Phoebe Bridgers made a surprise appearance with Bright Eyes on Monday night. After headlining massive shows at Bridgestone Arena on Saturday and Sunday, Bridgers stuck around Music City to join Bright Eyes at Brooklyn Bowl Nashville. She emerged during the seminal indie group’s encore, assisting on “Lua,” a track off Bright Eyes’ 2005 LP, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning.
Bridgers grew up on Bright Eyes and once described Conor Oberst as her favorite songwriter. He helped introduce her music to a new, receptive audience early in her career and they formed the short-lived duo Better Oblivion Community Center in 2018, releasing a self-titled debut album a year later via Dead Oceans. Perhaps hinting at things to come, on Sunday at Bridgestone, Bridgers busted out “Chesapeake,” a cut from Better Oblivion Community Center, for the first time since 2019, spotlighting longtime bandmate Christian Lee Hutson. At the end of the show, Hutson’s wife Maya Hawke also took the stage, as Bridgers left, for “Never Going Back!”
In other news, Bridgers recently turned in a three-song performance as part of The Sound Check at Cherry Lane Theatre series. The short set was captured by Primetime director Lance Oppenheim, who cast Bridgers in his film. At the recently refurbished Cherry Lane Theatre, Bridgers performed “On Video” from Primetime with The Belle Brigade’s Ethan Gruska and reunited with her boygenius bandmates for both “Haunted” and “Lost Boys.”
Bridgers will appear at Austin, TX’s Moody Center on Friday.
