On October 9th, 2026, I–along with about 20,000 other people–attended Phoebe Bridgers’ Charlotte show at the Spectrum Center. A 26-song setlist made up about two hours of the night, making time itself feel as though it was  simultaneously barreling forward and stretching back. 

Phoebe Bridgers’ set began with her song “The Outside.” Her voice projected through the stadium through a disco-ball like orb, sounding like she was talking through a telephone. “The Outside” details Bridgers’ experience at her father’s funeral, expressing feelings of deep grief and dissociation. The titular line, “I am on the outside, watching” repeats throughout the song, directly expressing her emotional distance from this event. The method of delivery also directly correlates to Bridgers’ message of the song: she isn’t present, no one in the audience can see her, only hearing her voice. This choice feels very intentional, separating herself from the audience before this massive show, just like how she initially separated herself from the grief of losing her father while still acknowledging that she loved him, and despite her emotional separation from the funeral, it still affected her deeply.

There was a beat in the music, the instrumentals fading to silence. Almost immediately, across the stadium from the orb was the main stage where Bridgers and her band appeared, having emerged from under a large geometric half-dome. “Motion Sickness” is the next song to play. This song is about Bridgers’ past relationship with Ryan Adams, an older musical artist who is the subject of numerous accusations of relationship abuse, including some from Bridgers herself. She said of the song in her Tiny Desk Concert for NPR that the song is about “being in love with someone whose super mean to you.” The song continually battles with the two emotions of hatred for the treatment Bridgers faced in the relationship, and yearning for the love that she still carried, thus resulting in her “motion sickness.” This continues the themes of grief and love through a different lens, not familial but romantic. She grieves for the love that she had in the relationship, while simultaneously hating and rejecting those positive feelings because of his abusive treatment of her. These emotions are similarly mirrored in her continued songs about her relationship with her father.

After the catchy, rock-folk beat of “Motion Sickness”, Bridgers shuffled her feet as she swapped her electric guitar for an acoustic. Soft instrumentals came from the band, and “Kill Me” was performed. This song continues Bridgers’ exploration of romance and rejection, detailing both the end of her relationship with Paul Mescal, and exploring the beginning of her new relationship with Bo Burnham. The line, “He [Mescal] kissed me hello/He tastes like a flower with chemical petals/ Bobby [Burnham], you taught me that I know nothing,” shows a clear divide between the two relationships. At the end of their engagement, Mescal was insincere, represented as “a flower with chemical petals.” Flowers are a classical romantic gesture, something that serves as a physical manifestation of a person’s feelings, a gift. Here they are manipulated, the petals serving as a  perversion of a classic gesture revealing a level of deception. The flowers are real, a physical object, but the petals are manufactured, a replica of the real, natural thing. The position of flowers as a romantic gift also serves as a look into a kind of transactional nature of Mescal’s love for Bridgers; it is a thing to earn, something to be given at specialty rather than constantly or instinctively. Bridgers’ confession of Burnham–here addressed as Bobby–teaching her that she “knows nothing” is a direct contrast to Mescal’s facade of love, this line could be interpreted in many ways, Bridgers could be showing that Burnham is an intellectual equal, a creative inspiration, or a representation of love that she hasn’t experienced before. Here, I think true meaning holds less significance than the contrast itself, here it is being shown that Burnham’s love serves to develop Bridgers, pushing her beyond her limits, while Mescal’s pretending served to keep her within them. The anticipation throughout this song in lines like, “This is gonna kill me,”  also serves as a kind of grief, bracing for the impact of heartbreak because it's what she’s accustomed to. She is actively in love and learning from Burnham, but can’t help to prepare herself for what she feels is inevitable; disappointment, abandonment. 

Bridgers continued with her acoustic guitar, strumming it with only the piano accompanying her, “Governor’s Ball” is played. This song dives even further into her relationship with Mescal, its end, and Mescal’s new relationship with artist Gracie Abrams. It begins with Bridgers exploring her perspective of their demise. She sings, “I’m next to you, you’re next to nothing,” this line serves as a double entendre, next to Mescal, Bridgers feels overlooked, fading into the background, or–as she explores throughout her album–not present in her own life. It can also serve as a look into Bridgers’ perspective of him, at this point in their relationship he is nothing to her, absent of all feelings she formerly had, no more special than a stranger. Her feelings of indifference to Mescal’s new relationship are also revealed, “Since she took my place in my bed on that stage/ I have not lost any sleep.” This is seemingly a reference to similarities between Bridgers’ personal bed, and Abrams’ false bed used on her stage during tour. They have the same white metal bedframe and rocket ship bedsheets, almost a physical representation of their swapping roles as it relates to Mescal. Bridgers’ nonchalance and seemingly uncaring attitude towards the break up and subsequent new relationship corroborate her emotional detachment. She has moved past her and Mescal, but she ostensibly leaves a message to Abrams in the final line, “Being myself wasn’t easy/ Do it for me.” She grieves her true self that she felt unable to express, but also loves the new relationship where she is able to do just that.

