{"id":211800,"date":"2026-04-27T22:04:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T22:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/211800\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T22:04:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T22:04:07","slug":"olivia-rodrigo-plays-brooklyn-how-a-local-artist-accidentally-opened-for-pop-stars-surprise-open-mic-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/211800\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivia Rodrigo plays Brooklyn: How a local artist \u2018accidentally\u2019 opened for pop star\u2019s surprise open mic performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three-time Grammy Award-winning pop artist Olivia Rodrigo shocked Brooklyn<\/a> music lovers on Sunday evening when she performed an impromptu, acoustic version of her new single \u201cDrop Dead\u201d for an intimate open mic night.<\/p>\n

But for Brooklyn-based R&B\/rock artist Industry Monk, the night was surreal, particularly about 60 seconds after he finished his performance, when, completely by surprise, he realized the artist taking the stage at Pete\u2019s Candy Store in Williamsburg<\/a>, directly after him, was Rodrigo.<\/p>\n

Industry Monk, whose real name is Zach \u200aKennedy, told amNewYork that he was putting his guitar away after playing one of his songs called \u201cStayed\u201d off his new album \u201cMONK,\u201d when he heard Rodrigo singing. He said it took him a minute to recognize the voice, but once he heard some lyrics that nodded to The Cure\u2019s \u201cJust Like Heaven,\u201d he started to suspect that the international pop star had actually taken the stage after him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kinda ran back in and popped my head in and did a double take and it was her,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

Apparently, he wasn\u2019t the only one in Pete\u2019s Candy Store, the intimate music venue, who was stunned.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time people kind of figured out what was going on, I feel like there was a respectful silence that fell over the room, and she started shredding and crushing the song,\u201d Kennedy said.<\/p>\n

The performance lit the internet on fire, with the lucky few to catch her surprise show posting videos of the \u201cgood 4 you\u201d artist performing at the Williamsburg venue on social media.\n<\/p>\n

Kennedy\u2019s post, revealing his surprise and pleasure at \u201caccidentally\u201d opening up for Rodrigo, garnered some attention, with tens of thousands of views, a comment from the official Spotify social media account, and even being shared on NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d show.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMe, unaware that I was opening for Olivia Rodrigo at Pete\u2019s Candy Store today,\u201d Industry Monk captioned the video of his set just before Rodrigo hit the stage.\n<\/p>\n

Pete\u2019s Candy Store has a storied reputation as a local \u201chipster hot spot\u201d where the music is always free and local musicians can cut their teeth in the NYC music scene. But in the more than 25 years Pete\u2019s has been launching local, indie and unsigned artists, more than a handful of famous musicians have graced the stage at the small neighborhood venue \u2014 including Norah Jones, Vampire Weekend, Devendra Banhart, Lake Street Dive and Beth Orton.<\/p>\n

Kennedy \u2014 who has been living in Brooklyn for about a year, making the rounds on open mics across the city \u2014 said that seeing such a huge star as Rodrigo dropping in to play a small local venue injected him with a bit of motivation to keep pursuing his own music.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter you kind of get over the surreal feeling of it, it\u2019s kind of encouraging when you see someone like that come through,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cBecause that stage is like such an equalizer and you just go and it\u2019s just like: that\u2019s a place where you go to listen to songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the experience is making him consider moving from open mics to booking his own shows.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aIt sort of brings the dream of being an artist, kind of right up close,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

Sunday night\u2019s drop-in performance occurred amid reports that Rodrigo\u2019s first critically acclaimed album, \u201cSour,\u201d became the first album by a female artist to reach 17 billion total streams on Spotify<\/a> and the fourth most-streamed album on Spotify of all time.<\/p>\n

Rodrigo released the single, \u201cDrop Dead,\u201d earlier this month ahead of her third studio album, \u201cYou Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,\u201d which will drop on June 12. So far, it\u2019s the only preview fans have of the highly-anticipated upcoming album, save for an exclusive group of invite-only listeners at The Echo in Los Angeles where Rodrigo reportedly performed another unreleased track off the upcoming album with artist Weyes Blood.<\/p>\n

In town for her May 2 hosting and musical guest gig on Saturday Night Live, there\u2019s plenty of time for Rodrigo to make more surprise performances around the city and perhaps give NYC fans a taste of some of the yet-to-be-released album.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Brooklyn-based Industry Monk\u2019s album \u201cMONK\u201d is on Spotify<\/a>, and while Kennedy told amNewYork he doesn\u2019t have any upcoming shows yet, he has become a bit of a regular at Pete\u2019s Candy Store if folks want to catch him live.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three-time Grammy Award-winning pop artist Olivia Rodrigo shocked Brooklyn music lovers on Sunday evening when she performed an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,14259,100,83717,99,9,24,63,50474,8997,83698,73721],"class_list":["post-211800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-artist","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-music","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-artists","tag-olivia-rodrigo","tag-open-mic","tag-petes-candy-store"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}