Bleachers Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night Fan Event + Meeting Jack Antonoff at Electric Lady Studios! 🍅
About a week prior to this, Bleachers posted a link to submit questions to Jack on a Google Doc, so I filled it out not really thinking it would go anywhere, at the most I figured it would be answered in some kind of Twitter or YouTube Q&A. A few days later, I received an email with the subject "Bleachers Invites You" from one of the band's managers. The email was very short and all it said was they loved my questions and wanted to know if I would be available to come to New York City the next day for a special event. She didn't give any more information, other than to send proof of vaccination and my age if I want to come and she'll get back to me later. I had no idea what the event was going to be or where it was going to be at that point so needless to say, my family definitely thought it was a scam and that I was going to be kidnapped (thankfully, that wasn't the case! lol). Soon after, she responded back and told me that we were going to meet outside the Sony building the next afternoon where we will be transported to another secret location.
This was also the first time I've been to New York City since November 2019, which was so exciting because I used to go all the time before the pandemic since it's only about an hour and a half away from where I live. It was great to visit my favorite city again!
The next afternoon, about 30 people and I are lined up outside of the Sony building on Madison Avenue by a bus that is going to take us to the secret location. They had posted about a livestream Fan Press Conference on social media earlier, so I assumed that was what the event was going to be, but no one officially said where we were headed. I had an idea of where we were going though, and I actually ended up being right!
Once we all got Covid tested, we went onto the bus (or the Bleachers Bus as they called it) - and we were able to listen to the new album two days early! It was such an amazing experience to be able to hear that album for the first time in such an unforgettable way! On the first listen, I loved the album's opener "91", "Secret Life" and "Don't Go Dark" - I also love all of the songs that were released beforehand, which was so fun to sing along to with everyone in the bus! Now that Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night is officially out and I've had more time to listen to it and absorb everything, it is absolutely Bleachers' best album yet as well as some of Jack's best work he's released so far.
When I think about the albums and the artists that mean a lot to me and have impacted me in some way, I tend to associate them with the time in my life or the place I was when I first heard the music. I'm so grateful that I will forever have this memory attached to such an incredible album like Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night!
Once we finished the album, his tour manager tells us that we're going to the rooftop of Electric Lady Studios - which is definitely where I hoped we were going ever since I received the initial emails the night before!
Electric Lady Studios is such an iconic place in music history, all of the greatest musicians have recorded there since 1968 when it was founded by Jimi Hendrix. I know that it is so rare for there to be events like this and for anyone who isn't a recording artist to have the opportunity to even go inside the building, so I feel so lucky to have had an experience like this!
Jack and the rest of Bleachers have been doing a lot of rooftop performances at Electric Lady throughout the past year, so it was so cool to see it in person! The view is so beautiful from the rooftop, as well!
Jack came out a few minutes after we arrived - he answered some questions and performed a couple of new songs from the album. I have also never been to a Bleachers show before or seen Jack perform in person at all, so this was quite a memorable experience for me! Like I mentioned earlier, there was only about 30 people there, so it really felt so surreal. He performed a "91" and "45" from the new album, both of which are some of my favorite Bleachers songs ever. He also performed a little bit of "Goodmorning", a song from his previous album Gone Now, for the the person that told him it was their alarm in the morning!
Everyone had a chance to go up to the microphone and ask a question, as well. I definitely recommend watching the full livestream - which I linked here and above - because there was so many thoughtful and interesting questions from the other fans that were there! I loved getting to hear more about the new album, how New Jersey inspires the sound, how he started working in Electric Lady Studios, and so much more. I almost got too nervous to go up and ask my question, which is why I was one of the last people to go up, but I'm so happy that I did!
At the end, he brought out a bag of rare out-of-press Bleachers vinyl that he brought from home (some of which are worth hundreds of dollars now!). I got a copy of an orange pressing from The Terrible Thrills Vol. 3 7" collection, which has a few demos and alternate versions of songs from Gone Now. Out of all the records I have in my collection, some of my favorites are from Bleachers so this definitely went to a good home!
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