Read previous – Phoebe Bridgers @ Asbury Lanes
By the time I arrived in Asbury Park (about an hour before doors), the line at The Stone Pony Summer Stage was already wrapped around the venue and continued down the street to The Carousel Building along Asbury Ave. Literally, WTF? For those that eventually earned a coveted spot along the barricade, I imagine most of them must have been camped out all day in the 80+ degree sun (a point that will be important later). Needless to say, this was a sold out show.
The last time Phoebe Bridgers played Asbury Park was in 2018 (on her Stranger in the Alps tour) where she performed in “a bowling alley” (i.e., Asbury Lanes), a venue with a fraction of the capacity of The Summer Stage. For that show, I recall strolling right in at doors and being only a couple people off the barricade (check out our photos from that show here). While she was already a pretty big deal back then, oh what a few years make (including Grammy nominations, a collab with Taylor Swift on RedTV, and so much more).
Bridgers released her Grammy-nominated sophomore LP Punisher during the peak of the pandemic quarantine – it couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time as we were already so isolated and who didn’t need yet another reason to be depressed? And you know we all ate it up.
For this leg of Bridgers’ exclusively outdoor “Reunion Tour” she brought along Saddest Factory artist Claud who we just so coincidentally saw at this same exact venue last summer at Jack Antonoff’s Shadow of the City festival (check out our coverage here). Claud is just so damn good, I really need to listen to their music more often. They just released a rad new track titled “Go Home!“. Being Claud’s last show on this tour, they commemorated it by giving Bridgers a Father’s Day card. Bridgers also made a brief cameo during their set when she came to the rescue and plugged a guitar cord back in (Phoebe fixes everything, after all).
Bridgers began her set with Stranger in the Alps track “Motion Sickness” before playing through the entirety of Punisher in order (with Alps tracks thrown in for good measure). It was at this time the fainting began, seemingly from a combination of dehydration and swooning with simultaneous screams of distress and joy intermingling. Kudos to the staff and EMTs for looking after the crowd. As Bridgers ended her set with the climactic “I Know the End”, the band left the stage while feedback continued to blare through the speakers. Re-joining the stage, Bridgers kicked of their encore with a cover of a lesser known Springsteen track, “Stolen Car” (a version inspired by Patty Griffin). When in Rome, right? She ended the night with fan favorite deep cut “Waiting Room” and sent the audience off for the night with “Iris” playing over the venue speakers. You can check out the full setlist here.
Phoebe Bridgers recently released a new track titled “Sidelines” – it was written for Hulu’s “Conversations with Friends”, a show starring Joe Alwyn and Jemima Kirke. Featuring various footage from their ongoing “Reunion Tour”, check out the music video below and keep scrolling to see more photos from the show.
