Phoebe Bridgers Showed Us How To See In The Dark

PHILADELPHIA — When the lights went out, a crisp, adolescent shriek rose from all sides of the arena, anticipating her arrival. But she did not come, not just yet. Instead, a silence fell heavy and unsettled where the shrieking had been, as if making space for the ball at the other end of the arena, descending ever so slowly, blinking blue, pulsing as if it were alive. More than 40,000 eyes fixated on the descending orb. It was round, but not a perfect sphere, with bumps and craters on its surface like a morning star weapon with all of its spikes truncated, or a children’s bumble ball powder coated in black. Though I was on the other side of the arena, and thousands of people were between me and the ball, it was dark, and there was nothing but air to separate us. I looked at the ball the way I look at the moon, with an awe bordering on reverence. Then it followed the same slow path back up into the rafters, and for a little while, I forgot about it. On the main stage a large half-circle dome rested atop the space where Phoebe Bridgers would eventually emerge, like the kind of mesh tents that protect food from the prowling bites of bugs. As the ball on one side of the arena disappeared, the tent on the other lit up. The shrieks began again. And then it lifted, lights gleaming from the edge of it straight down so that Bridgers’ black dress was awash in so much light that it looked gray and the whole dome had the appearance of a UFO lifting off the ground in a movie.

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