Fine weather and a birthday to celebrate—I knew the night would be one to remember with a distinct nearness. A scare involving an unaccounted-for photo pass threatened to make the memory a bad one; but when the tour manager recognized me by my Radio UTD shirt and delivered my ticket for entry, I regained my confidence in the magic of the experience to come and entered the South Side Ballroom to catch up with my friends who had forged ahead to the merch line. I gave them my preference and currency to pay, and they delivered my order across the barricade in front of the stage: a soft, sage green t shirt depicting J Brekkie shedding a single tear and advertising an on-brand hotline—1-800-Sad Women—in papyrus font, at that.
Ginger Root—friend of the station and city pop sensation—offered a warm introduction to the night’s sonic festivities. Accompanied by a funky bassist, a groovy dummer, and a spry camera guy in a red jumpsuit, Cameron Lew spewed soulful falsetto, stank face cowbell, snappy synth riffs from a Teenage Engineering OP-1 (to make all you broke synth nerds jealous), and quirky melodica melodies for a sporting spin on his signature “aggressive elevator soul” sound.
Ginger Root adheres to a particular, idiosyncratic style of stage presence that makes multimedia its mainstay. The VHS-esque footage of the band from the aforementioned cardinal camera man would often be intercut with similarly nostalgia-laden clips from faux Japanese TV cheese. The act gave the impression of staying up late watching an obscure television station in 80’s Tokyo. As much as I would have loved to see Japanese Breakfast accompanied by South Korean folk ballad virtuoso Minhwi Lee, who will be taking Ginger Root’s place as opening act on the European leg of the tour, I came away very glad that I had the opportunity to see an act that I had always appreciated moderately but never gotten particularly excited about. Plus, Cameron’s intermissionary anecdote about writing an essay on Japanese Breakfast’s debut album PsychoPomp in response to the prompt “what album changed your life?”—recalling having written the essay during a tour in Texas, no less!—was a sweet note for a night of bittersweet and melancholic beauty.
Japanese Breakfast put on a no-less theatrical show to follow, drawing on nautical, mythical, and thespian themes to woo us with songs of woe and wistfulness. Emerging from an ornate clam shell—à la The Birth of Venus—Michelle Zauner appeared a mirage as she opened in the fashion of the tour’s patron album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women), with the songs “Here is Someone” and “Orlando in Love.” Both tunes are a tasteful blend of orchestral and folksy instrumentation boasting lyrics rife with literary references; the latter became extra poignant for me when I realized that one of the other photographers was an ex of mine whom I specifically remember calling during a trip to Orlando, Florida.
Personal asides aside, Japanese Breakfast managed to incorporate all ten songs from the new album into their setlist. Highlights included “Mega Circuit.” whose characteristically vulnerable lyrics such as, “Sucked you off by the AC unit… Or he’s gonna make me the way I should,” drew us in with their earnest delivery; and “Men in Bars,” wherein drummer Craig Hendrix stood in for Jeff Bridges as duet partner with a similarly brittle baritone (and I mean that in a good way)—though the actor’s presence was not altogether absent as someone in the crowd shouted out “Lebowski!” at the song’s conclusion.
My concert-going friends and Radio UTD compatriots, Michael N. and Mazie, found particular enjoyment in the songs “Honey Water” and “The Body Is a Blade,” respectively. Michael recalled playing the former as new music in one of his final shows with radio, and Maizie experienced the show as a return to her first live music outing in Dallas. Soon-to-be programming director, Kavya, got to hear the songs she was looking forward to the most, “Boyish” and “Slide Tackle,” whose powerful lyrics and electric sound (again, respectively) fulfilled her before she had to leave early and miss the show’s splendid conclusion.
By the time the band came out for an encore, we were already enchanted by psalms of (W)Asian American womanhood and pastoral… well, melancholy. Those last three songs, for the most part audience favorites that would be sorely missed if not included in the setlist, sealed the deal, though. First, “Paprika” rang out with lyrics that spoke extra loud to the special feeling of “Projecting your visions to strangers / Who feel it, to listen, to linger on every word” in obvious yet brilliant reference to the act of live musical performance. “Be Sweet” carried the momentum into a pumped-up, danceable juncture that harkened back to Ginger Root’s set with its future-funk-inspired tune. Finally, the band played us out with a radiant rendition of “Diving Woman.” The song pays tribute to Michelle’s Korean heritage by evoking imagery of haenyeo—the hard-working women of Jeju Island who make their living by harvesting the fruit of the sea with nothing by their wetsuits and their bodily capacities.
The music and mood of the night encompassed a range of emotion, and Japanese Breakfast frontwoman Michelle Zauner deserves praise for spearheading that atmosphere with evident enjoyment. She seemed genuinely happy to share her music with the crowd; waving a lantern like a lovesick sailor, banging a gong with royal aplomb, or simply relishing in the act of performing and sharing the music she had written with such apparent heartfelt passion—the feelings of performer and audience reverberated back and forth between each other in waves.
