Conor Oberst & Ben Kweller @ Terminal 5

Earlier this year, Conor Oberst released his first solo album in 13 years, and he and the Mystic Valley Band (named for the area where they recorded Tepoztlán, Mexico) have been touring since July. They swung through New York this past weekend for a country good time at Terminal 5 with opener Ben Kweller, who Oberst met when they both were living in Brooklyn. Kweller has since moved back to his home state of Texas, but is also on tour previewing his country album coming out next year.

Oberst is known as a bleeding heart, mainly with the project Bright Eyes, but as he proves with this album, there’s a thin line between confessional music and country music. He still keeps it personal, but the performance is infinitely more exuberant and definitely more twangy, sounding at times reminiscent of Tom Petty. In this new incarnation he looks like he’s actually having fun on stage, not as with Bright Eyes when it seemed as if he were counting the minutes until he got to leave. He’s currently working on more non-Bright-Eyes fare: an album with M. Ward and Jim James of My Morning Jacket, but it would be interesting to see if he and Kweller team up for something in the future. They overlap in a couple of areas—both are recognized musicians from their early teens, both currently riding the same musical wave with much of the same audience. They united for one raucous song Saturday night (sadly, not the Ghostbusters theme, as in a previous concert) and when Kweller left they shared a quick kiss, along with a couple “I love you mans.” The two play another show this week in Richmond, Virgina, and then, who knows.