I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: June 3, 2018] Japanese Breakfast

Japanese Breakfast is the creation of Philadelphia-based Michelle Zauner.  She sings pretty melodies and has a variety of tones when she sings–some high-pitched notes and some lower parts as well.

A lot of bands celebrate in some way when they play a home town.  Sometimes its an extra song or a guest.  I don’t really know how this show deviated from other in terms of set list, but Zauner had a lot to celebrate being back at Union Transfer.

[Quotes and quoted passages are from an article in The Key

“I fucking used to work coat check here,” Zauner told the audience as she gazed into the sold out crowd at UT.

She said this just after she’d sung her first song “Diving Woman.”  It was the first time she had headlined Union Transfer.  She said she felt a bit shy playing here because so many friends and family were in attendance.  And she talked a lot about her connections to the city.  She graduated from Bryn Mawr college and she recorded both Japanese Breakfast albums in Philly.  

Plus, her entire band is from Bucks County, including her husband Peter on bass (he had dropped an amp on his foot recently and was in a cast) and drummer Craig Hendrix

The second song was “In Heaven.”

For most of the show, Michelle played guitar but she also performed a few songs just with the mic–singing and engaging with the audience.  After a few songs she removed the awesome jacket she was wearing to reveal her sleeves of tattoos.

She also had shoes on that lit up when she walked around although I wasn’t able to get a good picture of them.

I don’t recall the setlist exactly, but I know she played “Road Head,” “Machinist,” and crowd favorite “Boyish,” (which is an “ugly-girl anthem”).  There was also “Heft,” at which point I had to accept that the six-foot tall guy in front of me was going to dance and sway A LOT.

“Rugged Country” and “12 Steps,” which Zauner explained was about meeting her husband at 12 Steps Down, a bar in South Philly–“he was singing Billy Joel, it was a six-minute nightmare.”

The band left the stage and it was just her and Hendrix (on keyboards) for “Triple 7.”  It’s a slow, quiet song, although midway through, Zauner had a coughing fit and had to take a brief break to take a few sips of water.   She and Hendrix joked about the mess up (it’s never happened before!).  Even though the crowd encouraged her to try again she decided to move on.

The first song that I heard by Japanese Breakfast, and the one that won me over was “Till Death.”  I love the opening melody and I absolutely love the ending melody as she lists

Teach me to breathe
Teach me to move…
PTSD, anxiety
Genetic disease
Thanatophobia

The set ended with a reunion of her previous band Little Big League, bringing out band members Ian Dykstra, Kevin O’Halloran and Deven Craige.  I don’t know the band (evidently Zauner left the band when her mother was terminal and she wrote many of the Japanese Breakfast songs during that time–it was an unexpected success for her).  They performed “Year of the Sunhouse” and “Lindsey,” delightful guitar pop and a fun end to the set.

After the encore break, Zauner and her band came out for a final song.  This time Zauner was wearing the hanbok dress she also wore in the video for “Everybody Wants To Love You.”  I had no idea about this but Sam Cook-Parrott from Radiator Hospital sang the chorus on the album and he was here to sing it live as well.  I’ve always liked this song, but live, with her in that dress, it was really wonderful.

It’s possible that she could have played for 3 hours, but she didn’t need to.  She played a bunch of songs, and when she (and we) were satisfied, that was it.

It was a fun show to be at.