SteelStacks Summer Concert Series: Bright Eyes

SteelStacks Summer Concert Series: Bright Eyes

  • ALL AGES

The Band is Back Together!

By Levitt Gated Events | SteelStacks Summer Concerts

Date and time

Starts on Thursday, July 29, 2021 · 8pm EDT.

Location

SteelStacks Summer Concert Series

Levitt Pavilion 711 E 1st St Bethlehem, PA 18015

Performers

Headliners

  • Bright Eyes

More Performers

  • Lucy Dacus

Refund Policy

No Refunds

About this event

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 is full of significant anniversaries for Bright Eyes. Fevers and Mirrors was released 20 years ago this May, while Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning both turned 15 in January. The latter, a singer-songwriter tour-de-force released amidst the Bush presidency and Iraq war, wades through incisive anti-war 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 years later.

The heart at Bright Eyes’ songwriting still looms culturally, in films and TV shows and through re-imaginings 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 of all this shit.

And while 2020 is a year of milestones for the band, it’s also the year Bright Eyes returns, newly signed to indie label Dead Oceans. Amidst the current overwhelming uncertainty and upheaval of global and personal worlds, Oberst, Mogis, and Walcott reunited under the moniker as both an escape from, and a confrontation of, trying times. Getting the band back together felt right, and necessary, and the friendship at the core of the band has been a longtime pillar of Bright Eyes’ output. For Bright Eyes, this long awaited re-emergence feels like coming home.

Bright Eyes has partnered with PLUS1 to support The Florence Project and their work providing direct legal and social services for detained adults and children under threat of deportation. $1 of every ticket is contributed to this organization. https://firrp.org

The Levitt Pavilion is an all weather venue with standing only general admission. For more information on the venue, please follow the link here which has answers for frequently asked questions, parking, hours, etc.

ALL SALES FINAL: No Exchanges, No Refunds.

Ticket price includes City of Bethlehem Amusement Tax of $2.00 and a $1.00 Charity Fee. Standard Box Office Fees Apply.

For a full description of our Ticketing Policy please visit this link.

Sales Ended