I promise that I’m not quietly turning this into a music blog. I’m still a mindfulness teacher and plan to keep writing about this topic for lawyers. In the last few months, though, I have been to a lot of concerts. They have all been wonderful, but the most recent one made a big impression. I think a big piece of it was that I didn’t have access to my phone.
I have experienced this before with shows. It’s not unheard of, but I have always regarded it as a nuisance before. After seeing Phoebe Bridgers recently, I have totally changed my tune. She took my phone at the door and I am so glad. The show was better.
This post explains why I loved not having my phone for the concert and what that can teach all of us about mindfulness.
The Downside of Giving Up Your Phone at a Concert
I have to be honest here. There are some real practical downsides of giving up your phone at a concert. Let’s start with the first big one. It takes extra time.
Though I have gone to shows before where phones had to be secured, I have never experienced this at such a large venue. At the Phoebe Bridgers concert this weekend, security guards had to secure 20,000 phones in Yondr pouches. This meant a 40-minute wait outside of the venue in light rain just to get inside.
We actually wanted to see the opening act, Alex G, so this added a little bit of anxiety to our wait. Luckily, we made it just in time but the lights were already dimmed as we found our seats.
Because I didn’t have my phone I had no flashlight to help me find my seats. This meant I had to bother other people and ask their seat number to orient myself. Fortunately, they were friendly, but it was a bit awkward.
The Benefits of Watching a Concert without Your Phone
Despite all the downsides above, I didn’t even think about my phone as soon as Phoebe Bridgers started playing. The concert was an immersive and deeply emotional experience. Her latest album, Lost Weekend, is about grief and loss, as well as the hope found on the other side of it.
It’s a deeply intimate album and I wondered walking in how it would translate in a crowd of 20,000. I was shocked to see that the crowd was as mesmerized as me as we listened to the heart-wrenching opening track “The Outside.” Yes, it had really cool light effects, but we were all listening together.
By the next song, we were all singing together. It was Phoebe Bridgers and her chorus of thousands singing along. Sometimes the lights would be so bright that you could see that you were a part of a vast sea of people singing.
By the time she played my favorite song, “Haunted” my heart was almost as big as the stadium itself. I didn’t need my phone to record anything. I was never forgetting this memory.
My daughter, who joined me and also had to go without her phone for a few hours, wasn’t either. Near the end, she randomly and suddenly hugged me. I asked if everything was okay and she said, “I’m just so happy. Thanks for taking me.”
What Does This Concert Teach Us about Mindfulness?
Of course, we all know that phones get in the way of mindfulness and being present for our lives. I think that this is the most obvious lesson to learn from this experience. Though our phones are embedded into our lives for the reasons I have already mentioned, they also offer constant distraction from our lives.
This means that we need reminders to put our phones down for a while. We may need prompting and encouragement to experiment with life without our phones. Phoebe Bridgers made us wait a little longer to get to her concert, but she gave us the gift of our own presence in the process.
But this post really isn’t about life hacks or presence-maxing. Though it can be easy to tell others to put down their phones, it can be hard to do it ourselves.
The deeper mindfulness lesson here is the reason so many people gladly waited in line to go without their phones for a few hours. What would motivate people to do something like this? Good music is clearly a draw.
Phoebe Bridgers is a great musician and her new album is stellar but you can stream it anywhere right now. Why would people take the time to go to the concert and give up their phones?
Mindfulness Is Remembering What a Concert Feels Like
The answer is community. Concerts don’t just offer live music. They offer live music experienced in a group of other fans. They give you a chance to see that you aren’t the only person signing your heart out in the car to that song that breaks your heart and then fills it up again.
We often tell ourselves that phones are how we connect with others. Most of us know, of course, that this is only partially true. Yes, phones can connect us. They can also distract us and divide us. In the worst case, they can cause us to miss beautiful moments in life or fail to fully engage with the people around us.
The concert was definitely good because Phoebe Bridgers is a stellar musician who wrote a deeply relatable album. The experience of watching the concert was something I will never forget, though, because it reminded me what really community feels like.
On our phones, we have instant and constant access to thousands of people via so many different channels. But it is not the same as standing in a crowd of thousands with a united voice. It’s not the same as sharing a few hours with others who love what you love and value what you value.
The word “mindfulness” really means “to remember.” This concert was the best reminder for me and thousands of others what connection and community really are. It was also a reminder that putting my phone down may be a first step towards finding them.
Want to learn more about mindfulness and compassion? Check out my new book, A New Year’s Present, to learn about mindfulness from a heartwarming story. For a simple guide to creating a meditation practice of your own in 30 days, try How to Be a Badass Lawyer. And to share mindfulness with your little one, check out my new children’s book, Mommy Needs a Minute.
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