Concert for Equality

Saddle Creek star Conor Oberst has gone on the record recently with several protest efforts, including the cancellation of Arizona tour dates in support of Zack de la Rocha’s Sound Strike. Now he’s resurrecting his former bands, Desaparecidos and Bright Eyes, in order to rally support against Fremont, Nebraska’s immigration laws, which bear a frightening similarity to Arizona’s S.B. 1070. The show in Omaha is called the Concert for Equality. Ted Stevens (of Cursive) is onboard, bringing back Lullaby for the Working Class, the Lincoln band he started with the Mogis brothers in the 1990s. A short history lesson: Desaparecidos was an angular, energetic, post-hardcore band fronted by Oberst that lived — and died — in 2001 and 2002. Bright Eyes was Oberst’s longer-lived solo project, which catapulted the singer-songwriter to fame in the early aughts before he regrouped as Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band in 2007. Cursive, another Saddle Creek mainstay, is alive and well, releasing its most recent album, Mama I’m Swollen, in 2009. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings also perform at this event. (It’s sold-out, but scouring Craigslist is worth the effort.) All proceeds benefit the ACLU’s effort to repeal the Fremont, Nebraska, immigration laws.