Union Chapel, London
Ahead of playing arenas this winter, Bridgers gives her third album, Lost Weekend, a stripped-back UK debut that makes its bewitching songs sound even more astounding
Three days after the rapturous release of her third album, Lost Weekend, Phoebe Bridgers invites 900 people into her bedroom to hear her play some of its devastating songs live – or at least, that’s how it feels inside Union Chapel in north London on this Monday night. With Bridgers plopped on a throw-covered sofa, surrounded by lava lamps and with a TV showing the bouncing DVD logo screensaver, it becomes easy to forget the Victorian gothic architecture looming above our heads.
This intimate scene is the indie superstar’s hugely anticipated first solo UK show since 2022, and the reverent awe in the church is palpable. Fans have obediently locked away their phones in magnetic pouches – as they will also have to on her arena run later this year – and fidget in the pews clutching CDs and T-shirts emblazoned with the artwork for her new record. You can hear a proverbial pin drop when Bridgers opens the show by belting her breakout song Motion Sickness solo with her guitar, her voice somersaulting around the domed ceiling. (After this, she is joined on stage by two bandmates, Nick White and Christian Lee Hutson.) But Bridgers, who hums with a slightly nervous energy, characteristically pierces through any solemnity by encouraging us to scream and sing along as the gig rolls on. After all, she quips: “God’s watching – fuckin’ freak.”
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