Review: Japanese Breakfast Proves to Be a Top Indie-Rock Band

From a stage dressed up to look like Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, indie-rock outfit Japanese Breakfast rocked a packed Mission Ballroom on September 6. The show came through as part of the band’s Melancholy Tour, celebrating its fourth album and first official studio album, For Melancholy Brunettes (and Sad Women).

This performance was anything but melancholy, though, especially as prolific frontwoman Michelle Zauner strutted and shimmied across the stage with an infectious buoyancy, singing songs about aging, social challenges and ancient mythology from the recent album and others.

California indie-pop project Ginger Root opened the night with a multimedia set accentuated by two giant television screens on either side of the stage, and a videographer “performing” live shots alongside the band. The self-proclaimed “aggressive elevator soul” project dipped in and out of funky retro grooves and short cut scenes on the screens, with vocalist Cameron Lew setting the tone for what would become a lively, danceable evening.

A few songs in, Lew invited Zauner on stage to help sing the spirited theme song from the anime show and manga series Cardcaptor Sakura. During the Japanese Breakfast set, Zauner would go on to share that Lew sent her the lyrics to the song phonetically spelled out in Korean so that she could learn the parts that were in Japanese.

Lew also shared a wholesome story about when he was in college and playing an unofficial set at SXSW, recounting how he was tasked with writing an essay about a life-changing piece of music. The vocalist and synth player warmly recalled he wrote about Japanese Breakfast’s first album, Psychopomp, adding an encouragement for the audience members to take up writing music – it could someday lead to singing on stage with their own idols.

After a short break, Japanese Breakfast took the stage to a dreamy string intro in mostly total darkness, save for a lantern carried by Zauner. The nautical stage called back to the birth of the goddess Venus, with a giant pink clam in the center and large stage props painted to look like waves crashing around the outskirts of the stage, all in front of a massive, cloud-painted backdrop. As Zauner waltzed to perch on the front of the clam, the band opened with an impassioned live version of Melancholy opener, “Here is Someone.”

The set carefully balanced theatrics with authenticity, as the lighting following “Orlando in Love” abruptly turned to a bright red with a large boom sound, to which Zauner responded, “What was that?” before bursting into “Honey Water.
The sound echoed through the hall with a graceful, reflective tone, backed by violinist and flautist Lauren Baba, saxophonist Adam Schatz, bassist Deven Craige, and drummer and backing vocalist Craig Hendrix.

Despite being so rooted in DIY recording and local music scenes early on, Zauner has clearly found her stride as a nationally touring performer, vocalist and frontwoman, in addition to being the principal songwriter, guitarist and author of the best-selling memoir Crying in H Mart, which chronicles the passing of her mother and her experiences as a Korean-American woman. A few weeks ago, Zauner told Westword about her transition to becoming more confident as a vocalist with the release of the band’s bombastic 2021 album, Jubilee.

“Jubilee really put me at the forefront of, like, I suddenly really was looked at as a singer,” Zauner said. “The lead single on that album kind of wasn’t even really written for me. I had written it with the idea that I would sell it to a pop star or something. It was very hard for me to sing, and a lot of the songs on [Jubilee] required this kind of showmanship that was sort of difficult for me to put on, I think, over and over again.”

You would never be able to tell on the Melancholy tour, with Zauner’s animated presence invigorating the stage, especially on bouncey, upbeat songs like “Picture Window” and “Mega Circuit.” Slower, more delicate tunes such as “Winter in LA” and “Leda” enveloped the massive room in a reverent tranquility, showcasing Zauner’s vulnerable songwriting across heartfelt ballads.

“Denver, I have a bias against you, to be honest, because I associate you with outdoor types, and as an indoor kid, I’m not sure about you,” Zauner joked after “The Woman That Loves You.” “But tonight has been lovely.”

She went on to say that Denver residents seemed like they would appreciate the idea of “doing mushrooms in the woods,” to which the audience collectively laughed and cheered. As she continued to introduce the next song, Zauner recounted a time she and her husband/bandmate Peter Bradley took mushrooms at an Airbnb in the woods, where they had expected to have more privacy. As a cavalcade of vehicles continued to pass, Zauner explains that Bradley had begun striking poses for cars to try to “act natural,” serving as the inspiration for the upcoming tune.

With a spotlight fixed on her for much of the song, Zauner’s soft vocals reverberated through the room on “Posing for Cars,” singing:

And how could you ever conceive
How much I need you, how truly barren I can be?
They say that time, it is the only certainty,
But it’s been one o’clock for hours,
Oh the day is long untangling

Midway through the song, the band joined in for a big dynamic boost, during which she and Bradley exchanged knowing glances and smiles around his lead guitar riffs. Japanese Breakfast then closed the initial set with the darkened-pop anthem “Posing in Bondage,” before coming back out for a four-song encore with “Paprika,” “Be Sweet,” “Diving Woman,” and “Everybody Wants To Love You” – the latter of which brought Lew back on-stage to deliver backing vocals.

The performance further solidified Japanese Breakfast as one of contemporary indie rock and indie pop’s most important bands. The elaborate stage setup and performance not only showcased Zauner’s cohesive vision as a songwriter and album world-builder, but it also revealed a mature band after years under the spotlight, melding DIY indie roots with a storytelling prowess that only comes along every so often.

Check out more photos from the show below:

Find upcoming concerts on our Denver concert calendar.