Featured News - Current News - Archived News - News Categories

Bright Eyes (Images courtesy of Artpark & Company)
Bright Eyes (Images courtesy of Artpark & Company)

Bright Eyes to perform at Artpark on July 27

Submitted

Wed, Jun 9th 2021 01:40 pm

Tickets for ‘Coors Light Concerts’ event on sale Friday, June 11

Bright Eyes will perform on the Artpark Amphitheater stage at 6 p.m. Tuesday, July 27. The concert is part of the “Coors Light Concerts” series and presented by Artpark and Funtime.

Tickets go on sale at noon Friday, June 11, and cost $40.50 for general admission (standing-room-only). Prices include a facility fee. Additional fees apply for online orders. Prices increase by $5 starting Tuesday, July 27. Purchase online at ticketmaster.com. The Artpark box office remains closed for in-person purchases.

Artpark & Company sent over the band’s bio, which reads:

Sometimes it feels like you hear a Bright Eyes song with your whole body. From Conor Oberst’s early recordings in an Omaha basement in 1995 all the way up to 2020, Bright Eyes’ music tries to unravel the impossible tangles of dissent: personal and political, external and internal. It’s a study of the beauty in unsteadiness in all its forms – in a voice, beliefs, love, identity, and what fills up the spaces in-between. And in so many ways, it’s just about searching for a way through.

The year 2020 was full of significant anniversaries for Bright Eyes. “Fevers and Mirrors” had been released 20 years ago in May, while “Digital Ash in a Digital Urn” and “I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning” both turned 15 in January 2020. The latter, a singer-songwriter tour-de-force released amidst the Bush presidency and Iraq war, wades through incisive antiwar rhetoric and micro, intimate calamities. On the title track and throughout the record, Oberst sings about body counts in the newspaper, televised wars, the bottomless pit of American greed, struggling to understand the world alongside one’s own turmoil.

In its own way, “I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning” carved out its place in the canon of great antiwar albums by being both present and prophetic, its urgency enduring 15-plus years later.

In 2011, the release of “The People’s Key,” Bright Eyes’ ninth album, ushered in an unofficial hiatus for the beloved project. In the time since, the work of the band’s core members – Oberst, multiinstrumentalist Mike Mogis, and multiinstrumentalist Nathaniel Walcott – has remained omnipresent, through both the members’ original work and collaboration.

Bright Eyes hiatus was to end in 2020, until the pandemic forced the cancellation of their tour. They look forward to a return to the road this year.

Bright Eyes (Images courtesy of Artpark & Company)

••••••••

In recent years, Mogis produced records for beloved folk acts First Aid Kit and Joseph, among others, as well as mixed the fine-spun ennui of Phoebe Bridgers’ breakthrough 2017 debut, “Stranger in the Alps.” Mogis and bandmate Walcott also teamed up to write the original scores for “The Fault in Our Stars,” “Stuck in Love” and “Lovely Still.” Walcott worked as a solo composer scoring a number of independent feature-length films. He spent extensive time on collaboration; in addition to his arrangement work for Mavis Staples, First Aid Kit and M. Ward, he contributed studio work to artists ranging from U2 to jazz guitarist Jeff Parker, and also traveled the world as a touring member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Oberst, who’s nearly 30 years into a prolific musical career, spent the past decade in similarly productive fashion. Across three years, he released a string of solo albums: “Salutations” (2017), “Ruminations” (2016) and “Upside Down Mountain” (2014), as well as guested on records by First Aid Kit, Bridgers and Alt-J. His punk band, Desaparecidos, emerged from a 13-year hiatus in 2015 with the thunderous sophomore LP, “Payola,” a white-knuckled disarray of hollered political fury. And at the top of 2019, Oberst and Bridgers debuted their new band, Better Oblivion Community Center, digitally dropping the critically lauded eponymous debut LP alongside a surprise performance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

The heart at Bright Eyes’ songwriting still looms culturally, in films and TV shows and through reimaginings by other artists. Mac Miller covered both “Lua” and “First Day of My Life”; Lorde’s version of the penultimate “The People’s Key” track, the funereal-waltz “Ladder Song,” was a focal point of “The Hunger Games” soundtrack; The Killers covered “Four Winds” for their “Spaceman” EP; and Lil Peep’s “Worlds Away” samples “Something Vague” while Young Thug’s “Me Or Us” samples “First Day of My Life.”

Bright Eyes’ expansive catalog has traversed genre, sound, and countless players; unpolished demos or fuzzy folk, electrified rock or country twang. The sharp songwriting and musicianship is all anchored in Bright Eyes’ singular ability to flip deep intimacy into something universal. For so many, for so long, listening to Bright Eyes has been like hearing yourself in someone else’s song – a moment of understanding or illumination, knowing you’re on the same team looking for a way to move through all of this.

Artpark stated it “is committed to keeping all visitors, employees and artists safe and continues to work closely with New York state officials to revise and implement health and safety protocols. At this time, all activities are subject to New York state COVID-19 guidelines. For details, please visit here. As official local health guidelines evolve regarding COVID-19 safety protocols, Artpark may shift seating configurations and increase capacity.”

Visit artpark.net for more information.

Hometown News

View All News