Out To Lunch 2025

To mark twenty years since the release of Bright Eyes’ I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, Joel Harkin will be joined by a seven-piece band and special guests to perform the classic album in its entirety.

Just as resonant now as they were in 2005, Conor Oberst’s sprawling lyrics on I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning explore perennial themes of isolation, nihilism, American imperialism, and that last stubbornly inextinguishable spark of hope.

Sonically, the album charts a course through popular music from Beethoven, to the vigour of 1960s protest songs, to desolate country of the 1970s, and on through the alternative music of the 1990s and 2000s. This talented collection of friends and collaborators will faithfully recreate these ten songs about being very young and feeling very old.

Joel Harkin is a musician from Convoy, Co. Donegal who has made a home for himself in Belfast’s music scene. He has loved Bright Eyes for half of his life so far. He’s been looking forward to this for ages. “Let’s fuck it up, boys. Make some noise!”