It was crazy madhouse packed at The Waiting Room last night for Okkervil River. So packed, in fact, it was hard to enjoy the show. The band was plenty loud enough, and played a fine collection of songs, but I couldn’t focus on the show. Too many people. In fact, it was too packed to stand in the stage room, though I tried for a short time until someone lifted their girlfriend onto the wall that juts out by the merch table, blocking my view completely. It wasn’t as if I could just move somewhere else, so I escaped to watch the rest of the show from the back of the bar, where two local musicians waved me over and asked what I thought of the band.

Uh, well what do you guys think of the band? They immediately went into a list of descriptions that included words and phrases like “derivative” and “I’ve heard this before” and “I can’t even hear the guitar” and “One Conor is more than enough,” and so on. I said, “Well, I’ve been covering this band for five or six years and they’re one of my all-time favorites. I’m serious.” I think they thought I was kidding. Fact was, neither of them had ever heard of Okkervil River (more solid evidence of Lazy-i’s all-encompassing readership) and didn’t understand what they had that was so special; special enough to sell out The Waiting Room.

Which got me to wondering just how Okkervil River did generate such a large following in Omaha, a town where their music has never been heard broadcast on any radio station or television (They don’t even have videos on Subterranean on MTV2). Sure, they’ve played in Omaha at least four times in the past, but I was at all of those shows, beginning with the 10-person draw at The Junction all the way to the Sokol Underground show last year that drew maybe 150. Yet here was a crowd much larger than that (caution prevents me from giving you an actual crowd estimate), consisting of people actively singing along with most of the songs throughout their hour-long set. There were even a couple frat guys screaming “I love you Will” from the back of the bar. This couldn’t have been the result of being on Conan O’Brien a couple weeks ago. Very strange indeed.

The show itself was hit and miss. The sound was muddy both from in front of the stage and back by the bar (probably hindered by the wall of humanity that acted as a natural sound buffer). Frontman Will Sheff seemed thrilled to be playing to such a large, loving audience, as did the rest of the band. The crowd went ga-ga over the opening chords of “For Real” and “Westfall” and even a couple songs from their new album. Sheff looked out of control at times, presumably lost in the moment, his voice characteristically falling off pitch as he pushed himself above the rest of the band. The best moments were the quieter, more controlled ballads, including a couple he played solo to start off his encore. If this is any indication of how Okkervil River is greeted for the rest of this tour, their days of riding in a van instead of a tour bus are numbered.

A reminder about tonight’s shows…

Over at The Waiting Room it’s the broken beer-bottle rock of The Filter Kings opening for The Mercurys. $7, 9 p.m. Down at Slowdown Jr. its Besnard Lakes (not Besnard Snakes as I accidentally reported yesterday, though my version of their name sounds better) with Starvin’ Hungry and Baby Walrus (get there early to catch these guys). $10, 9 p.m.

Finally, I got an e-mail from Mick at SLAM Omaha telling me that Harrah’s is desperately giving away tickets to tonight’s Kings of Leon/Black Rebel Motorcycle Club show at Stir’s Concert Cove in Council Bluffs. Tickets originally were going for $25. A link to the coupon page is available at slamomaha.com.

–Got comments? Post ’em here.—

I don’t go to Lincoln often. Hell, I don’t really go to Lincoln at all, but last night offered a good excuse: Cursive (part 2). The show at Slowdown was great. It was nice to see the band play in that beautiful room with the immaculate sound system. But having the opportunity to see them again the following night, a mere hour away at Knickerbockers, was too much to pass up. The night started on a good note — running into Ted Stevens on the corner before the show, he told me that the band would be playing four new songs during their set (as opposed to only one played in Omaha). Four? Apparently, the band learned eight songs last week that could potentially be on the next album.

Their set started feverishly and kept the momentum all the way through. The band sounded more relaxed and muscular than they had the previous night. The crowd was eager and attentive, which kept the new songs from falling on deaf ears (the second of which is going to be stellar when finished, by the way). Frontman Tim Kasher maintained his between-song antics with a story about his current body odor, something to the effect of “anus sweat” due to “pumping iron.”

All in all, I was able to witness two stellar shows back to back by the best band to come from Omaha. As I drove back to town, I made a few observations: First, Kasher’s voice has never sounded better. One would think that after years of screaming night after night on tour his vocal chords would be shot. Not the case at all. Second, Cursive is a band that thrives in smaller venues. They can sell to capacity at big venues and put on a hell of show doing it, but there is nothing like seeing them in a room that is arm-to-arm, hot as hell and full of energy. And last, the next album (whenever it happens) is going to keep the tradition of being another amazing release. — Brendan Greene-Walsh

Column 141: An Uncertain Trajectory
The fantasy life of Will Sheff.

For Okkervil River’s Will Sheff, the life of a rock star is a fantasy world that he’s trying to avoid.

