As I ascended the stairs at the Prince, I contemplated just what I was going to experience. Hyped as the new Bob Dylan, and the greatest songwriter of his generation, Conor Oberst is always going to have a few expectations to fill. And as he brought one of his musical creations, Bright Eyes to Melbourne, he fulfilled, if not surpassed, every one of them.

It’s hard to talk about an experience I’m still coming to terms with. It feels like I saw a really great movie, Conor Oberst drew us away from reality for two hours. Two hours that may have just changed my life. It’s not very often a band has such an effect on me. Normally I walk away from a gig I’ve loved saying “Wow!”, gush for a little while, and then inevitably forget most of the gig in the following weeks. This won’t happen with Bright Eyes.

As I stepped into the band room, the site before me took my jaw to the floor. Ten minutes before any support act was scheduled to be on, and the room was already packed. I’ve never seen that happen before. The room buzzed with excitement, and was engulfed in chatter, for lack of some better clichés. “Wow,” I thought to myself, “Conor’s so amazing, he can make emo kids talk to other people!” This was unlike everything I’ve ever seen before.

As Conor stepped on stage, the crowd instantly fell silent, as though we were in the eye of a storm, as the crowd then erupted into applause, as Conor gave a small courteous nod to the crowd, before the band launched into At The Bottom Of Everything. But hey now, I’m not going to talk about every moment I experienced at this show. If I do, this will be the longest review in the history of FasterLouder (18 pages I’d venture, one for each song they played, and another of “wowowow” over and over again). So instead of reducing this performance to a lot of uninspired, gushy words from myself, I’m going to pick out just a few of the many moments that stood out to me.

Something which disappointed me about the night was the crowd. Not the whole crowd, mind you, just a few hecklers. The first two or three times it was actually quite amusing. The cry of “Get a haircut!” brought a wry smile to Conor’s face, and the request for them to “Play something good!’ was met with a response of “Well, that’s not going to happen. You should go home.” Funny the first time, but not funny after the fifth and sixth times.

Have you ever seen a room of 1200 people stand in silence? Have you ever seen 1200 people devote 100% of their attention to one sole man and his guitar on stage? Before this gig, I hadn’t either. Bright Eyes left the stage after Loose Leaves, and only Conor returned, acoustic guitar in hand. Some members of the crowd began to applaud, but were quickly silenced by the ‘ssshhh’-ing of the crowd. Conor stepped up to the microphone, his hair draped carelessly across his face, eyes downcast as he began to sing, ‘I know that it is freezing, but I think we have to walk,’ the opening line from Lua. He stood there, eyes closed, throwing his heart into his music, and every audience member stood in silence, awestruck by the presence of this young man. I’d read reviews from other shows which depicted Lua as the crowd favourite, sing-a-long song, so to experience something that was at the other end of my expectation scale truly was astonishing.

Although the current incarnation of Bright Eyes has brought some excellent musicians together (unsurprisingly), it was the moments of just Conor and his guitar which really had the most poignant effect, be it good or bad. And it’s in one of these moments that Conor truly did turn into a preacher. As he began playing his most obvious stab at US President George Bush, When The President Talks To God, the crowd applauded and cheered, almost fanatically. Even though this could have been the most powerful piece in the set, as Conor’s delivery of the song overflowed with passion, it left me feeling slightly uneasy, and ended up being my low point of the set.

As the majority of the crowd cheered, and ‘yeah!’ed and ‘woo!’ed each line Conor delivered, it made me think. Was his anti-Bush sentiment not obvious enough? Did he really have to dumb it down that much? How many members of the crowd really care about George Bush when Conor Oberst isn’t standing in front of them? How many of those seemingly impassioned audience members promoted Rock The Vote, or Vote For Change? But hey, let’s not turn this Talitha’s Social Commentary 101.

The last moment I’m going to share in the last song of Bright Eyes’ encore. Arguably the most outstanding moment of the night, it’s turned into a bit of a blur. All I can remember is 15 minutes of pure bliss, in the form of Road To Joy. 15 minutes of an instrument freak out, spoken words from Conor, drum-mounting, drum-destroying and amplifier attacking. Bright Eyes took us up on an excruciating high, and left us hanging. But they didn’t leave us wanting more. The perfect performance (almost).

As Conor and co. left the stage for the final time, my new found friend turns to me, his eyes alight with exhilaration, “Some people say he’s the new Dylan,” he declares, “But I don’t think so. Dylan’s the old Conor.” And I couldn’t agree more.