Know your Swift openers, Philly

Starting last week in Nashville, Phoebe Bridgers has held the principal opening act position on Taylor Swift’s Era Tour. The Los Angeles songwriter, who is a singer of sadly beautiful songs, is one of the three members of the indie pop supergroup, boygenius.

Bridgers brings added value to the Eras Tour dates at Lincoln Financial Field this weekend on several levels. For starters, she’s really good. On two albums — 2017′s Stranger in the Alps and 2020′s Punisher — she’s proven herself to be an expert at constructing emotionally devastating story songs, like “Motion Sickness” and “Funeral” on the former album, and “Kyoto” and “I Know the End” on the latter.

But besides her own albums, Bridgers — who’s known for wearing skeleton print pajamas and onesies on stage — has a hand in various side projects and collaborations. Every holiday season she releases a cover version of a cleverly chosen not-quite-a-Christmas song. Last year it was the Handsome Family’s “So Much Wine.” And in 2019, she teamed with Connor Oberst of Bright Eyes in the indie folk project Better Oblivion Community Center.

But most intriguingly, Bridgers is a member of boygenius, the all-woman indie-pop supergroup whose other members are Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker. Bridgers first met Dacus, who now lives in Philadelphia, at the Non Commvention at the World Cafe Live in 2018. The trio released a self titled EP that year, and finally followed it up with a full length LP called The Record in March.

Last weekend at the Eras Tour in Nashville, there were no opening acts on the third night of the tour, thanks to a rainstorm. But in the first two shows, Bridgers had plenty of impact.

On the first night, she played six of her own songs before being joined by Dacus and Baker for three boygenius songs. Shouldn’t that also happen in Philadelphia, where Dacus lives?

Later on in Nashville, during Swift’s headlining set, Bridgers joined her for “Nothing New,” the song from Red (Taylor’s Version),” the 2021 re-recorded iteration of the album that Swift originally released in 2012. Bridgers sang on the song on the updated album and seems in the nightly pattern of joining Swift for it.

But wait, there’s more: during the second Eras show in Nashville, Swifties swiftly noticed that there was an additional guitarist dressed in a skeleton suit in Bridger’s band. And yes, it was Matty Healy, lead singer of the British band The 1975 who Swift is rumored to be dating. Further potential sightings make Bridgers set more unmissable than it already was.

Gayle, the Plano, Texas-raised singer born Taylor Gayle Rutherfurd, will be opening Swift’s shows on Friday and Saturday at the Linc. The singer went viral on TikTok last year with her single “abcdefu,” which was nominated for a song of the year Grammy. In the song, the 18-year-old singer who co-wrote Kelly Clarkson’s single “Me,” tells an ex how she feels about him in no uncertain terms. It is nearing 1 billion streams on Spotify. Let’s just say, its a break up song that’s a bit more blunt in its language than the headliner is in her songs.

“abcdefu,” which has also been released in a “nicer” version called “abc” is included on Gayle’s debut EP, A Study of the Human Experience Volume One.

Gracie Abrams, daughter of film director J.J. Abrams and TV producer Kate McGrath, is a showbiz scion. Since putting out her first single “Mean It” in 2019, her detailed and diaristic bedroom pop songs have won the praise of artists like Swift, Lorde, and Billie Eilish. The 22-year-old singer, who dropped out of Barnard College to pursue a music career, opened for Olivia Rodrigo on some tour dates last year. She also teamed with Swift collaborator Aaron Dessner on her 2021 single “Rockland,” as a well as three songs on her album Good Riddance, which was released in February. An expanded version of that album is due next month.

All your logistical information about the three Taylor Swift shows at the Linc can be found here.