Bright Eyes Hide in Plain Sight For Secret Show at Chicago's Lincoln Hall

"This is actually our first show ever, so thanks for taking a chance on an unknown band."

Normally, a lead singer making a true statement like that would not expect a solid chuckle from a sold-out audience. They also wouldn't expect the audience to sing along to the majority of their songs or have a line wrapped around the back of the venue an hour before doors opened. These aren't luxuries that first-time acts are usually spoiled with.

But there was a good reason for the shared laugh just a few songs into the 7:55 Saturday Radical Stage Riot Boys' set, which is that we were all in on the same inside joke. Even though we were watching them with our very own eyes and listening with our very own ears, the joke was the the band 7:55 Saturday Radical Stage Riot Boys doesn't exist. It's nothing more than a very fake name for a very real band gearing up for a very big tour. And with Riot Fest kicking off this weekend in Chicago, the clue to cracking the identity of our mystery band was shockingly easy to decipher:

So who is it that plays the Riot Fest Radical Stage at 7:55 on Saturday night? None other than folk rock heroes Bright Eyes, playing a handful of smaller club shows as warmups before kicking off an international tour to support their upcoming album Five Dice, All Threes (out September 20). To give you an idea of how intimate an experience we're talking about for these shows (Cleveland and Philadelphia following this Chicago stop), the last time Bright Eyes came through Chicago they played the brand spankin' new Salt Shed in May of 2023 with a capacity of about 3,600. It looked like this:

By comparison, Lincoln Hall holds about 500 people, and that's exactly how many amateur Sherlock Holmes' figured the riddle out quick enough to snag a ticket.

Opening the show was Neva Dinova, the only band on the bill playing under their actual name on the evening. Hailing from Omaha and sharing a split EP with Bright Eyes in 2004 called One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels, Neva Dinova performed an eclectic mix that could switch between slowcore head nodders and psychedelic rock breakdowns at the drop of a hat, sometimes in the same song. And while the band adopts the laid-back and soft spoken energy of singer/guitarist Jake Bellows, it sometimes seems like nothing more than a ruse to draw you in closer before throwing down some truly impressive musical breakdowns and jams. All smiles and high-level musicianship, they played the part of 'opener at an extremely intimate club show' to perfection.

One of the most exciting things about a secret show is the actual mystery of what you're going to see. Yeah, cracking the riddle that Bright Eyes left for this show took about 5 seconds total, but even after knowing who you were going to see, the rest is up in the air. Would they play their upcoming album front to back? A entire night of just the hits to warm up for bigger stages? With no setlists from previous shows to compare to, everything was in play for this show.

And that mystery extended to the stage as well. Even though the core of Bright Eyes remains the same (lead singer/guitarist Conor Oberst, along with multi-instrumentalists Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott), the rest of the band has long been a rotating cast of incredible musicians, who frequently play what seems like 15 instruments each. As Bright Eyes initially took the stage, each member of the band was introduced by a pre-recorded message Oberst made himself, introducing each musician by name and where they're from and explaining that their mothers are all going to be very proud of each of them for the show they were about to perform. Joining Oberst/Mogis/Walcott as touring musicians were MiWi La Lupa, Alex Orange Drink, and Griffin Goldsmith from the band Dawes on drums.

Old faces and new, the latest iteration of Bright Eyes navigated the setlist as deftly as they navigated the jam-packed Lincoln Hall stage that had almost no room to operate that wasn't covered in some kind of instrument or handful of lyric printouts. And the band needed to be on top of their game with the depth of the material they had in store. Playing 20 songs off of nine different albums, ranging from the band's debut full-length A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997 through this week's Five Dice, All Threes, the band also had room to throw in their cover version of Thin Lizzy's 'Running Back' during the encore. And while the band did acquiesce and play four total tracks off their biggest commercial album (2005's I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning), this was far from a set packed with hits. How deep were the cuts the Lincoln Hall audience had served up? Remember the split LP they did in 2004 with Neva Dinova that I mentioned? When that LP was reissued in 2010, Bright Eyes threw a new song into the mix called 'Happy Accident' Despite becoming a fan favorite to diehard fans of the band over the last 16 years, Bright Eyes never played the song live a single time. Until this show at Lincoln Hall. That is how special a night Oberst and the others had planned under the safety of an assumed name.

And speaking of live debuts, an already-spoiled crowd was treated to being the first live audience to ever hear six of the tracks off the upcoming Five Dice... and all of the new songs worked exceptionally well in a live setting, bouncing from the upbeat toe-tapper 'Bells and Whistles' to the more contemplative and dark 'Tiny Suicides'. If the rest of the album is anything like the preview we got Saturday night, fans are in for a treat during the remaining stops on this tour.

Usually when I write these reviews, it almost seems futile since by the time I've had my say, only a handful of dates on a tour could be left. But the good news about this warmup show is that the tour I'm telling you that you should go see hasn't even 'officially' kicked off yet, so there's still time to get your tickets and make your arrangements. The tour kicks off this Thursday in New York and additional dates and tickets can be found here. If you're here in Chicago and you're bummed that you missed your chance, Bright Eyes will be back in less than a week for their Saturday Riot Fest set. I can promise you no matter where you catch Bright Eyes on this tour, the show they put on for you would make their mothers very proud. The ominous voice doesn't lie.

Bright Eyes Setlist - Lincoln Hall, Chicago 9.14.24

Bells and Whistles
El Capitan
Mariana Trench
Gold Mine Gutted
Falling Out of Love at This Volume
Bas Jan Ader
Method Acting
I Won't Ever Be Happy Again
Tiny Suicides
Real Feel 105°
Old Soul Song (for the New World Order)
Happy Accident
A Scale, a Mirror and Those Indifferent Clocks
Rainbow Overpass
Poison Oak
Road to Joy
Sorry You're Sick
First Day of My Life
Running Back
One for You, One for Me