ACL Fest Aftershow: Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band, Jenny Lewis, M. Ward @ La Zona Rosa

None of it mattered because the whole show was leading up to one magical, intimate encore where Oberst and Ward traded vocals and acoustic licks, played each other’s songs and called Welch and Rawlings back one last time for a cover of Lucinda William’s "Sharp Cutting Wings (Song to a Poet).” Given the lineup's collaborative history — a web of connections that criss-crosses between solo efforts as well as records by Oberst and Lewis’ day job bands Bright Eyes and Rilo Kiley — this kind of thing was bound to happen, but there was still a sense that the massive crowd at La Zona Rosa was witnessing something special, two musicians jamming at the end of a decade that saw them go from mostly-unknowns to luminaries of independent music.

Oberst, Lewis and Ward may have ruled the Aughts, but their show sounded like a tribute to the mid-1970s. While “Sharp Cutting Wings (Song to a Poet)” was released in 1980, the night's two other big covers were AM radio standards from '73 and '74: Oberst and his Mystic Valley boys amped up Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome,” while Lewis and her beau/guitarist Jonathan Rice channeled Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons in their take on “Love Hurts.” They do a pretty good job at it, but it’s hard not to wish that these artists were looking forward and not backward. Maybe they see themselves reflected in the acts of that era, given their friendships and propensity for playing together. Or, maybe, they want to go back to a time when rock stars were Rock Stars, when you could make a more-than-decent living from playing music and when you didn’t have to worry about your record being distributed freely, only to be lost in the shuffle among hundreds of other records. Let’s just hope they exercise some caution: nostalgia grows unbecoming rather quickly.

It’s yet to turn off the enthusiastic mix of ACL Fest casualties and regular, ol' show-goin' folk who didn't mind staying out past two on a Sunday night/Monday morning. Just ask the guy and girl who held their arms aloft during every song, gesturing along to every word like extras in a Songs of Faith commercial. Or the yuppie dude who spouted off this Patrick Batemanism about Oberst: “He's got to be one of the top 10 musicians today. He's so talented, it's amazing.” Or, uh, Bill Murray, whose stay in town apparently extended past Fantastic Fest and on into ACL Fest.

Maybe the musicians aren’t the only ones longing for better days.