PREVIEW: Bright Eyes on Current Tour

By Carrie Heckel

For almost thirty years, Bright Eyes has been putting out records, each unique in their approach but all intimate, exploratory, and renowned (and admittedly, sometimes reviled!) for their emotional authenticity. Their newest release Five Dice, All Threes, their 10th studio album, is no exception, with collaborations featuring Matt Berninger (The National) and Cat Power, as well as Alex Levine (The So So Glos). The friendship and influence of Levine (Alex Orange Drink to friends and fans) is evident on the record, and brings a bouncy punk timbre to the project, charting new sonic territory for Bright Eyes. The lyrics still hit hard, if the subjects have slightly shifted perspective now; frontman Conor Oberst ruminates on the ever-changing landscape of our unprecedented times, our bodies aging through these horrors, and the foolish societal pressures that still plague us throughout. In “El Capitan”:

“The world is on fire, California is a crucible/
We're running out of water, they already stole all the gold/
You kept kissing me like Judas, your betrayal was apropos/
You said I'm washed up and that's what I get for growing old”

I have to admit here for the sake of transparency: I’m a bit of a Bright Eyes freak, so I’ve traveled already several hundred miles to see Bright Eyes play on this tour. I won’t bore you for now with how many times I’ve done this, how far I’ve traveled, how many shows I’ve seen, or what this music means to me, but I will say that this tour has been one of the best in my experience. If you haven’t seen the band in a while (or, even if you caught them the last time they played The Salt Shed!) you should catch them this Saturday, April 5th. Alex Orange Drink brings a lively energy to the songs, with familiar if slightly altered arrangements of old favorites. One of my favorite things about Conor, and longtime bandmates Nate Wolcott and Mike Mogis: they know how to keep things fresh and have fun with songs from over twenty years ago. No two shows are exactly the same. And somehow now, their music feels more prescient. 

For Hooligan readers, I also want to note the Poison Oak Project, an initiative the band recently launched with Plus1 and Propeller to raise money in each city on the Five Dice tour for LGBT+ organizations. So at The Salt Shed this Saturday, you can come donate, and enter to win merch bundles, all for a great cause.

I’ll leave you with words from Conor himself: