This past Tuesday, I traveled back in time in a way. This metaphorical time travel happened at a Phoebe Bridgers concert in Boston. Bridgers, known for her gut-wrenching music and ghost white hair, is currently touring for her album Lost Weekend, her first since 2020. The singer-songwriter’s one caveat for this tour was a simple yet daunting one: no phones. How would this work exactly? As soon as we scanned our tickets, our phones were locked in a pouch that we carried with us and weren’t unlocked until the concert was over. I was a little wary about this at first, but looking back I loved the phoneless experience in so many different ways.Â
The lack of technology didn’t just alter the music set itself, but also the moments in between. As we waited for Bridgers to take the stage, I noticed people striking up conversation with the strangers around them. As I stood in the nosebleeds at TD Garden, I was transported back twenty something years to a time before the iPhone. In the audience surrounding me, the one key fixture of many concerts today was absent. No camera flashlights waving in the air, no phones raised up taking videos and no loud notifications interrupting the music. Instead, I looked down on fans dancing without a care in the world and living fully in the moment. Often at concerts, I feel conflicted between filming snippets of songs to look back on later or being fully present. At Phoebe, this burden was eliminated for me, giving me no choice but to completely immerse myself in the moment.Â
My favorite part of the concert that I will remember for a very long time was her last song, “Scott Street”. Not only is this one of my favorite songs by Bridgers, but looking down on the audience around me was what made this moment so special. As the song faded into the outro, with the verse “Anyway, don’t be a stranger” echoing in the background, everyone in the audience was waving their hands back and forth in unison. Not a phone in sight, just an arena full of people all coming together and celebrating their shared love for the artist and her music. All in all, I am a big fan of the no-phone policy. It truly made my concert experience all the more memorable and enjoyable. While the concept of a phoneless concert is definitely a controversial one, I hope that more artists start to implement it in the future.