Bright Eyes recently returned to The Anthem after a few years in between albums with a fire that was partly fueled by the new record, Five Dice, All Threes, and, perhaps, equally driven by the current political climate.
There are only a handful of bands who I can say I’ve been following, or maybe I should say whose music seems to have been orbiting my life for at least a couple of decades. The first time I saw Bright Eyes — at the time Conor Oberst performing solo — was when he was on the bill with the band Grandaddy at the small Metro Café on 14th Street, NW, 25 years ago. I remember it was an intense performance, but, at the time, it wasn’t my bag.
A few years later, when I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning was released, an old friend recommended checking out Bright Eyes again. I remember being thoroughly impressed by the change from that first album to songs like “At the Bottom of Everything” that leads off I’m Wide Awake. Since that time, the ebbs and flows of each record that has been released seem to connect in some way with where things were in my life.
With 2020’s Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was and the return of Bright Eyes as a band with the core three members, Oberst, Mike Mogis (guitar/keys), and Nate Walcott (keys/trumpet) were back — and after a handful of years they released the follow-up, Five Dice, All Threes. The new album feels like a reconnection of sorts, taking the best elements of what made the best Bright Eyes albums classics. With some guest appearances from Cat Power, Matt Berninger of The National, and Alex Orange Drink, who not only helped to write some of the material but also plays bass and sings on their current tour, it feels like an important milestone.
Back on the road for the new album, Bright Eyes were joined by Alex as well as MiWi La Lupa on keys/horns and Conor Elmes on drums. And opening for the band was fellow Omaha, Nebraska group Cursive, who started things off at The Anthem with an energetic set on April 20. They were even joined by Oberst on a couple of songs.
Taking the stage to the old Dick Van Dyke tune, “Put on a Happy Face,” Bright Eyes kicked into “Bells and Whistles,” one of those new classics that I think makes Five Dice, All Threes one of the bands strongest releases in years. In fact, the new songs like “Bells” and “El Capitan” sounded like old friends amidst the career-spanning set list, which went back as far as 2000’s Fevers and Mirrors with “The Calendar Hung Itself” and “I Won’t Ever Be Happy Again.”
”We tried our best to keep it a secret, but we did put out a new record in September,” Conor Obert told the crowd. “It’s called “Trains Still Run On Time,” a good old fashioned Mussolini slogan so we gotta start working on ours since we will be a fascist state if we don’t do anything… more on that later.”
“This is for any diamonds in the rough, as they say.” Conor Oberst continued, “Someone in this building is so full of radiate beauty and goodness but they’ve been hiding it. They feel they have to keep it under cover.” Introducing a song about unrealized potential full of New Orleans jazz, “Soul Singer in a Session Band,” he said “I have a feeling they will emerge.”
Watch the remastered music video for “Hot Knives” by Bright Eyes on YouTube:
“Thank you, so this is a really pretty magical part of the tour right now cause we are all very, very, very old friends,” Oberst said, bringing members of Cursive back onto the stage. The Bright Eyes/Cursive members then performed “Nothing Gets Crossed Out” with Tim Kasher of Cursive sharing the lead vocal duties.
Bright Eyes and Conor Oberst in particular has never been one to shy away from talking about important topics, and Sunday was no exception. Before introducing the protest song, “Old Soul Song (For the New World Order), he took a moment to talk about the fear and disenfranchisement a lot of people feel in the USA: “This next song is about 20 years old. I wrote it when I first moved to New York City… I was 23 and all my friends were up in arms about the fact that we were about to go to war in Iraq.”
Connecting the dots, Oberst urged the crowd to get involved. “And now I stand here 20 years later-plus and I’m begging you, please, it is 10 trillion times worse than it is back then. because it’s not a single war. Due process, you don’t think you’ll be next.” And to summarize the point, he said, “I think there is an understanding, but there’s not an urgency. These people don’t play by the rules.”
Bright Eyes wrapped up their regular set with “Poison Ivy” and “One for You, One for Me” before returning to encore with the incredible “At the Bottom of Everything” and “Let’s Not Shit Ourselves (to Love and to Be Loved).”
Bright Eyes wrap up their Spring USA Tour in April before heading to Europe.
The setlist included:
Bells and Whistles
El Capitan
We Are Nowhere and It’s Now
Gold Mine Gutted
Trains Still Run on Time
Bas Jan Ader
First Day of My Life
The Calendar Hung Itself…
Soul Singer in a Session Band
Mariana Trench
I Won’t Ever Be Happy Again
Nothing Gets Crossed Out (With Tim Kasher)
Old Soul Song (for the New World Order)
Loose Leaves
Shell Games
Tiny Suicides
Rainbow Overpass
Poison Oak
One for You, One for Me
Encore:
At the Bottom of Everything
Hypnotist (Song for Daniel H.)(Lullaby for the Working Class cover)
Let’s Not Shit Ourselves (to Love and to Be Loved)
Here are more photos of Bright Eyes performing at The Anthem on April 20, 2025. All photos copyright and courtesy of David LaMason.
And here are photos of Cursive opening at The Anthem on April 20, 2025.
