Japanese Breakfast
with Ginger Root
Liberty Hall
Monday, September 8
If Monday night’s show wasn’t sold out, it was damned close–as were the quarters of Liberty Hall. While it’s great to get to see someone you know every fifth person, cramming one’s self into a doorway alcove for the better part of three hours means you really ought to be into the act you’re there to see.
Thankfully, my wife and I have wanted to see Japanese Breakfast for ages and ages, and when you’re given the chance to do so five minutes from your house, you cram down any social anxiety you might have from your third sold-out (or near enough as to make no difference) show in five days and fit yourself wherever the hell you can.
The trick with Japanese Breakfast is to have listened to every album from Psychopomp to Michelle Zauner’s latest, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), as well as having read Crying in H Mart, and not developing a parasocial relationship. It’s soooo hard, though. You see her playing “Jesus Etc.” with Jeff Tweedy at Lollapalooza, and it’s simultaneously “That’s such a good performance” while also being “I’m so happy for her.” Being able to appreciate Zauner’s confessional songs and not turning it into a case of “She would be So Fun to hang out with” takes a certain reserve, and the number of folks who definitely copped her sartorial style shows that not everyone is capable of operating with the necessary remove.
She came out, lit a candle lantern, and performed her first song, “Here is Someone,” in front of a massive half oyster shell, finger-picking her guitar while the band was in shadow, amplified by the strobing lights. It felt like the start of something special, with the audience (mostly) acknowledging it as such with hushed reverence.
Then she started “Orlando in Love” and the singing along started, and after that … the show. Like, capital ‘S’ Show. There was a storyline and sharing exactly what it was is akin to spilling a secret, but suffice it to say, Japanese Breakfast does not do things by halves. This was a performance, not just a band on stage playing the songs with an emphasis on the new record. The lighting, the stage set, the interstials, and every little thing took you out of Liberty Hall and away to someplace special.
“Hello, everyone! Thank you for coming early! We are Ginger Root, the openers. We’ll be done in ~40 minutes. Enjoy!” read the video screens after a bit of technical difficulty, and then Ginger Root began their jazzy, dancey, kinda weird indie rock. It was fun in a way that felt like Vulfpeck, but less intense? They were loose in the way MGMT’s first album was, in that you can tell they have these songs down pat, but the band members are just as interested in having a good time as the audience. Ginger Root are the band its members want to be in the audience of, and they give it their all. Devo, Paul McCartney, and the Yellow Magic Orchestra started a book club, and then a band, and I want to see them like, five more times this month. Props to being an indie band with a cameraman onstage to feed the screens for those of us crammed in the back and some of the best stage banter I’ve heard in ages.
All photos by Whitney Young
Japanese Breakfast
Ginger Root
AloJapan.com