I’ve been covering Sheff and his band since they first rolled into Omaha in 2002 to play a poorly attended show at the long-defunct Junction on 14th & Farnam. Virtually unknown, Okkervil River had just released Don’t Fall in Love with Everyone You See on respected indie label Jagjaguwar. It was a break-out album filled with literate, intelligent, moving folk-rock songs in the vein of Will Oldham, Bill Callahan (of Smog) and Conor Oberst that has become one of my all-time favorites. Three years later, Sheff and his band played at O’Leaver’s, this time supporting Black Sheep Boy, a critically lauded follow-up featured in The New York Times, Rolling Stone and the cover of The Austin Chronicle.

Now Sheff and Co. are back again, this time playing at The Waiting Room Friday night with Damien Jurado in support of the just-released The Stage Names, yet another collection headed straight for my year-end top-10 list. Last month, the band reached a sort of indie pinnacle, performing on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Onward and upward, right?

In reality, little has changed since that night at The Junction. Oh sure, these days Okkervil River is considered an A-list indie band with a devoted following, name-checked by the likes of Lou Reed, but the band is still making its way cross country in a van instead of a tour bus.

“I’d be lying if I said things weren’t better than the last time we talked,” Sheff said through cell-phone static somewhere on the road. “But I’d also be lying if I said we’re living high on the hog. I’m less scared than I used to be about going totally broke or about what’s going to happen to me in the next six months. But it’s not like I’m sitting back on a pile of money.

“Looking back at what’s happened to us, it’s been a slow rise. If I thought we’d be playing Letterman or selling 100,000 copies of our CD, I’d be happy. It may happen and it may not. The fact is, there is no trajectory. Everything’s uncertain, and we’re not talking about a story, we’re talking about my life. It’s sort of frightening.”

That’s not the only thing Sheff is frightened about. He’s also afraid of getting lost in the one-dimensional world found only on the road. “I’m trying hard not to identify myself too much with what I do,” he said. “If I let myself think that I’m a rock star and I’m the reason why the band is successful, I not only become an insufferable asshole, I open myself to a lot of weakness. The most important thing is friends and family and being anchored in life in an everyday way.”

But as everyone knows, life on the road is anything but “everyday.”

“It’s killed many, many relationships I’ve had,” Sheff said of the constant touring. “It’s hard to build up a stable life. This is a fantasy world, and the longer you live in it, the more you develop skills to deal with the fantasy world that don’t relate to the real world, which is what’s left when the fantasy goes away.”

In that fantasy rock star world, Sheff said, life has a militaristic simplicity. “Your concerns are, ‘Are we going to get to the club on time?’ ‘When will I get to eat?’ ‘What will I get to eat?’ ‘When can I put my stuff in the van?’ These are my possessions. This is my routine. It’s really soothing.”

But when the tour is over, Sheff describes a let-down similar to that suffered by newly paroled convicts who don’t know what to do with their newfound freedom. “Oftentimes when I get home, I get extremely depressed,” he said. “I either go hide in my house or room of wherever I’m staying with the door closed for three or four days straight, or I get into a fight with whoever I’m in a relationship with. Life on the road is nothing like an ordinary life. Ordinary life seems so weightless.”

OK, I know what you’re thinking. No, Sheff isn’t a basket case or a whiner. He was quick to clarify that yes, he’s having a great time, that he loves his life playing music. But at the same time, he struggles with security issues. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful,” he said, “but the uncertainty of it all will really do a number on your brain.”

At 31, Sheff said he’s openly jealous of his friends back home in Austin who he feels live more satisfying lives. “I think they’re more run-of-the-mill, but there’s a depth to their lives that my life doesn’t have,” he said. “They’re not traveling around the world, but they get to have deep relationships with their friends and family.

“I know lots of older musicians who are great at being charming and cool, but aren’t good at being functioning, happy people who know how to live a normal life.”

But sometimes just living a normal life may be too much to ask for, especially from the back of a van.

Column 140: Taken Too Sirius-ly?
A tradition with a backbeat

There is a cathartic reality to the Nebraska Cornhusker tunnel walk. Even I, a dyed-in-the-wool UNO Mavericks fan with little interest in that “other team” in Lincoln, have experienced watching the legendary ceremony where Husker football players get all pumped up, bouncing their fists off each other’s shoulder pads within the tunnel while the low-end throb of Alan Parson Project’s “Sirius” blares over the stadium’s PA. Fans watch on their feet, staring at the team on the massive HuskerVision jumbo-tron, like watching popcorn simmer in a pan about to explode.

It’s rousing, there is no question. It’s one of the few things I remember about going to a game at Memorial Stadium — even more memorable than the game itself. It is a special spectacle, a Midwestern tribal group hug that more often than not (though not as often these days) ends four quarters later with the mighty Huskers holding the still-beating hearts of their unfortunate victims in their bloody fists.

