Magical Melancholy With Bright Eyes in Amsterdam’s Forest

It seems like an odd choice to have an American indie rock band perform in the middle of a forest on the outskirts of Amsterdam, but on Sunday evening, more than thousand fans find their way to the ‘Amsterdamse Bos Theater’ to see Bright Eyes. Bright Eyes is on this European tour in support of their latest release Five Dice, All Threes, September 2024. The weather forecast predicted rain for the entire evening, but the skies clear up right before opening act Memorial takes the stage.

The indie folk duo from Brighton start their set a little later than planned, with a lot of the crowd only coming to the venue after the rain stopped. The duo’s vocal harmonies are accompanied by their two guitars only, giving their short set a very intimate feeling, seeming as if they’re performing for a much smaller crowd, joking with the forming crowd in between songs. The levity of their song introductions makes the emotional songs land a little easier, instead of bombarding us with their darker subject choices unprepared.

The headliner of the night starts with an intro of a Spanish woman welcoming us to the show, although the actual message might’ve gotten a little lost in translation in a non-Spanish speaking country. When Conor Oberst and his band Bright Eyes find their way to the open stage, the benches of the open air theater are pretty much filled, but from the first notes they play, the younger fans in the audience quickly make their way to the front.

The band had been on hiatus until 2020, and have since released two new records. The setlist tonight features a good mix between songs off the post-hiatus records and songs off older records, like the record I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, featuring songs like “First Day of My Life.” It’s a testament to their discography to have them be able to play a song so popular not even halfway into the set, and still have everyone on the edge of their seat for more. It shows how much the band has grown since the popular track got released in 2005, and the newer tracks get to have the attention they so deserve.

“First Day of My Life” gets followed by “Bas Jan Ader,” a song of Bright Eyes’s newest record. The choice to play in the forest seems random, until you learn about the artist that inspired the song. The Dutch artist got lost at sea in 1975, attempting to sail solo from the American East Coast back to Europe. His deserted sailboat was found ten months later. One of the film projects of Ader included footage of him falling from the trees into the water, in the very same forest we’re seeing Bright Eyes perform on this gloomy Sunday. It’s connections like these that make the evening seem all the more magical. The song, being about halfway through the show, feels like the perfect summary of the night as well, and is one of the most memorable songs of the evening.

Conor’s very recognizable vocals also get better with age, and the way he starts to interact with the crowd shows how much fun he’s having on this tour as well. He closes the gap between the crowd and the rest of the band (standing under the rain covers to keep dry, in case it does start to rain) more than a handful of times, dancing on the wide open stage whenever he finds the chance.

If you didn’t get at least slightly emotional from any of the 21 songs they played, some of the speeches in the breaks in between, will push you over the edge. Before starting the song “Soul Singer in a Session Band,” Conor speaks about helping out the people with a lot of potential that get held back by life, urging the audience to give them a little push if you happen to know someone like that, as he states that “we could use some more magic in this sad ass world.” Later in the evening he also urges us to try to look for human dignity in these dark times, no matter where a person is from. It’s hard to stay stoic and cynical, when Oberst sounds so damn sincere all through the evening.

Before the end of the last song in the encore, every last person still sitting got up from their seats for a standing ovation, to show their appreciation for what the band made us feel tonight. Oberst closes it out with the hope to see us again in the future, with the words “until then, you gotta stay alive.”

The forecast predicted rain for this Sunday evening in the Amsterdam forest, but the music of Bright Eyes is so devastatingly haunting, a sun-filled evening sky would be wildly ill-fitting. As luck would have it, it didn’t rain at all throughout the set, the slightly overcast and gloomy weather was the perfect fit for such a magically emotional night.

There’s still a handful of shows left in Europe, closing this leg out on July 12th in Portugal. In August they’re on a short US run, before heading out to Asia by the end of the year as well. You can still find tickets for these undoubtedly magical shows through their website https://www.thisisbrighteyes.com/tour.