Rising indie rock singer-songwriter, Nashville-based Hana Eid, released her debut album Trains Running Backwards just over three months ago. Since the release of her first single in 2022, Eid has cemented herself as a promising voice in Nashville’s local scene and is just beginning to make a splash in the wider indie alternative rock world. In the past few years, she has kept herself busy, touring with artists such as Sombr in 2024, The Greeting Committee for a handful of dates in the summer of 2025, as well as Pretty Jane and Runner this past fall. Eid embarked on her first headlining tour this winter to promote the album Trains Running Backwards, a massive step in her musical journey.
If there’s one artist who understands what it’s like to be a girl crossing the inevitable threshold between your teenage years and your early twenties, it’s Hana Eid. There is something so magical about these years – there’s no other way to put it. Eid’s lyrics, which feel like a journal or diary entry, highlight her talent for writing about the dizzying years of late adolescence into early adulthood; the constant push and pull of feeling like a child in an adult’s body and being treated like an adult in a child’s body, feeling like time is running out and that your life is just starting. Eid’s writing, deeply confessional, poetic and contemplative in nature, makes it feel as though she is addressing the listener directly, like a friend whom she wholly trusts.
Trains Running Backwards introduces the listener to a new era of Hana Eid in comparison to her previous works. Her first EP, I Exist Because You Say So, is a delicious, indie-driven treat for the ears. In her debut album, however, she employs more folky, country twang sonic elements, marking a significant maturation in her sound. One thing that sets her apart from other artists in similar genres is her delightful use of vocal flipping techniques. Her silky smooth voice strikes something deep within the listener; it is truly moving. In this record, Eid still utilizes her signature emotional lyrical gut punches, but it is clear that her sound is something she has made completely her own. Her voice and lyrics, paired with pedal steel, gritty guitar and drums, make this record a promising debut from an emerging artist.
Earlier this month, she and her band brought the Trains Moving Backwards tour to Schubas in Chicago. The building itself, a Lakeview landmark for over a century, has earned a reputation as one of the best small music venues in the country. The intimate and homey space was ideal for Eid’s set, as she offered the crowd a deeply personal glimpse into her life and her journey growing up, falling in and out of love and learning how to be a person during a time in one’s life that can only be described, in her words, as “deeply disorienting.” Eid’s honesty and vulnerability were only amplified in a live setting.
Chicago marked the halfway point of the week-and-a-half tour. The six-stop run opened in Eid’s hometown, Nashville, and closed in Los Angeles. Between then, the band also stopped in New York City, Denver and San Francisco. Throughout the set, Eid expressed her gratitude to the crowd for showing up and for listening to her music. As her first headlining tour, only knowing what it’s like to be an opener, it is only natural to have anxiety about attendance. It’s one thing to play a hometown show; it’s a completely different thing to travel to another city. Eid’s graciousness radiated from her the entire set; it was a very special experience to be a part of.
To kick off the evening of music, Liam Fagan, frontman of Park National, delivered a beautiful acoustic performance. His set consisted of nearly equal parts of both released and unreleased songs; the audience was incredibly supportive as he tested some new songs, cheering him on as he went. Fagan shared that some of the songs on his setlist were products of a songwriting club that he and his friends participate in, where they meet up and write based on different weekly prompts. One of the unreleased songs he performed, tentatively titled “Ghost,” was born during one of these sessions. It beautifully captured the spooky parts of getting older, constantly feeling the haunting presence of your younger self. Another song he performed was created during one of these sessions, where the prompt was to start with the chorus of a song. Fagan also played songs from the band’s 2025 album You Have To Keep Searching, including “Your Mom’s House” and “One Foot.” He and the full band will be back in Chicago in early April at the Subterranean; they are absolutely worth checking out!
Next, Hollow Bastion took to the stage. The three-piece indie rock band, based in Chicago, played a rocking set. The band includes frontwoman Teagan Brey on vocals and guitar, Ruben Steiner on bass and vocals and Michael Whalen on drums. The band released their debut album Waitin’ All Winter last May. The fully DIY, self-recorded and self-produced release is the first from the trio; Hollow Bastion actually began as Brey’s solo project. The band played a handful of songs from their album as well as some unreleased songs. They opened up their set with “Don’t Be Like That” from Waitin’ All Winter. They also performed a cover of “Goin’ Through Your Purse” by Material Issue, also a Chicago-based trio. The band was full of energy and incredibly entertaining to watch; Brey hopped from foot to foot across the stage, dancing in tune with the music. The band riffed off of each other, offering silly commentary between songs. Their genre-defying sound is sure to have something for everyone.
At 9:45 PM on the dot, Hana Eid and the band took to the stage. She was accompanied on stage by a familiar face from earlier on in the evening: Liam Fagan, the frontman of Park National, on the drums, Cullen Green on the bass and Jake Robuck of the band BEAN. on the guitar. The band opened up the set with “Headfirst,” also the opener on the album. The song starts quietly with just Eid’s voice singing: “I just wanna feel it / I just wanna know it’s here.” Then, the guitar kicks in with fervent intensity, capturing the immense feelings of the frustration of unreciprocated love that the song details. The band was haloed in red light, immediately drawing and capturing the audience’s attention.
