subjects that this tour, which probably could have sold out Alumni Arena, was not held there.

"The Calendar Hung Itself," and the encore of "Bowl of Oranges" and "Let's Not S*** Ourselves" were the evening's crescendos, and the lengthy between-song banter kept the audience wanting it.

"We all hope we can come back here soon," Oberst said in the midst of one of his deftly humorous rants. "But we probably won't. It'll probably be years."

Opening acts The Magic Numbers and Feist were fallible but worthwhile tour mates for Bright Eyes, the independent music monolith. They each had their shortcomings, but neither lost the crowd entirely at any point.

The Magic Numbers played first, surrounded by the veiled equipment of Feist and Bright Eyes. Their performance was an introduction to most audience members of their UK take on Americana styles of musical eras long past. Like Belle & Sebastian, the group uses diverse instrumentation and structures composed of movements to generate a contemporary feel within older sounds.

They seemed as though they were still in the process of adjusting to playing live. Singer and guitarist Romeo Stodart had a noticeable musical miscue and the group appeared to be concentrating quite hard to stay together.

Feist played an engaging set mostly composed of material from last summer's release, "Let it Die." The group is named for singer/songwriter and ex-member of The Kings of Convenience Leslie Feist.

The music translated well live, upstaging the album versions of most of the songs. It is, however, difficult to condone Feist's occasionally banal writing or her admission that she, a full-grown woman, just recently learned how to apologize, which she used as a contrived segue to her song, "I'm Sorry."

While her songwriting is comfortable and capable, she doesn't have the way with words that is all but required of an artist of this nature.

Each of the groups played a good five feet from the edge of the stage, maintaining a palpable distance between themselves and the audience. Such is the paradox of indie mega-stardom when intimate music cannot be performed in personable way because the crowds have grown too large.