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.