“We’re gonna play the popular one,” Eid said with a chuckle before launching into the third song of the set, “Weird.” The song, released as a single in August of 2023, also appears on Eid’s 2024 EP, I Exist Because You Say So. The song details the onset of a crush, highlighting how irrational and overwhelming pining over someone really is. Walking the fine line between friends and something more, “Weird” explores the inevitable self-deprication and self-questioning that comes with having a crush, feeling like it’s something infinitely out of reach and constantly wondering if you said too much. She captures the gripping intensity of beginning to catch feelings for someone, the reckless abandon that comes with wanting in its rawest, purest form.
Between songs, Eid was not shy about chatting with the audience. In a brief anecdote about the day she and the band had, Eid confessed: “We had a day trying to get here.” She told the crowd that they went to see the bean, adding that her bandmate’s band is called “BEAN.,” so it was only appropriate that they went to see the iconic Chicago landmark. Before they could make it there, unfortunately, the car ran out of gas and they were stopped in the middle of traffic on Lake Shore Drive—a far from ideal situation. The chronicles don’t end there. As if once wasn’t enough, in Eid’s words, the band realized for the second time, “[…] holy shit we’re almost out of gas.” Eid, the band and the audience laughed as she animatedly recounted the events of an otherwise ordinary Wednesday. “Did you see the Bean?” Someone from the audience quipped. The answer was yes—thank goodness some stories have happy endings. Her friendly and open rapport with the audience throughout the entire show made the just-over-300-capacity room feel even smaller; the intimacy of her music and blurbs shared between songs complemented each other incredibly well.
About halfway through the set, following two unreleased songs, one listed on the setlist as “Belly” and the other “U Want Me 2,” the band played a stretch of songs from Trains Running Backwards. The first was “Come Over,” whose lyrics include the title of the album. The song is a desperate plea for a hookup to do exactly that, come over, but places the onus on them by urging them to do so only if they want. “Come Over” captures the fragility of a relationship that remains undefined and the messiness of very real human emotions.
Next was “Swallows,” another one of four singles from the album, which came out on September 5th. “I wrote it about the pleasurable pain of change—particularly the pleasure. It’s fun & upbeat & one of my favorites on the record! It makes me want to drive fast & be in the water & dance with all of my friends,” Eid wrote on her Instagram, promoting the track’s release. The upbeat, drum-driven track was especially fun to hear live. “Take A Ride!” and “Touch Base” came next. The two tracks are slower, indicating the commencement of a more mellow point in the set. On “Touch Base,” Eid said, “Someone like me can’t do a change of plans,” when sharing what the song is about. Thematically, the four songs capture the essence of Trains Running Backwards, wanting someone who doesn’t want you back.
As they approached the end of the main set, the band played two songs from Eid’s EP, I Exist Because You Say So: “Austin Song” and “Taller Than Me.” Eid describes this EP as full of yearning, anticipation, and angst, all of which appear in these two songs especially. “Austin Song” is all about the unadulterated desire of simply wanting to know someone, romance aside. “Taller Than Me” demonstrates Eid’s lyrical prowess in putting impossible-to-describe feelings into words: “There’s something romantic ‘bout feeling so weak,” she sings. Having feelings for someone else can only be described as irrational. The power you give them over you, simply feeling stupid, there’s nothing truer or realer than crushing on someone. It’s awful and embarrassing, but there’s also nothing better. Despite being three years older, the object of Eid’s affection is “not too much taller” than her, a sentiment riddled with irony.
The band closed out the main set with “Stare,” which also appears as the final track on the album. The song, released on October 10th, was the final single for Trains Running Backwards. On her Instagram, Eid wrote: “infinite fun making this one; I wrote it so long ago but it’s still one of my favorites. It’s about being scared of connection!!! I’m grateful that so much has changed since then. I hope these words resonate & find you with an open heart <3.” There is no better track that the band could have ended the main set with. “Stare” starts off as a quiet deliberation on a relationship that feels undefined, but swells into an emotive wall of sound as Eid realizes the depths of her feelings for this person, attempting to grapple with the fear spurred on by this revelation. At the end of the track, for the instrumental outro, the tempo picks up, representing a kind of catharsis only attainable through music and sound. That’s one of the things Eid does so brilliantly, utilizing sound to capture what the lyrics convey; it’s nauseating in the best way. In the opening lines of the song, Eid draws a comparison between biting the bullet and biting someone’s finger, eliciting an image that is at once tender, erotic and violent. The tension is palpable and equally devastating.
After briefly stepping off stage, the band returned for one more song, Eid’s debut single “Dancing To The Smiths.” Eid’s music is deeply sensorial; she has a knack for inviting the listener to step into her world, to exist in the moment she’s writing about. Many of the references she makes are hyperspecific, but instead of generating a rift between her and her audience, they create a visceral listening experience. She sang, “And do you like what you’re seeing? / In the backseat, cigarette and windblown hair / Feels like the heat of the summer in December / Oh, there’s no way this is fair.” Even if the listener cannot personally relate, Eid’s vulnerability makes it seem as though they are experiencing whatever she is writing about for themselves. The imagery she conjures up in her listener’s mind is exhilarating; she is an incredible wordsmith.
Hana Eid is an artist whom everyone should listen to at least once. And I mean really listen. Trains Running Backwards is an album that is profoundly touching and unequivocally human; a bewitching meditation on girlhood and getting older. In the coming years, she will without a doubt continue her journey as one of indie’s up-and-coming artists, known for her lyrical resonance and ability to summarize the tenuous and jarring years of early adulthood. She is just putting herself out there, and it is clear that this tour was just the start for Eid.
In the meantime, keep up with her online:
Website / Instagram / TikTok / Bandcamp / Youtube / Spotify / Apple Music
