Neon signs. Cigarette burns. Popped pills. Spilled wine. Cross-country train rides. Moonlit walks. Faces buried in books in musty coffee shops. Love. Pain. Death. Hope. These are the tales Jim James, Conor Oberst and M. Ward shared at Philadelphia’s Trocadero on a recent tour of solo sets and impromptu jam sessions.

Of the evening’s overlapping acts, James’ performance was as haunting as a visit from your dead grandfather, the one who packed a tobacco pipe and drank Jim Beam like water. Like wind blowing through an open door, his voice engulfed the room, caressed the walls, coated the ceiling and soaked the floor. The effect sent chills across the sold-out venue, even touching the pockets of barflies pounding pints in the balcony.

“People always told me that bars are dark and lonely, and talk is often cheap and filled with air,” muttered James through a resonant reading of “Golden” from 2003’s It Still Moves. With his metalhead mane pulled into a ponytail and an acoustic guitar in place of his V-shaped electric, James appeared downtrodden and pensive. Every syllable James uttered coasted on a cloud of reverb. The sadness within his verses cast a spell broken only when Oberst joined him on backup guitar.

As soon as the Bright Eyes frontman took the stage for his own set, shutters clicked, flashbulbs burst and hearts skipped at the sight of his pixie-thin frame. All eyes were trained on Dylan’s supposed second coming: the tapping of his toes, the graceful, buoyant bending of his right leg and the constant quiver of his lips. Watching Oberst feels wrong—like you’re peeping through a bedroom keyhole and taking satisfaction at the sight of a young man dealing in private with his own personal hell. Oberst was later joined by James on acoustic guitar and Ward on keyboards. Obscure picks like “Train Underwater” and “Soon You Will Be Leaving Your Man” kept the gaggles of teens and 20-somethings guessing. Only during the opening chords of “Waste Of Paint” did the dead-silent audience erupt into applause.

Minutes later, Oberst and Ward crept offstage, leaving James alone with Willie Nelson’s “Always On My Mind.” Ward then followed James’ tribute with one of his own: a solo interpretation of Johnny Cash’s “Flesh And Blood.” For all the young audience knew, both covers were written on the fly backstage. The onlookers were respectful, but you could tell from their disinterested faces that they were just waiting for Oberst to talk about love again. It’s a shame, really, as all three musicians gave the performance of a lifetime. James’ singing went down like smooth, top-shelf whiskey, Oberst’s cut like a Ginsu knife, and Ward’s could’ve been plucked from a dead-and-gone jazz singer. The encore included a collaborative cover of Bob Dylan’s “Girl From The North Country.”

“Was that a new song?” asked one mystified teen.

Once the last chord was struck, the people in the crowd looked hungry for a song to which they actually knew the words. It never happened, and boy did they look cheated.

—Andrew Parks