American indie-rock band Bright Eyes performed at The Sylvee Thursday, providing biting political commentary between a mix of songs from their newest album, fan favorites and covers of other artists.
Six musicians took the stage, with core members Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott joined by artists MiWi La Lupa, Alex Levine and Conor Elmes. Bright Eyes, founded by lead singer and guitarist Conor Oberst in 1995 when he was 14 years old, released their 11th studio album “Five Dice, All Threes” last September to an outpour of positive reviews. At the concert Thursday, Bright Eyes played seven songs from the album.
It is worth noting the spectacular array of instruments on display at the concert, including but not limited to banjo, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, drums, trumpet and melodica. The band’s first album received critical reviews for its unwieldy experimentation with techno-synth, acoustic guitar and drum machines, but Bright Eyes’s performance at The Sylvee demonstrated that their grasp of blending instrumentalism with lyrics and vocals has matured during the band’s lifespan — 2025 marks their 30-year anniversary, though the band has taken a hiatus within that period.
The show began with “Bells and Whistles,” a song ripe with artistic disillusionment. In an interview with WXPN, songwriter Oberst described the track as a showcase of “the many little details in life that can seem insignificant or frivolous or temporary at the time, but eventually end up forming your destiny.”
The song’s tones duel between flippant and melancholy, with Oberst describing “cheap seats and broken dreams/U-turns in limousines,” detailing a meet-and-greet and repeating the song’s most memorable line, “fancy cheap thrills cost a lot.” The backdrop of cheerful whistling and strummed banjo lent a bittersweet tone to Oberst’s warbling lyrics.
“El Capitan,” played next, was a non-title track from “Five Dive, All Threes.” The song, seemingly dedicated to a love gone cold, was notable for its inventive lyricism that combines biblical references with phrases like “So you’re playing your Nintendo, strung out like a gramophone/living in a basement, sleeping down there all alone.” The lyrics were classic Conor Oberst, who has been hailed by some critics as a modern-day Bob Dylan. Oberst, who was notable for his youth at the start of his musical career, still retains the on-stage excitement and energy of a teenager at his first big gig, but with a higher level of professionalism and familiarity.
Songs from “Five Dice, All Threes,” like “El Capitan,” “Bas Jan Ader” and “Real Feel 105,” contain themes reminiscent of Bright Eyes’ earlier albums, but they also hint at a developed sense of irony and worldly disenchantment. Bright Eyes’ North America tour, which led them to The Sylvee, had been planned for shortly after the release of the new album but was delayed because Oberst lost his voice from excessive singing. But for the two-hour duration of Bright Eyes’ set at The Sylvee, Oberst’s signature shaky voice rang powerfully through the venue.
Bright Eyes also played covers of Ted Hawkins’ “Sorry You’re Sick,” Warren Zevon’s “Carmelita” and Thin Lizzy’s “Running Back.” And in perhaps the most cheered moment of the show, they played a banjo-heavy version of “First Day of My Life,” the band’s most famous song — a hopeful love song with significantly lighter themes than the tracks in “Five Dice, All Threes.” The band also played favorites from past albums including “Persona non grata,” “At the Bottom of Everything,” “We Are Nowhere and It’s Now” and “Shell Games.”
Oberst took a moment to address the crowd directly midway through the show, saying to cheers that America has become a “wet-dream fascist state” and imploring the audience to remember that “we’re all in this together.” Oberst also spoke about his disappointment with the Trump administration’s immigration rhetoric — ironic “Deport Conor Oberst” T-shirts were available for purchase at the event.
The band also advertised their Poison Oak Project, a charity initiative dedicated primarily to transgender aid and advocacy. Bright Eyes is not new to activism, and has in its 30-year span performed a single at a protest concert against former President George W. Bush called “When The President Talks to God” and boycotted the media megacorporation Clear Channel in response to its influence on the indie music sphere.
The energy and enthusiasm of the audience continued to expand following the political interlude. After a false ending, the band re-entered the stage to tear into a four-song encore made up of “Poison Oak,” “Running Back” by Thin Lizzy, “The Calendar Hung Itself” and “Let’s Not Shit Ourselves.”
Bright Eyes’ dynamic performance at The Sylvee blended their signature songs with new album tracks, and the combination of the venue’s naturally well-designed acoustics and balanced sound mixing created a powerful execution.
