Read previous – New music from Japanese Breakfast!
Somebody pinch me. Was this a dream? For my first show back in well over a year, I couldn’t have asked for a better reacquaintance to live music than a sold out Japanese Breakfast show at Asbury Lanes. And with co-Philly band Mannequin Pussy as the opener, shit got real without delay! If that wasn’t surreal enough, a tornado was ripping through Central Jersey as we all obliviously huddled shoulder to shoulder during a damned pandemic. If one thing is for certain, we all needed this.
Japanese Breakfast is currently on a whirlwind tour across the US and literally selling out every show. In Philly alone, they sold out 5 nights at Union Transfer. C’mon, certainly they could’ve squeezed a sixth or even seventh one in there. They’ll be back in Asbury Park again for Jack Antonoff’s Shadow of the City festival in September – it’s promising to be the event (fingers crossed) of the summer. I, for one, will only be content if I’m able to see Japanese Breakfast perform live no fewer than 3 times this summer. Is that too much to ask?
So what’s transpired in the last year for Japanese Breakfast mastermind extraordinaire, Michelle Zauner? Let’s see: a phenomenal LP3 (Jubilee), BUMPER (her side project with Ryan Galloway), a best selling memoir (Crying In H Mart), national television appearances (including an interview and performance on CBS This Morning of all freakin’ shows), a videogame soundtrack (for the to be released indie game Sable), directing a few brilliant music videos. What did I miss?
By past comparisons, the crowd at Asbury Lanes was relatively tame but nonetheless thankful and ecstatic just to even be there. I chalk it up to people forgetting how to act in public – that was the case for my vaxxed, double-masked, perennially antisocial, but bursting-with-exhilaration-on-the-inside self. At least one exception was the super exuberant guy who really loves Japanese Breakfast guitarist Peter Bradley (I need to be that guy’s friend). Japanese Breakfast performed and sounded better than ever, no doubt (in part) to the addition of a gong, as well as a badass tenor saxophonist to their live lineup. For their encore, their performance of “Diving Woman” levelled up from an extended Peter Bradley horny-inducing gyration spectacle to something even more spectacular with the added sax aspect. Check out the full setlist below and keep scrolling to see more photos from the show… and see you all back out there again soon!
Japanese Breakfast Setlist (7/29/2021):
– Paprika
– Be Sweet
– In Heaven
– The Woman That Loves You
– Kokomo, IN
– Tactics
– Boyish
– The Body Is A Blade
– Savage Good Boy
– Posing In Bondage
– In Hell
– Road Head
– Slide Tackle
– Till Death
– Everybody Wants To Love You
– Posing For Cars
// Encore //
– Diving Woman
