Conor Oberst was only on the third song of “I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning” at the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday evening when he came to reflect on how the world has — or, more pointedly, hasn’t — changed in the 21 years since the album’s release. “It’s this much later and we’re in a war in the Middle East for the sake of rich people getting richer,” he told the audience as he cued up “Old Soul Song (for the New World Order),” a tune about attending a rally or protest in the Bush era, possibly about the Iraq war.
It’s easy to remember Bright Eyes‘ earlier fare as dulcet and poetic; songs like “First Day of My Life” and “Lua” turned ruminations on love and heartbreak into resonant indie touchstones. But Bright Eyes’ performance at the Bowl was a reminder that the more things change, the more they tend to stay the same. Alongside longtime collaborators, Oberst took over the iconic venue on Saturday to celebrate Bright Eyes’ simultaneously-released albums “I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning” and “Digital Ash in a Digital Urn,” commemorating the 21st anniversary of both records in a display of millennial nostalgia and a refreshed yet just-as-fiery condemnation of Trump’s government, much in the way that they’d bemoaned the Bush administration two decades ago.