The music began to pick up from the slow ballad of “Governor’s Ball”, Bridgers shifted back to electric guitar for Lost Weekend’s lead single, “Lost Boys”. This is Bridgers’ musical revenge against emotionally immature men. The title, a reference to Peter Pan Syndrome, succinctly describes the complaints of the song. Bridgers is tired of dealing with men who rely on her like children, in other words, she is not their mother. “This machine is killing me/ I pretended it was make-believe,” this line aligns with the fantastical imagery connected to the song, the music video taking place at a Renaissance festival. These men are much more comfortable living in their own fantasies of life, avoiding responsibilities or never spending their “lunch money,” as Bridgers puts it. The elven costuming also shows how Bridgers herself is placed in a fantasy. In reaction to this irresponsible and likely embarrassing behavior, she pretends that it isn’t real, that maybe she is dreaming and will wake up. The “machine” she complains of can also be interpreted as the conquest of dating in the modern world. The expectations thrust upon women–and people as a whole–to find a partner and marry by a certain age. She has grown tired of participating in this cycle of disappointment and heartbreak, while also mourning the fantasy of love that she has been fed and expected to fulfill. There is another side of this song as well, the perspective of Phoebe as a lost boy. She isn’t just hating on men she thinks should grow up, but she is also immersing herself in the fantasy of childhood, a life without responsibilities, and a grieving of her life before these impossible expectations were placed upon her. The “machine”is representing the adult responsibilities the lost boys work so hard to avoid. She expresses this camaraderie with the line, “Lost boys, come find me.” This banding together represents a kind of shared regression that she has with these men, simultaneously judging and commiserating with them against the expectations that they had of adulthood versus the bleak reality they now face.

The music fades into Bridgers’ song, “DVD Menu”, a mellow instrumental that allowed for a slow transition to her sophomore album Punisher. The music blended into that familiar Punisher pace, slow and light as “Garden Song” began. This song explores Bridgers’ own psyche, diving into her childhood and the power of thinking. She details her childhood, or how it appears in her dreams, “I grew up here, till it all went up in flames.” Bridgers drifts through moments in her life, her reality shifting around her to represent each one, but she focuses on her childhood, or a moment when it “went up in flames.” Her lingering in this moment shows how the shift from childhood to adulthood was perceived by her, not as a development, but as a destruction of something that once was. There also exists this comfort in her description of her hometown. The details she clings to are those of people around her, of things she once idolized as a child that now serve as points of motivation in her journey as an artist. There exists this love, something different from the intrapersonal varieties described in the other songs. This is a love of nostalgia, a love of a time in her life when things were still dream-like, something she can only experience now in sleep. Her adult dreams are the memories of her childhood dreams. She also details a doctor telling her that her “resentment’s getting smaller.” Bridgers is maturing, moving past the grudges she held early in her life. This opens the door back up to Bridgers’ relationship with her father, and how that affected her memories of her childhood, and subsequently how she remembers him after his death.

This tone continued, each song faded into the next, the guitar now deeper in tone, a kind of melancholy saved for Bridgers’ “Moon Song.” This song describes Bridgers’ experiences with one-sided love, the subject widely considered to be artist Connor Oberst. This exploration of romance is raw, painful, and overwhelming. The reality of this relationship reveals itself to be hurtful to both parties, and ultimately an expression of love to the point of self destruction. Bridgers expresses her devotion, “So I will wait for the next time you want me/ Like a dog with a bird at your door,” her positioning herself as a dog reveals her loyalty to this person, that she will follow them wherever, ready to prove herself worthy of the love she seeks. The impossibility of this relationship is clearly represented through the imagery she utilizes, “And if I could give you the moon/ I would give you the moon.” Bridgers, so desperate to be put in a place of importance, promises things she can’t possibly fulfill, mirroring the tense situation she later describes: “You are sick, and you’re married, and you might be dying.” Despite all of this, every obstacle between them and a true label of a couple, Bridgers can’t help but feel attached to this person. Ultimately, her expression of devotion goes misunderstood and resented by the one she does it for: “When you saw the dead bird, you started crying/ But you know the killer doesn’t understand.” The action goes unappreciated, actually upsetting the intended recipient. However, the situation is also simultaneously understood, Bridgers doesn’t understand why this gesture isn’t celebrated, and she can’t be faulted for that. But however much is sacrificed or done for this relationship, it is ultimately impossible and will never actually be real. 

The slow tone of Punisher began to pick up, Bridgers’ band coming back into the equation to liven up the crowd. The poppier strumming of “Liberty Tree” filled the stadium. Bridgers reflects on romantic moments with Bobby, Bo Burnham—against the backdrop of a “dying” mall. This joyful moment is also said to be happening “after [their] fight,” starkly opposing her past tales of rejection and a facade of happiness. Here, Bridgers explores the differing love she experiences with Bobby, “I’m sticking out my tongue/And lifting up my shirt.” This kind of playful expression of happiness is completely devoid in her songs about her past partners, those ballads marred by repression and suffering in the name of love. Still, that anticipatory grief is ever-present, “Don’t die Bobby/Before I die.” This could represent her line of thinking post losing her father, clinging to these memories she’s making with Bobby after facing just how fragile human life is. She wants to keep Bobby around as long as possible so she doesn’t have to begin grieving him too, it is grief for the grief to come. But it is also a celebration, being able to live in the moment with him, and look forward to the future she is able to have is a luxury she has not been afforded in past relationships. The steadiness of her love with Bobby allows for her mind to extend beyond tenuous arguments or competitions for love. She is able to build a future with Bobby, continuing building beyond her grief both romantic and for her father.

While this is only a section of my experience seeing Phoebe Bridgers live, and only a few of the songs she performed which painted the breathtaking story she told, it is still significant. Bridgers’ reflection on her past with painful relationships, childhood dreams and expectations, and relating these experiences to her tensions with her father, allow for a more nuanced perspective on how love and grief can coexist together. That loving something in the present can also involve the grief of your past, to enjoy and immerse yourself in the present can mean leaving the past behind, however painful that may be. And how oftentimes, the ultimate act of love is the act of grieving.