Phoebe Bridgers’ Phone-Free SF Show Was My Best Concert of the Year

SFGATE senior culture editor Dan Gentile was wowed by the Grammy-winning songwriter

Grammy-winning songwriter Phoebe Bridgers took the stage at Chase Center on Tuesday night to Beatlemania-esque screams from a largely Gen Z audience, who at any other show would’ve thrust their arms in the air, phone cameras rolling. But when the house lights came on for a moment during her second song, “Motion Sickness,” it revealed an enraptured crowd with not a cellphone in sight.

Bridgers has risen from indie rock obscurity to bona fide star status over the past few years, with such a strong sway over her fan base that she coerced them to do the impossible: go phone-free for the length of her nearly two-hour set. She employed a system that’s become popular with cancellation-weary standup comics called Yondr, which forces attendees to stash their phones in locked pouches for the duration of the show. It made for one of the best concert experiences I’ve had this year.

If the merch-clad, mostly under-25 fan base is any indication, Bridgers has launched herself into “voice of a generation” territory. Born in Pasadena, she began her career as a teenager busking at a farmers market, then was accepted to the renowned Berklee College of Music only to drop out to launch her career. At 16, she wrote “Waiting Room” — which she played on Tuesday — a song that attracted superproducer Tony Berg (Beck, At the Drive-In, Sombr) to help on her debut LP “Stranger in the Alps.”

In 2018 came her “supergroup” with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus, boygenius, which ultimately scored her three Grammys. Then, Bridgers collaborated with Conor Oberst as Better Oblivion Community Center. But her breakout was 2020’s “Punisher,” which clocked in at No. 4 on Pitchfork’s best albums of the year list. That record resulted in one of her more notorious moments, a “Saturday Night Live” performance in which she smashed a guitar during “I Know the End,” a cacophonous wall of noise that served as a pre-encore closer at Chase Center. Her most recent album, this year’s “Lost Weekend,” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard vinyl album charts.

Despite all her accolades — and my early pandemic obsession with “Punisher” — I was skeptical of Bridgers’ ability to put on an arena-sized show. Was this wispy singer-songwriter who soundtracked my N-95-masked walks with my dog truly big enough to pack the nearly 20,000-seat venue two nights in a row? And could her intimate moments translate to a venue’s monstrous sound system? The answer was a resounding yes.

Alex G and his band opened the night with a tight set of his signature bedroom indie rock, enthusiastic to perform in “the house that Huey built,” presumably referencing Bay Area legends Huey Lewis and the News. They performed in the round on a small platform in the center of the floor, which played to their strength as lazy afternoon rockers rather than trying to amp up their energy for an arena-sized stage. That second miniature stage would also prove to be Bridgers’ secret weapon.

When she began her 26-song set, the main stage was covered by a large dome, which lifted into the air to reveal a band of nearly a dozen players equipped with everything from trumpets to cellos. The dome hung overhead throughout the set. Tilted toward the audience, it served as a projection surface. Bridgers donned a lacy black dress, and the close-up video on the screens hanging from the rafters showed sparkling silver makeup streaked down her cheeks.

Despite the lacy, glittery appearance, my doubts about her ability to deliver arena riffs were immediately smashed like that “SNL” guitar. The band made their instruments howl like lost souls on “Kill Me.”

“What the f—k is up San Francisco? It’s nice to see you again, you guys look really cute,” she said from the stage before introducing “Lost Boys,” which she wrote alongside opener Alex G. When the plucked guitar intro of “The Governors Waltz” rang out, it was overshadowed by high-pitched screams from the crowd, followed by an epic sing-along (“Let’s see how long we can go without touching, why don’t you sing me to sleep?”).

After about 45 minutes, Bridgers marched through the audience to the smaller stage, where she sat on the ground playing piano to “Lost Weekend,” before being joined by fiddle, mandolin, bass and cello on “Funeral.” The smaller cast of collaborators allowed Bridgers to indulge in the quieter side of her catalog, predominantly from the “Lost Weekend” album. She explained the album was about the death of her estranged father, who appears on “Never Going Back!” in the form of a voicemail. On the second night, she also shared that her father would always take her to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival. Her fixation on voicemails also came across onstage, where she held up her “contraband” cellphone to play one from her grandfather into the microphone.

Later, Bridgers opined on the SF trend-of-the-moment with a quick “F—k AI,” then expressed gratitude for fans putting away their phones.

“I really, really appreciate you coming without your phones to this,” she said. “… Our lives are just becoming so much more separated and we’re streamlining s—t that’s about us being alive. … For me, it turned a heinous experience into an incredible one.”

After seven songs, Bridgers made her way along the edge of the pit back to the main stage, high-fiving fans along the way. This segment of the set included the dark grunge of “On Video,” a song she wrote for the film “Primetime,” in which she had her acting debut. In a nod to co-star Robert Pattinson, she noted that she wrote the song because she was too young when his “Twilight” series came out to write something for it. Her brother joined her on vocals for “I Can’t Wait,” and she dedicated a John Prine cover of “Summer’s End” to her grandfather, whom she spent summers with in Ukiah and had driven down for the show. She closed with “I Know the End.” The song concluded with an epic moment in which the entire crowd let out a guttural scream.

For the encore, Bridgers returned to the small stage to play the reprise to “Lost Weekend,” followed by “Scott Street.” The darkness of the crowd was dotted by the poignant tiny flames of lighters, instead of the harsh glow of cellphones.

Of course, throughout the set, I did feel some phantom urges to pull out my phone to capture a digital memento. But for a few precious hours, my attention was undivided by texts, news notifications or social media urges. In an era dominated by secondhand experiences, this was truly a “you had to be there” night. It made the concert feel personal despite the massive crowd.

In “Motion Sickness,” Bridgers sings the line “I want to know what would happen if I surrender to the sound” — her San Francisco fans found out the answer.