Bright Eyes Added to Kimmel Center Presents 2005/2006 Season
September 7, 2005
Conor Oberst is Bright Eyes
Tickets Now on Sale
Tickets for Bright Eyes Conor Oberst’s performance on November 19 at 8pm at the Academy of Music, with special guests Feist and The Magic Numbers are on sale now, and can be purchased by calling 215.893.1999, online or at the Kimmel Center box office, open daily from 10am to 6pm and later on performance evenings (additional fees may apply).
Since the release of Bright Eyes’ fourth full-length album, Lifted or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground, the Bright Eyes tale has taken many unexpected turns. Oberst and his every-changing line-up of musical comrades appeared on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” “The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn,” and were a prominent addition to the MTV2-televised 2003 Shortlist Awards. He also co-produced the debut album of Tilly On The Wall, a Nebraska folk-pop outfit, and released it on his newly established record label, Team Love.
On January 24, 2005, he simultaneously released his newest compositions on two separate records: I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, a country-twinged mélange of Conor’s finest acoustic songs featuring guest appearances from Emmylou Harris and Jim James (My Morning Jacket); and the band-centric album, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn featuring cameo appearances by Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Recording since the age of 13 and tagged “rock’s boy genius” by the music press for the several years, these two albums provide unequivocal proof that the now 24 year-old Oberst belongs to the lineage of great American songwriters.
Much like Oberst, the musical career of Canadian native Leslie Feist, better known by her surname, has run the musical gamut. She made her debut opening for the Ramones when her high school punk band, Placebo, won a local battle of the bands concert. Five years and one strained voice later, she was told she may never sing again, and left her hometown of Calgary for Toronto in search of a musical injuries doctor. Unfamiliar to the area and under strict vocal rest, she bought a guitar and spent the majority of the next six months in her basement recording her new instrument on a four track recorder.
In 1999, she re-emerged onto the music scene playing guitar for the modestly popular indie rock band By Divine Right. The band went on tour opening for the Canadian group, The Tragically Hip, and Feist perfected her rock skills in front of stadium crowds across North America. While on tour, she managed to record, and successfully self sell, her first solo album, Monarch (Lay Down Your Jeweled Head). She returned to Toronto to promote Monarch in 2000, and moved in with the Canadian rap siren Peaches. Under the moniker Feist Bitch Lap-Lap, she sang and rapped on her roommate’s debut album, Teaches of Peaches, and once again returned to life on the road.
Continuing her musical evolution, she then joined and toured with the critically acclaimed independent rock band, The Broken Social Scene, in support of their second album, You Forget It in People, and began working on her own sophomore project. Feist collaborated with former rap comrade Jason Beck, better known from the Peaches album as Chilly Gonzales, and released Let It Die in 2004. In contrast with her previous work, Let It Die features five original songs and six covers from artists such as the BeeGee’s and Françoise Hardy, which aptly showcase the spectrum of Feist’s musical abilities in the folk, jazz and pop genres.
Harp Magazine raves, “…Let It Die [is a] masterwork of easygoing, intelligent pop, with spare arrangements that always allow that voice to bob up like a bright orange buoy amidst acres of colorless ocean. The wistful, poetic expressions in such songs as “Let It Die” are balanced out by tracks that practically demand a disco ball and/or feathered hair.”
Comprised of sibling duos, Romeo (guitar and vocals) and Michelle (bass and vocals) Stodart and Sean (drums) and Angela (percussion, melodica and third vocals) Gannon, The Magic Numbers have been hailed by the BBC News as “one of the UK’s most acclaimed new bands.” The group formed in 2002 when the originator’s sisters joined them after nine years of disintegrating band line-ups, and they released their debut album of the same name in June 2005. Influenced b 60’s harmony groups such as the Mamas & Papas, rock pioneers David Axelrod and singer/songwriters such as Bob Dylan, The Magic Numbers have created a sound that “is coming from everywhere but is uniquely theirs,” and have been nominated for the 2005 Mercury Music Prize.
Tickets for “Bright Eyes” Conor Oberst’s performance on November 19 at 8pm at the Academy of Music, wish special guests Feist and The Magic Numbers are on sale now, and can be purchased by calling 215.893.1999, online or at the Kimmel Center box office, open daily from 10am to 6pm and later on performance evenings (additional fees may apply).
A limited number of $10 tickets are available for every Kimmel Center Presents performance at the Kimmel Center. Tickets go on sale the day of the event and can be purchased at the Kimmel Center box office beginning 2.5 hours prior to evening performance and 11:30am for matinees.
Sponsors of the 2005/2006 Kimmel Center Presents season include University of Pennsylvania Health Care System, Mellon Financial Corporation, Sovereign Bank, The American Express Company, and Verizon Pennsylvania, Inc. American Airlines is the Official Airline of Kimmel Center Presents. Toyota is the Official Vehicle of Kimmel Center Presents.
KIMMEL CENTER PRESENTS
November 19, 2005 | 8pm
Academy of Music
Bright Eyes
Conor Oberst
Feist
The Magic Numbers
Romeo Stodart, guitar and vocals
Michelle Stodart, bass and vocals
Sean Gannon, drums
Angela Gannon, percussion, melodica, vocals
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