Live Music Review: Japanese Breakfast taped Austin City Limits on 420 Day

The lights went down just after 8 p.m. on April 20 (420 Day), and indie-rockers Japanese Breakfast filed onto the Moody Theater stage in an orderly manner, appearing more like a mild-mannered group of software engineers in business casual than one of the hottest ascendant bands on the face of the earth. The last to take the stage was front woman Michelle Zauner, creative juggernaut, her slight frame engulfed in a gothic Harajuku-inspired babydoll dress with giant black ass-kicking boots.

Japanese Breakfast was here to perform on the same Austin City Limits television show as legends like Stevie Ray Vaughn, John Prine and Willie Nelson, thus cementing their place as a cultural phenomenon (at least on PBS). Eight musicians spread out across the stage, with Zauner and her core band members; Peter Bradley (keyboard, guitar), Craig Hendrix (drums), and Deven Craige (bass) joined by Christabel Lin (violin), Paul Deemer (trumpet), Michael St. Clair (trombone) and Adam Schatz (saxophone, keyboard).

As they kicked off the hour-and-change set with “Paprika” (the first song from the new Grammy-nominated album Jubilee, 2021) immediately followed by the infectious power pop hit Be Sweet, the audience came to life, aided by a periodic smash of a dazzling light-up gong by Zauner. What struck me immediately about the Japanese Breakfast dynamic is the absolute mastery each member showed over their respective instruments and how intelligently they worked together to build the power of sound over the course of the entire show.

It just. kept. getting. better.

Part of the joy of seeing live music is being able to experience the interactions between the members of a band and hear extended, expository versions of songs you’ve already grown to love through recordings. The show featured music from the band’s entire body of work. Some of the songs, like “Everybody Wants to Love You“ gave us alternative rock; while other songs like “Side Tackle,” with its funky little bassline and jazzy horns, were an absolute groove. We were even treated to a song from the newly released game soundtrack for which Japanese Breakfast recorded an entire double album: “Sable.” The record, Glider is an ethereal dreamscape—yet another dimension to a band that is becoming harder to define in conventional terms with each passing year.

Zauner’s voice is deceptively high and sweet, which makes you think it may not have much power behind it when performing live. I was actually thrilled by how much strength she had in her voice, which I consider an integral part to the Japanese Breakfast sound. Indeed, Zauner’s voice was the 9th instrument on the stage that night. Delightfully feminine, at times even childlike; it’s the band’s invitation to sit down and listen.

Japanese Breakfast has given themselves permission to experiment and to create their own genre using whatever elements of style and musical storytelling sound good. Because that’s what it’s really all about, isn’t it? Showing up well on a stage makes you a great performer—but being able to assimilate genres and coordinate a group of talented musicians to produce something new, exciting, and constantly evolving—well, that makes you an artist.

At around the one-hour mark, Zauner took up her electric guitar and moved to the center of the stage alone, spotlighted, to play the introduction of “Posing for Cars”. She was joined after a few minutes by Bradley with an acoustic guitar, and then shortly thereafter, the rest of the band rejoined the stage and the song progressed.

What happened next was a jam of such epic proportions that I tore my eyes away only long enough to write two words in my trusty little notebook: Purple Rain. This powerful performance started with a simple tune and Zauner’s melancholy warbling, gradually building in its intensity, and finally culminating into the kind of synergistic magic that makes live performances irreplaceable. Eight individual musicians wove their sounds together, pulling the audience up and up into sheer ecstasy. It was, as the kids say, fire. The kind of song that makes you feel like it’s taking you on a journey from beginning to end. The kind song that has every single person on the stage going as hard as they can.

To close out the set, they played one of my personal favorite tunes, “Diving Women” which started out sounding very much like the album version; but once again, we were treated to an extended, musically complex jam that filled my ears with so much sound I almost felt incapacitated – I didn’t want to move and miss a note. It was a perfect close to my first (but certainly not last) Japanese Breakfast show.

Anyone familiar with Japanese Breakfast knows that Michelle Zauner’s music has been deeply impacted by loss and heartache. In fact, the 4/20/22 show was the one-year anniversary of the launch of her book, Crying in H-Mart, which chronicles losing her mom to cancer just as the band was on the cusp of success. The deeply human and relatable origin story, has made Japanese Breakfast one of the most compelling acts touring today.

As I watched Zauner and her band on stage, I couldn’t help but get the impression that this is a woman who is doing exactly what she is supposed to be doing in life—and our job is to just to try to keep up with her.

Set List

• Paprika (Jubilee)
• Be Sweet (Jubilee)
• In Heaven (Psychopomp)
• The Woman that Loves You (Psychopomp)
• Kokomo, IN (Jubilee)
• Boyish (Soft Sounds From Another Planet)
• The Body is a Blade (Soft Sounds From Another Planet)
• Road Head (Soft Sounds From Another Planet)
• Savage Good Boy (Jubilee)
• Everybody Wants to Love You (Psychopomp)
• Slide Tackle (Jubilee)
• Posing in Bondage (Jubilee) – outro with horns
• Glider (Sable Soundtrack)
• Tactics (Jubilee)
• Posing For Cars (Jubilee)
• Diving Women (Soft Sounds From Another Planet)All photos Scott Hamilton courtesy of ACL TV

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