There Are Definitely Dads in the Audience

Phoebe Bridgers' joyful performance with a nine-piece band of kids felt like more than just another stunt.

Like any good indie-rock dude with a particular penchant for sad acoustic music, I was a fan of Phoebe Bridgers long before she became the cultural juggernaut she is today. Stranger in the Alps was an immediate favorite thanks largely to “Funeral,” which is so good it makes me sick. I remember pre-ordering Punisher in early 2020, then watching from my couch as the album cycle got turned upside down by Covid, but in a way that she somehow used to her advantage. I remember the late-night talk show appearance where she was filmed doing donuts in a parking lot. I remember the Tiny Desk where she was dressed in business attire in front of a green-screen Oval Office. I think I remember her performing in a bathtub for Pitchfork? (I’m wrong, it was Kimmel) She’d cracked some sort of code, and you could tell she was on her way to becoming a big deal.

By June of 2022, when my wife, two daughters, and I saw her perform at Forest Hills Stadium as part of her massive “Reunion Tour,” my oldest, then just 12, had become enough of a fan to know all the songs and to be especially psyched that we got to see “Waiting Room,” which, at the time, closed some shows but not all of them.

Before playing “Kyoto” that night, Phoebe said, “Are there any dads in the audience? Raise your hand if you’re a dad.” Then she waved and said, “Hello,” as if we must have been meeting for the first time, mere chaperones. After the crowd erupted in some combination of applause and laughter, she said, “You are welcome here, just so you know.” But it spoke volumes that she had to say as much.

Suffice it to say, at some point Phoebe and the boys and the whole gang came to belong to my daughter and not to me, and the experience of handing it over or passing it down—or having it ripped from my grasp and being left in its wake—has, as I’ve said here before, been one of the greatest joys of my life.

When Bridgers released “Lost Boys,” the first single from her wildly anticipated new album, Lost Weekend, a few weeks ago, it didn’t even occur to me to write about it, which feels crazy in retrospect. It’s a really good song, as I knew it would be. She’s too savvy, too good at this whole thing, to have come back after so much time away with a song that wasn’t worth the wait.

My daughter and I talked about it the day it came out, I pre-ordered the record, and then I didn’t really go back to it until yesterday morning when I saw that she’d made a surprise appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon the night before.

Everything she's done in advance of Lost Weekend has been well outside the norm, from waiting more than six years to release it, for starters, to playing a series of nearly free pop-up shows announced at the last minute in random cities across the country, culminating in a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden. I assumed the unannounced nature of the Fallon appearance would be enough of a hook for it to stand on its own, but no. As you’ve probably seen by now, she performed the song backed by a nine-piece band made up of children who looked to be between 10 and 15 years old if I had to guess.

When I first saw a clip of it on Instagram, my initial thought was, My god, does literally everything need to be a bit? But then two things happened.

First, I started thinking about how so much of her career thus far, and especially in the past six years since things really took off, seems to be the result of her saying, “Yo, wouldn’t it be so fucking rad if…” and then actually going ahead and doing the thing that, for most people, wouldn’t get past the joke stage. The tour with no pre-announced tour dates. The Oval Office thing. The skeleton onesie that would inspire a millon Halloween costumes. The smashed guitar on SNL. Though I’m sure she’d never cop to it, she is without question a marketing genius—which would be far more annoying if she didn’t also happen to be a generational songwriting talent.

Second, I actually watched the performance. And it’s fucking delightful. Like, outrageously so. It starts with a tight shot of Phoebe singing, then slowly zooms out to reveal the rest of the band. It gives you a moment to take it all in, to get a good look at all of them and confirm that you’re seeing what you think you’re seeing. When the first chorus hits and the music is firing on all cylinders, the crowd cheers, Phoebe cracks a smile, and I immediately shed a tear.

From there, it’s just pure joy. The drummer is an obvious rock star. The kid with the Les Paul seems cool. The girl on bass is awesome. But my favorite is the little boy on keys, who looks like he came straight from the barber’s chair and is having the time of his life, looking around with the biggest smile on his face and intermittently staring up at Phoebe like he can't believe what's happening. She dances back toward the drums, they absolutely nail a big rock ending that even Phoebe doesn’t seem to see coming, the kid on 12-string throws his pick into the crowd, and Jimmy Fallon says “Oh my goodness, that was fantastic” as he gives out hugs and high-fives. For once, I don’t question his enthusiasm. And I feel like an idiot for almost writing the whole thing off as a bit.

Like I said, I know you’ve probably seen clips on social, but it’s worth a full five minutes of your time if you could use a smile.

Pre-order Lost Weekend here. And good luck braving the secondary market for The Lost Tour tickets.

I’ve created a Spotify playlist of all the songs I’ve been writing about here, which I update every weekday. Follow along and share if you’re so inclined.