By Variety | Created at 2026-08-14 07:03:39 | Updated at 2026-08-14 09:08:51
4 hours ago
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’ve had this idea forever” she said to the crowd of about 200 sitting on the rink’s floor. “I always thought it would be cool to do like a Grouper Moonlight night… You always kind of skate to ABBA or something. 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. “I always thought about that at Six Flags,” she said saying that, while waiting in line for rides, she’d wished she could take the typical revved-up theme-park soundtrack and “catapult it somewhere” and replace it with music that was “30 bpm or something.” To her mind, slowcore and Tatsu might be the perfect fit.
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. “Well, there’s a movie called ‘Lost Weekend’ that’s about alcoholics’ kind of fugue state,” she said, referencing the harrowing 1945 Billy Wilder drama that some of her younger fans might not know. “That probably goes well (with the album), unfortunately.” She hesitated while trying to think of another example, then did come up with a musical reference point. “Do you guys know ‘The Lemon of Pink’ by the Books?” (Not everyone did — the Books are not exactly a household name — but some murmured their assent for the 2003 album, which has a strong following as a seminal indie-oughts cult record.)
Someone else wondered: Why the small-town pop-up tour? And what was her takeaway from what seemed like it might be an experiment? “I just wanted everything with this album to feel like it’s happening in real life,” she explained. “Like, I didn’t live through a time where I didn’t find out about something on the internet. Even cool pop-up shows and stuff, it was all kind of phone-based. So I just liked the idea of plastering a small town (with flyers)… It was so fun.” Her answer to the second part of the question: “The biggest takeaway was like, yeah, the internet’s not real. It’s all a fake,” she said, to laughter.
Another question: How did she decide it was time to come back? — the unspoken assumption being that six years between albums counts as a lot, even if there was a monumental Boygenius album and tour in between that came to feel like a very viable separate career.
“I mean, I didn’t love all parts of being away,” she said, with a chuckle, noting that while she knew she needed to pull away for a bit, it wasn’t necessarily a plan to wait this long. “I kept booking studio time and then putting it off… and booking studio time and putting it off, and putting it off… I really wanted to be making something,” she allowed, but the album was not yet ready to take shape. “So I just started going in and then taking six months off and then going (back). So this album took forever. Which is great!,” she added, harboring no regrets about leaving anyone in suspense.
After those and a few other questions, it was time for her to sign the big stack of posters commemorating the event. Prior to the Q&A, meanwhile, Bridgers premiered a rough cut of the second video for the album, for the song “I Can’t Wait,” which she said was nearly done, except for some drone footage that was shot during this very event that will be folded in.
There was a no-phones policy, but there were also no NDAs, so fans freely shared their experiences on Reddit and other forums after the event… including their impressions about Phoebe Bridgers being as good at skating as at music.
“I ate shit 3 times out there and got a sore ass today,” wrote one fan. “It was even more embarrassing because she was shredding around the rink.”
Others spoke of approaching Bo Burnham or Bridgers’ mother, Jamie Bridgers, for off-rink convos. But when it came to meeting the star attraction, some found her intimidating, despite her best efforts to be a fairly unassuming skatergrl. Some agonized afterward about not having found the right words when they made it to the front of the signing line. One spoke of becoming tongue-tied, but “I was towards the end of the line and it had been almost 2 hours at that point. She probably did appreciate our efficiency lol!!” Another wrote, “I just said ‘Yo this album fucking rips,’ and she laughed and said thanks.” One person who admitted being unable to do anything but blurt out their name said that as they left the signing table, Bridgers politely called out, “It was nice to meet you.”
What will she do for an encore? That’s obvious: do sold-out two- and three-nighters at the nation’s biggest arenas, like the three-night stand she has upcoming at the Intuit Dome Oct. 30-31 and Nov. 1. Between now and then, there is much parsing of the 16-track album’s rich content to be done, with millions of words of formal and informal think-pieces to come. (Read Variety‘s own take on the album here.)
While fans who didn’t make it to the Moonlight Rollerway may have a lingering case of FOMO, it may still be possible to replicate the feel that Bridgers was going for, as she’s longed to marry slow sounds with frenetic action. You could go to Magic Mountain and do X2 while listening to “Lost Weekend” on earbuds; we can now be certain the author would approve.
