put the cassette in the tape deck and let that fever play...

On Sunday night I reached one of my lifetime goals: hug Conor Oberst.

 So Sunday night my mother and I franticly left my house, escaping my little brother's 12th birthday to drive down to the show. It was down in a college auditorium in Salt Lake, and when I got there I met up with two older women, one who was the wife of my AP history teacher, Mr. Krenkel. Nate Krenkel, their son, is the manager of Bright Eyes, so Mr. Krenkel got me a ticket. The opening bands, Oakley Hall and McCarthy Trenching, were both good, but not very exciting. They were both very much Team Love material. My. Krenekl was actually coming on from Hawaii that night, and he got to the venue just in time for Bright Eyes to come on. The show was AMAZING. The first song from Cassadaga was played and various members of the band just kind of walked on stage and started playing their instruments, and Conor came on in time for him to play guitar. The stage was so pretty. Everything was white, but there were lots of fake flowers everywhere, and the band was wearing all white (some even had white nails). A giant projector connected to a camera in the back of the auditorium was displaying live footage of just random, colorful objects, like flowers or dye. The things were moved around and messed with, corresponding to the songs playing, and it looked so cool. Almost the whole set was from Cassadaga. I was so glad that they played my favorite songs from the new album, like "Middleman" and "Cleanse Song", as well as old favorites like "The Calendar Hung Itself". The musicians were all fantastic, especially the violinist and flutist. After the set was over, the band came out after a minute for an encore, playing "Gold Mine Gutted", which also sounded amazing, and everyone in the auditorium was standing and cheering. It was an amazing show.

After the concert was over Mr. Krenkel found the two other kids he gave tickets too, and he gave us our backstage passes. Alex, the other girl who came with us, and I were trying so hard to keep from fangirling, lol. But after about 10-or-so minutes we were brough down to the dressing rooms. We entered a bright room with lots of musicians, all whom I recognized from the show. Conor immediately went over to the Krenkels and treated them like his parents. It was so cute, he was hugging Mrs. Krenkel and it was just SO CUTE xD. After they chatted a little we introduced ourselves to Conor, talked a little, and then took some pictures. He was so nice and so sincere, it made me so glad that the person behind the music is so great. We talked about Conor's shirt, which had a picture of Scout and Boo Radley from To Kill A Mockingbird and also about the show a little. I still can't believe how great he was; actually, I kind of can, but it's still so exciting to know he's such a great guy.

 It was basically the best night of my entire LIFE.