Experiencing art through its extensive catalogue of mediums, from paintings, to acting or music, is all equally a privilege, despite how common it is in our city.
Living in such a well-known city – one that musicians fail to miss when touring North America — makes us ever so lucky to be at the centre of entertainment. Regardless of this privilege, social media makes these musical experiences shared, even among those who have not attended these concerts. This in itself, allows for some novelty or intimacy to be lost, as these concerts live online for everybody to observe.
Amongst the countless Ticketmaster wars — with buyers manifesting to beat other fans in the queue, finding the perfect seats, and staying within a realistic budget — viewing concerts through the screen seems to be the most accessible for fans who might have been dealt a bad hand.
One of these Ticketmaster wars was for Phoebe Bridgers, a Grammy award-winning indie rock and folk artist. Bridgers is well known for her independent career and her involvement with the band Boygenius, with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus. Her music acts as a diary of mundane passive acts combined with a tinge of melancholy, making it beyond relatable to the everyday person, especially because of her deeper reflections on death, mental health, and relationships.
After Bridgers’ less than ideal performance at Toronto’s Echo Beach in 2022, fans were more than ready for a new opportunity to see her live again. On June 5 2026, Bridgers announced the Lost Tour to accompany the release of her latest album, Lost Weekend.
However, fans did not anticipate the reveal of Bridgers’ one condition: the tour would ban phone recording inside the venue.
Countless online discourses followed the announcement. Fans felt that their purchase of a ticket should allow them to record for the memories, online recognition, and to share with family and friends. These reasons for recording concerts are ever so common, and I fall victim to them at times as well.
However, attending my first ‘no phones’ concert allowed me to question what it really means to experience, and how it would change my interpretation of the present.
Through My Eyes
Upon arrival at night two of the Lost Tour on October 2nd at Scotiabank Arena, my tickets were immediately scanned, and I received a printed version of the seats. Afterwards, phones were shut off and placed into magnetically locked Yondr pouches. These Yondr pouches, with lanyards attached to allow for the safekeeping of devices, were allowed to be unlocked in specific zones of the venue, so friends could text one another to find each other, or keep family updated. Therefore, concerns of safety seemed easily avoided in these sections.
In the replacement for digital photos, Bridgers’ team provided a printed photo booth to allow for physical mementos. However, many found the singular stand and its early closing time to be disappointing.
Despite this complaint, the no-technology environment spoke to the essence of the concert experience, where it was not only an art experience, but also a social one for meeting others with similar interests and musical tastes. While waiting in merchandise or photo booth lines, or for Bridgers’ act to begin, your only available entertainment was conversing in excitement with others.
The concert itself, however, was a fleeting moment. Both intimate and a collective secret to those around, talk outside of the concert always seemed to boil down to “it was so good, I wish I could show you, but I can’t,” creating a sort of exclusivity and need for others to trust blindly.
Nonetheless, each song played stung even harder, in the pursuit of human connection between Bridgers and her fans, notably in her sharing the complexities of grief relating to her absent father’s death. This one moment of time, where the music whispers an anecdote between seemingly relatable lyrics, is kept singular, as these raw emotions and experiences are contained to those present.
These stories cannot be put on blast and criticized by a judgmental online world — they instead allow fans to have active reflection, remembering only a few heart-wrenching words that truly stood out. Without recording, there is no way to quote these feelings exactly, and it reminds us of the present’s transience, as we try to ignore the past or future, knowing we have no tangible evidence to salvage from the venue.
These raw emotional wounds are not only left to fester through words, but also through the visual images, stage pieces, lights and structure of the show. The one condition of no phones took away the multitasking most feel when recording, focusing on exposure, focus, angle, and centring of the video to fit perfectly onto an Instagram concert story highlight. Most noticeably, the lights and their projections throughout the arena triggered a sort of out-of-body experience, where everyone stood there in awe.
Looking at every corner of the venue for a different light, and at the stage itself for props, only leaving people able to ‘record’ these views on paper and pencil. Especially after the Toronto shows, fans and various artists have uploaded their own ‘notes’ from the concert, and memory-based drawings of certain songs and sets onto social media. Despite evidence of the concert being sprinkled throughout art, the experience is to be remembered through sensory details and ongoing discussion about the art, to extend the concert’s lifespan, rather than through videos.
Through these aspects, in both the lyrics and the visual aesthetics, the meaning of what true experience is in the age of social media and technology is indeed questioned. True experience causes perception to be the lived-in moment, through those around you, the source of the music, visuals and storytelling, allowing for a secretive experience through eyes and not screens.