There wasn’t an official name to the tour but somehow 3 acts led by Asian-American women were on the bill at First Avenue’s Entry Tuesday night. Not being familiar with any of them I was looking forward to an interesting evening and was not disappointed.
Starting the evening was Jay Som the stage persona of San Francisco songwriter Melina Duterte. She just had her debut release with “I Think You’re Alright” although she’s been on bandcamp and souncloud for a while. Her song intros were quirky: “This song is “Everybody Works”, it’s about being broke”. Starting off almost shy her personality came out during her short set and she joked quite a bit with the audience.
Japanese Breakfast is the new project by Little Big League frontwoman Michelle Zauner. The debut album “Psychopomp” was released in March to some very impressive reviews. Her voice at time floats dreamily over her music, but they are not dreamy songs. Her album deals a lot with the recent death of her mother and there is a lot of raw emotion in her music. The crowd was very familiar with her work cheering each song loudly. Overall an impressive set.
Headliner Mitski’s new album “Puberty 2” is less than a month old but that did not keep her from selling out the Entry and other shows in her tour. This being her 4th album, she has a dedicated fan base; and overhearing her voice during her warmups showed me why, that’s a very serious set of pipes. On stage her voice often is haunting, befitting of her lyrics that strip bare Mitski’s emotions. Her fans were clearly into the show, and personally I enjoyed it quite a bit as well. At some point she bantered “Thanks for dressing up” to the crowd. Given the steamy atmosphere in the Entry, I think she referred to the one fan in long pants…….
