The beaming singer relished in taking slow songs out for a spin, as she made a surprise appearance at the YouTube-sponsored event, also doing a Q&A about an album she hasn't otherwise discussed publicly. Phoebe Bridgers tends to stand out in a crowd, and not just because of her celebrity or natural star quality, but because of the hair; other women around L.A. may go for the platinum blonde look, but not quite that platinum. So it was fairly easy to pick her out for the entirety of the 10 minutes or so she spent skating with her fans Tuesday night at the Moonlight Rollerway in Glendale, California.
But she was easy to spot, in this instance, from head to toe, as she was the only skater on the floor in brightly strobing light-up skates… an equipment option that the Moonlight was not able to offer any of the couple hundred fans who joined her. At this very action-packed listening party for her. The beaming Bridgers had earned the right to wear skates that special; this was not her first rodeo, clearly, when it came to making dozens of laps around a rink and outpacing a crowd.
As one fan commented on Reddit after the YouTube-sponsored event: “She was skating right with everyone, and if you could match her speed then you could say hello, but she is FAST so it may have been a bit difficult.” Of all the albums that could be previewed with an evening out at an old-school roller rink, “Lost Weekend,” the singer’s long-awaited third solo album, would not jump out as the most obvious candidate… even if Bridgers is hell on wheels, as it turns out. The 16-track record has as many hushed passages as you’d expect from a Bridgers album, and it does not sound at all designed to inspire extended bouts of cardiovascular activity. And Bridgers did use the word “weird” in characterizing the juxtaposition when she spoke about her reasons for hosting the event there in a brief Q&A she did with fans at the event after the skating wound down.
Yet, for her, it was an aspiration being realized. I thought it would be interesting to listen to sad and slow songs and skate.” She’s had the same impulse at amusement parks, she pointed out. Anyway, Bridgers’ promotional campaign for “Lost Weekend” has been unusual enough that a rollerskating listening party almost — almost — doesn’t stand out as that unusual. ,The singer-songwriter first began teasing “Lost Weekend” a few months ago with a series of pop-up gigs in small towns and middle American cities, places like Roswell, New Mexico, before the album was announced or even widely known to be in production.
WIth the moment of release finally at hand, her team booked planetariums across the country and even in Europe for Spotify-sponsored listening parties where fans could experience the album for the first time this week with trippy visuals, if sore necks — a way of getting “Lost” in space, sort of. (And no phones allowed, as with virtually every pre-release event for the record.) Another fairy unusual element of the promo campaign: no interviews. She hasn’t done a single one for “Lost Weekend,” so the roughly six minutes she spent answering fan questions at the Moonlight Rollerway may have constituted as much talking about the record as she plans to do, at least right away. Bridgers didn’t exactly talk anyone’s ear off in her quick, friendly response to the fan queries, but the answers still offered glimpses of insight as to where she’s coming from with this album and its attendant cycle of events and touring.
One of the first hands that went up from the crowd was to ask whether she’d been inspired by any other artistic media while making the record. And what was her takeaway from what seemed like it might be an experiment? Even cool pop-up shows and stuff, it was all kind of phone-based.
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