Phoebe Bridgers at the Greek Theatre

My first time seeing Phoebe Bridgers I had bought tickets on a whim. I had heard a couple songs by her, such as “Funeral,” and “Graceland too.” I loved her work, but didn’t know much about her. I was driving in the car with my dad, and I mentioned wanting to see her, and having seen that she was on tour. “get them!” he said. He had been a concert chaser as a young 20-year old, and always raised me with live music being a priority. I went home, bought them, and took my sister with me.

The first thing we noticed when we arrived at the Greek Theatre was how everyone was dressed. Girls in doc martins, boys wearing skeletons on their jeans, girls with skeleton or ghosts on their tank tops. The pattern was evident. Nearly everyone wore black. We got into the stadium and took our seats, outdoors, besides two girls. We took a look around and noticed, there were few boys around us, mainly teenage girls or college students. The two next to us were smoking a cigarette, and we declined, but thanked them. We talked for a while about our experiences in discovering Phoebe, and they said this was not their first show. i do believe it was the last time I would ever say I only knew a few songs by Bridgers, and that I was a moderate fan. It was definitely the only time I would be sitting in nosebleed seats seeing her, or even the only time I was not in the front row. Opening with “Motion Sickness,” A song I had heard once before but twas definitely her most famous song, and I would say it still is to this day. The crowd went wild, louder than any crowd I’d ever been in. When the song was over, the mood changed. We went from the typical concert feel tat I know of, with the upbeat poppy tune and loud guitars and radiant energy on stage, with a roaring crowd screaming along, to a sudden eerie tune, with the lights pitch black, except for the image displayed behind Bridgers of a large book entitled “Punisher.” The book had large ghosts and skeletons upon it, and the singer’s back was turned to us. Just the sound of the eery violins and the lonely trumpet playing a very creepy, melodic tune, setting the stage for the rest of the night. Then, the drums began as the page simultaneously turned on the screen, and the book opened upon an image containing a beautiful depiction of a green garden, with random meaningful images dispersed throughout it, that symbolized different aspects of the song. This occurs for every song off of the album “Punisher.” The page turns every song. Phoebe began to sing softly “Garden song",” a much softer, more indie-folk sounding tune describing a troubled childhood with a pained relationship with her mother. From there, the page turned to a scene in Japan with a flying car above. She switched guitars, and just like that, the woman standing in the skeleton printed black high collared dress began screaming the upbeat hit “Kyoto.” A complete juxtaposition to the last song, the song Kyoto is upbeat, and happy sounding, with major chords and trumpets, and of course, some of the most heartbreaking lyrics Id ever heard. (‘Im gonna kill you…If you don’t beat me to it” regarding her father.) As it was right around the time of Halloween, it was appropriate that she played her song “Halloween” to follow Kyoto, noticeably omitting the third track on the album, the title song, “Punisher.” From there, she played every song in chronological order off of the album, while interpersing songs from her previous debut album “Stranger in the Alps” like “funeral,” “smoke signals,” and “Motion Sickness.” Finally, she ended with the song “I know the end.” This song took me by surprise, with the flames that appeared on the stage, and the entire audience screaming avidly in a very haunting tone. She was not screaming in a sing-song way, but in more of an aspect that would invoke that someone had hurt her. Id never heard a more vulnerable note from an artist’s lips, and Id never felt such a power over me. I felt so much love for this woman, that the moment she left the stage, I missed her, for it felt like more than a concert. It felt like a storytelling of the truest and most heartfelt, tender, and deeply intimate moments of her life. I felt as though I knew her, and the feeling was shared, evidently, among the tear-streaked faces of the crowd. After the microphones and band left the stage, phoebe came back, carrying an acoustic guitar with a white background screen behind her. She played a cover of “that funny feeling,” and if we hadn’t felt connected to her before, we definitely did now. It could’ve been a performance seen at a small family gathering, for the entire crowd was quiet, and listening to her, performing humbly, with no one else on stage, just her and the guitar. This was the best show I had been to so far in my life.