Bob Fuchs watched that TikTok video over and over again on Friday.
"It made me smile all day," said Fuchs, music retail manager at the Electric Fetus record store in Minneapolis. "This is why we show up in the morning, for this kind of stuff."
The video he played on loop and shared Friday showed just a few of the hundreds of giddy fans lined up outside the store on Friday.
They were there to buy a deluxe vinyl copy of singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams' 2023 debut "Good Riddance," but it wasn't just about owning the album on wax. With each purchase came a ticket to see Abrams in an intimate acoustic performance at Electric Fetus.
Her 30-minute sold-out show will be this Friday at 3:45 p.m., hours before Abrams takes the stage at U.S. Bank Stadium to open for pop megastar Taylor Swift.
"The fans are just absolutely bursting at the seams," Fuchs said. "They can't believe that someone they love so much is going to show up at a record store."
The 23-year-old singer is opening for Swift's Eras Tour on 30 of the 51 dates, and she's already quickly rising to stardom. Her 2021 EP "This Is What It Feels Like" featured production from The National's Aaron Dessner, who then returned to co-write and co-produce on "Good Riddance." She has more than 7 million monthly Spotify listeners and also opened for Olivia Rodrigo on 2022's Sour Tour.
Abrams is in the sweet spot right now. Her fandom is large enough to generate buzz in the store, but her stature hasn't reached the point where getting her in such an intimate setting is impossible. In fact, Fuchs said it was actually Abrams' crew who initiated the show. Her team has lined up acoustic record store performances in most cities that coincide with the Eras Tour, with gigs scheduled after Minneapolis in Seattle, Kansas City and Denver.
"You can ask 100 artists if they want to stop by when they're on tour, and one or two of them might say yes," Fuchs said. "But when the label makes it a priority for a few events in a few cities, that's really easy."
Like past acoustic shows hosted by Electric Fetus, Abrams will take a small stage adjacent to the store's record department, where fans will file in between aisles of vinyl and CDs.
Fuchs said that the performance will be an opportunity to reach a demographic of music fans that might not have been record collectors before.
"You get this intimacy that you don't necessarily get at a bigger club, and you're certainly not gonna get at U.S. Bank Stadium," he said. "It's really fun to see the back and forth, and kind of the Beatlemania effect it has when you have really passionate fans."