Read previous – Japanese Breakfast ends Jubilee era with a Halloween homecoming show
Welcome back readers – sorry, it’s been a while. With my late-2024 existential crisis (and subsequent major depressive episode) finally coming to an end, I’m happy to report that this melancholy brunette is officially back. There’s nothing more apropos than a Japanese Breakfast concert to bring me back from my live music void. So much, in fact, that I couldn’t help but attend both of their shows at The Met Philly on 5/15 and 5/16. These back-to-back performances marked the end the spring leg of the North American Melancholy Tour in support of their long-awaited LP4 For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) released this past March. During the Thursday show, frontwoman Michelle Zauner remarked how weird it was to be playing a venue without a coat check named after her (a reference to Union Transfer where Zauner worked in her pre-Breakfast days and then played 5 sold out nights there in 2021). Originally scheduled to play 1 date at The Met (on 5/16), they quickly realized that an additional night would be necessary.
Opening their set, Zauner perched herself upon a giant scallop shell a la Venus de Milo (a Melancholy “Orlando In Love” reference) and performed album opener “Here Is Someone”. The setlist varied slightly on both nights, but they played through most of Melancholy along with a generous sprinkling of tracks from their back catalog (including fan-favorites like “Road Head”, “Boyish”, and “Slide Tackle”) – on night 1, the band performed a cover of Air’s “Playground Love” (the first time the band had ever performed that song live). While Zauner’s poetic and introspective lyrics are front and center, Melancholy is melodically more subtle than Jubilee. While Jubilee was a bombastic celebration replete with pop bangers, Melancholy touches on themes of misery, anxiety, and loss; however, you wouldn’t know it unless you listen closely. It also features a re-worked version of BUMPER track “Ballad 0” (now called “Men In Bars”) that adds the vocal perspective of the man in the relationship (sung by drummer Craig Hendrix for their live performance). For their Friday night show, flanked by a neon “Melancholy Inn” sign, band members shared martinis prior to launching into “Men In Bars”.
On night 1, they opened their encore with the triumphant Jubilee track “Paprika”. Admittedly, I cried. They followed that up with “Be Sweet” and closed with the recurrent “Diving Woman”. On night 2, they mixed things up and Zauner began their encore solo on stage with “Posing for Cars” before being joined by the rest of the band for the song’s emotional instrumental outro. That was followed by “Paprika”, during which I cried again. On this night, however, they decided to instead close with the exuberant “Everybody Wants To Love You” being joined on stage by Cameron Lew of Ginger Root.
Japanese Breakfast will continue their North American tour later this summer and will close out the year with some festival performances. See all of their upcoming tour dates here. No official word yet on the release date of Zauner’s new memoir documenting her time in South Korea, but give the girl a break. Watch the music video for Melancholy lead single “Orlando In Love” below and keep scrolling to see more photos from the show.
