Bright Eyes Bring New Energy & Old Favorites To Chicago Theater

Bright Eyes made just their fourth stop of an extensive 46 show tour at the historic Chicago Theater last night. The band is supporting their latest album Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once, which was released in 2020 after a 9-year hiatus. This tour across the US and Canada is their largest since the band’s return, and the energy in the theater last night reflected how excited fans were to see the indie rockers back on stage again.

Bright Eyes hasn’t spared any expense on this tour either. In addition to their core members, including frontman Conor Oberst, multi-instrumentalist Mike Mogis, and multi-instrumentalist Nathaniel Walcott, the band was accompanied by a sizable orchestra section. Maxing out at nearly 20 musicians on stage during some songs, Bright Eyes delivered an electric and often cinematic sound that forced fans out of their seats and into the aisles to dance along.

Even if you stripped away all the horns, strings and back up singers, Oberst’s high energy was contagious enough to get fans on their feet. As soon as the lights came on, Oberst was dancing with bandmates and bouncing freely across the stage. The energy was fueled by a 22-song set, including seven songs from their latest album and plenty of old fan favorites. Songs like “The Calendar Hung Itself…” from their 2000 album Fever and Mirrors and an encore performance of “First Day of My Life” from 2005’s I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning had longtime fans singing along and feeling nostalgic.

Click below to listen to our curated playlist of Bright Eyes’ setlist from the Chicago Theater.

Bright Eyes' most recent releases were three Companion series recordings, part of a larger project to reissue and re-record their entire catalog, "Falling Out of Love At This Volume," "Contrast And Compare" (feat. Waxahatchee) and "Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh" (feat. Phoebe Bridgers).

The band is partnering with Plus1 on this tour, allocating $1 from every ticket sold to the Downtown Women’s Center in Los Angeles. For a list of tour dates and tickets, click here.

See more photos from the show below: