two thirds of a grammy-winning queer band kissed on the jumbotron wednesday. by thursday night the band was back together.

boygenius in concert. Photo: David Lee from Redmond, WA, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

via Stereogum, JamBase and GO Magazine.

Barclays Center had a very specific kind of week.

On Wednesday night the New York Liberty hosted the Atlanta Dream, and sitting under the basket were Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker. The celebrity-row camera found them, GO Magazine reports, and they did what a couple does when the whole arena is watching: smiled, kissed, and then laughed while the camera refused to leave. The crowd cheered. The Liberty lost, which nobody in our group chat has mentioned once. The photo had more than 15,000 likes on X by Friday.

Thursday morning, according to Stereogum and JamBase, the two were outside UN headquarters protesting as Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the General Assembly, the same demonstration where Hannah Einbinder, Caleb Hearon and Susan Sarandon were detained.

the boygenius reunion at barclays

Thursday night they were back at Barclays, this time on the stage. Phoebe Bridgers was playing the first of three nights there on her Lost Tour, and she brought out her bandmates for "Not Strong Enough" and "Cool About It." Stereogum reports she introduced them with "Surprise, bitch!"

It was the first time the three had performed together since Grammy weekend in February 2024, JamBase notes, when "Not Strong Enough" won best rock song and best rock performance. Thursday was the song's first live outing since. The tour runs a strict no-phones policy with locked pouches, so the people who were there have the memory and everyone else has the setlist, which is honestly the most boygenius way this could have gone.

Nobody has announced an album. Bridgers also released "On Video," her end-title song for the A24 film Primetime, the same day, so she is busy. But a jumbotron kiss and a reunion in the same arena a day apart, with a protest in between, is a lot of plot for a band that had not played a note together in two and a half years.