It feels weird to see Phoebe Bridgers in real life. The singer-songwriter’s rise mid-pandemic – or as she puts it, partway through a “s*** hellstorm” – has meant she has mostly manifested as pixels on a screen. The Grammy nominee was forced to make her Jimmy Kimmel debut last year via video call from the bathtub of her LA home; she was in her pyjamas. But here she is tonight at the Brixton O2 Academy in the flesh. The thrill of Bridgers’ physical presence isn’t lost on her fans who shriek at the sight of her when she unexpectedly – but characteristically – ducks on stage early on to casually introduce her supporting act: “Wazzup?”
A veil of reverence cloaks this crowd, though. By the time Bridgers’ voice, a feathery falsetto, floats in on the wistful opening chords of “Motion Sickness”, her exquisite breakout song from 2017 about singer-songwriter Ryan Adams, the screams temper to a hush. And there they remain for “DVD Menu”, the instrumental opening to Punisher, her second album that revealed a spikier side to the gently plucked musings of her debut. Like a scene out of an Eighties horror film, the fog rolls in around her ankles (courtesy of a smoke machine that is working overtime tonight) as the looping synths and grunting strings set the scene for an evening that moves fluidly between Bridgers’ most deafening howls and her softest whispers.
