LOS ANGELES, CA- Los Angeles’s famous June gloom has started to fog the city in the mornings. Though we can’t look forward to the sun’s rays waking us up, we can look forward to LA’s amphitheater season. There’s no venue with a longer or more storied history than the Hollywood Bowl, and opening night delivered accordingly. Bright Eyes returned to the Bowl to celebrate the 21st anniversary of two of their most beloved albums, performing each in its entirety, with several songs played live for the first time on this tour. They were joined by anti-folk duo The Moldy Peaches.
Bright Eyes formed in Omaha, Nebraska in 1995, fronted by singer-songwriter Conor Oberst. The band broke through with a stretch of critical acclaim, international tours, and a run of studio albums through the early 2000s, a period when public exhaustion with the Iraq War was running high and protests were spreading across the country. That political climate lives inside much of their catalog, written largely while Oberst was based in New York City. This spring, the band announced a three-stop tour marking the 21st birthday of Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, two albums cut from very different cloth: one rooted in folk and Americana, the other leaning into electro-pop. During the original tour behind these records, Oberst opened for Bruce Springsteen and R.E.M. on the Vote for Change tour, performing duets with both Springsteen and Neil Young.
The tour opened at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on May 6th, came to the Hollywood Bowl on May 23rd, and closes at Forest Hills Stadium on June 6th.
Sharply at 7 p.m., the iconic opening of “At the Bottom of Everything” crackled across the speakers. From stage right, a small parade of children emerged, each dressed to match the imagery of the song: two girls leading the procession carrying a cardboard airplane, followed by children costumed as a rain cloud, a lightning bolt, ocean waves, and polka dots, pulled directly from the song’s music video. It was immediately arresting. The children, representing something like the future we’re in the process of handing off, walked across the stage during a song that calls out the monotony and predatory pull of modern media. The line “sing into the ear of an anarchist that sleeps but doesn’t dream” plays a bit differently with kids physically in the frame; a quiet suggestion that the torch needs passing. As the song closed, one could picture Oberst in the New York morning sun, just another face in a busy crowd, finding his own peace and freedom. That freedom is part of what made these albums possible.
The rest of I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning was a soft exhale: warm, unhurried, filling the Bowl from the floor up. Diehard fans sang along with Oberst through every verse and measure. It was clear how deeply this writing has marked people. A young girl nearby, wet-cheeked, silently performed her own version of “Lua.” Two friends, arms linked, swayed with the breeze through “First Day of My Life.” An older man squeezed his eyes shut as “Land Locked Blues” spread from the stage, lost somewhere in a distant memory.
Between songs, Oberst swapped guitars and shared small stories, recollections of when and where these songs were written. His main acoustic, worn with repairs, chips, and the fine veneer of age, looked like it belonged inside “Old Soul Song.” He mentioned writing this during the Iraq War protests and paused: here we are again, 21 years later, pulled into another useless conflict in the Middle East. As the final notes of “Road to Joy” rang out and the band walked off, a short intermission passed before the Moldy Peaches stepped into the light.
Illuminated by symmetrical spotlights, Adam Green and Kimya Dawson, who uses she/they/grandpa pronouns, took the stage quietly, Dawson with a pride flag draped over their shoulders and cat ears tucked into their hair. They might be the most endearing duo I’ve ever seen perform. Their comfort with each other and with the audience is total and completely unforced. Thanks to Juno, much of the crowd already knew their sound without quite realizing it: early-2000s punk-folk, spare and honest and a little absurd. Their recordings carry a distinct lo-fi texture, but tonight was a purely acoustic set, courtesy of a guitar lent to Green by Jesse Harris of Bright Eyes; it suited them perfectly. Dawson shared their gratitude for the invitation and marveled at the strangeness of being a band whose songs are now circulating on TikTok. Green added that they were scared to play the Hollywood Bowl, “but turns out it’s easy,” drawing a laugh from the crowd. Soon, they announced their final song, launching into “Anyone Else But You.” In an honest fashion, the entirety of the Bowl rose to their feet for a standing ovation.
Bright Eyes returned in black suits under stark white light with a transformed stage. Digital Ash in a Digital Urn has always been the more unsettled of the two records, and the presentation matched it. An orchestral section thickened the arrangements, and at several points a guitar solo tore through with a piercing intensity. Between songs, the screens flashed escalating messages: contempt for the billionaire class, calls for their abolishment, a blunt line about the Trump family robbing the country to enrich what Oberst called the “Epstein class.” Less provocation and more the logical extension of what he’s always written and stood for, as if he were singing to a crowd of anarchists who sleep but don’t yet dream. As a special treat on this tour, they performed “A Theme from Piñata” live for the first time, sending an audible ripple through the more devoted crowd members.
As the set deepened, Oberst shed whatever remained of his reserve. During “Down in a Rabbit Hole,” he paced in near-frantic loops, restless, the song’s anxiety running visibly through him. For “Burn Rubber,” he gripped the microphone, finding stability in a cacophony of instruments. Mirroring the intense nature of the performance, the same kids who had opened the night, cardboard airplane, rain clouds, lightning bolts, returned to the stage transformed, now in hard hats, safety glasses, high-visibility vests, carrying baseball bats and their own micro-instruments. It quickly became apparent what was happening as they began to swing: piano keys went flying, guitar strings snapped, holes punched into drumheads as the stage dissolved into unhinged chaos. Given everything Conor had said about the world we’re leaving the next generation, it was quietly devastating. Oberst had opened the night by asking kids to sing into the ear of an anarchist. And he closed by handing them something to break.
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