The tunnel walk’s formula is simple but effective, its power based on fan adulation and the balls-out “I-want-to-kill-someone” impact of Alan Parsons’ music. APP is considered sort of a quaint joke these days by most music fans. Their songs, from the earnest “Games People Play” to the bell-bottomed strut of “I Wouldn’t Want to Be Like You” epitomize a ’70s-’80s smooth FM culture that’s best left forgotten. It was the kind of music that you’d hear blaring from Malibu’s and Novas while cruising Dodge St. on a Saturday night, chasing a Pinto-load of high school girls into the Golden Spike Drive-In.

As dorky as APP’s catalog sounds today, there’s no denying that “Sirius” is a powerful, though somewhat cheesy, piece of instrumental music made-to-order for just such an event as a Husker tunnel walk. I knew this the first time I heard it, when I bought my copy of App’sEye in the Sky way back in ’82. It became a pseudo test track for both my Panasonic home stereo and for every car stereo I owned throughout my high school years. You played it loud, but you always made sure to turn it down before the album’s prim, prissy title track began.

The Huskers have been using “Sirius” for 13 years. Fans know when they hear that familiar low-end synth chord what’s about to happen. So it came as a surprise when I read on the fan blog “Husker Mike’s Blasphemy” that the university had decided it was time to change the formula. As an aghast Husker Mike so poignantly put it: “‘Sirius’ is the key to making this work. Yes, it’s been used over and over again by countless sports teams. It’s not unique to Nebraska. But what made ‘Sirius’ so successful is that simple deep bassline that reverberates through the stadium, and it’s been used in every tunnel walk, including the walks by three national champions.”

Word, brother. Why fix it when it ain’t broke? Here’s what I think probably happened: The university’s marketing or recruiting “geniuses” put their heads together weeks prior to the season opener to discuss what to do about the “tunnel walk situation.” Their concern: How can we possibly recruit bright young students (and players) with that relic of a song as the centerpiece for the most exciting experience leading up to a Husker game? Heck, that song was released before those kids were even born. Kids these days want something hip and now, something that speaks to their generation. Something with hip-hop flair.

It’s hard to argue against their logic. Think about the possibilities of replacing “Sirius” with something as grim and angry as Nine Inch Nails or urban-lethal as a bullet-ridden Fitty Cent fantasy, or with, say, an indie anthem by Built to Spill. (I had to throw that in because I’ve always dreamt of hearing the instrumental break in the middle of Built to Spill’s “Temporarily Blind” used as intro music for the UNO Mavs basketball team, instead of the always-lame “Thunderstruck”).

Enter hayseed DJ, Mikey Bo, the whitest guy to lay down a hip-hop beat since Vanilla Ice. Before long, the Husker chat boards were ablaze with links to Mikey Bo’s website for hints of what would replace “Sirius.” Husker fans quivered in anger — and anticipation — before Saturday’s game to see and hear what surely would be disappointing.

In the end, they had nothing to fear. You can see the new version of the tunnel walk on YouTube, recorded by some industrious cornhead. It starts with an ultra-cheesy video where a bunch of slouching Huskers dressed in shirts and ties jump out of a C52 transport plane, presumably on a military mission. The video is nonsensical and reeks of one of those death-fantasy videogame-style TV commercials used to recruit Marines. The only thing worse than the video is the boom-clap early-2000-era hip-hop soundtrack that sounds more dated and cliché than anything Alan Parsons ever produced.

As the video rolled on, our old friend re-emerged. There was “Sirius,” gussied up for this century with poorly executed trip-hop beats. Was it possible to make a song as cheesy as “Sirius” any cheesier? The answer, it seemed was a resounding yes. Though the tunnel walk was deemed “the worst one ever” by Husker Mike, it’s only a matter of time before it becomes ingrained in Husker culture, with an update scheduled for sometime around 2020.

Peter Longbough, Commander Comatose (Wilderhood) — Sometimes almost purposely wonky, you could call it low-fi except that the recording sounds too good. So do most of the songs. If I had to compare him to anyone it would probably be Sebadoh or early, folkie, Loser-era Beck (especially on the slacker mantra “Swimming in My Mind” and jangle-noise epic “Brodawg Deal” and actually, just about all the tracks). It feels homemade and made up, and Longbough figures out a way to bring new ideas and misdirection to a typical indie-folk dinner party. Did I mention he’s from Anchorage, Alaska? Does it matter? Rating: Yes.

*Sons, Viracochas (Fractured) — Chapel Hill gang fancies themselves as a modernized version of Swervedriver, and for the most part, fit the bill, thanks to droning guitars, heavily delayed vocals and a drunken swagger that verges closely on psychedelic drug rock. It’s hard to deny killer guitar riffs like those heard on wall-of-sound rave-ups “Kill the Culprit” and “White Noise.” That said, I left these six tracks thinking Brian Jonestown Massacre meets Pink Mountaintops, and how wise they were to keep it at only six songs. Rating: Yes