Photos by Dylan Simmons
Last Friday, Japanese Breakfast — the indie pop project of Michelle Zauner — took over the Greek’s 6,000-person amphitheater for the obligatory LA stop of their Melancholy Tour. This year’s string of shows, stretching from spring ‘til autumn, is in celebration of Zauner’s new record, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women). Released this March via Dead Oceans, For Melancholy Brunettes is Japanese Breakfast’s first full-length album since the 2021 hit Jubilee. Zauner not only gained significant notoriety from the latter record, but also in large part due to her debut (and bestselling) novel, Crying in H Mart, published that same year. While Jubilee and Crying in H Mart, as their titles might suggest, were respectively centered around joy and grief, Zauner has found an emotional equilibrium within her latest record, lingering on an introspective melancholy.
Like her art, Michelle Zauner is multi-faceted and hard to put in a box. Her creative works encompass the breadth of the human experience — from debilitating grief, to infatuating physicality, to blinding euphoria, to the often mundane bleakness of reality — all of which she tackles with impressive aptitude. It feels as though each subsequent work she has put out in recent years could easily be labeled her magnum opus. Not only do the extent of her creativity and writing prowess repeatedly blow me away, but her one-of-a-kind voice and remarkable instrumental skills truly wowed me in person; I found myself remarking to my date that it’s almost unfair for someone to have actually mastered all trades.
Her sensual lyricism, honey-smooth vocals, and captivating radiance onstage culminated in a performance that exceeded any and all expectations. In the romantic setting of the Greek with support by a full band (including a saxophone, violin, and tambourine), the stellar record that is For Melancholy Brunettes truly came to life in a way I couldn’t have envisioned.
With candy-colored lighting and nautical stage elements emanating Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Japanese Breakfast transported the audience to her personal dream world. Enclosed by Griffith Park’s towering redwoods that block out any trace of urban life, I was fully captivated by the performance and its setting, swaying under the twinkling starlight that somehow defied LA’s insurmountable smog. Whether gently dancing to slower tracks like “Mega Circuit” or jumping at Zauner’s behest during “Slide Tackle,” her hypnotic voice and charming smile easily had her audience in a trance amid the soothing, languorous warmth of an LA summer night.
Zauner’s perky stage presence and sweet, high-pitched voice almost contradicted the self-sabotaging lyrics of “Winter in LA” — in which she sings about her desire for her husband to have “a happier woman” — if it wasn’t already clear that she, as both an artist and an individual, contains multitudes. With a setlist spanning “Kokomo, IN” to “Honey Water,” Zauner flaunted her emotive vocals and impressive guitar-shredding skills, leaving me utterly spellbound by her cathartic performance.
Listen to For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) below!
