Japanese Breakfast at the Roadrunner, 9/29/22
“A remarkable experience”
Spencer Vernier waxes poetic on Japanese Breakfast and Yo La Tengo coming together as one under the Roadrunner roof.
When artists reach a certain stratospheric popularity and success in the music business, the art of the great bill is forgotten, tossed aside, swept under the rug, and so forth. Bookers and venues know that more often than not, one big name is enough to sell tickets, no matter what else is being planned. What’s lost in the corporate approach to booking shows is precisely that which constitutes the backbone of independent and DIY music scenes across the world—excelling in putting the right bands side by side on a thoughtfully curated bill. This takes careful evaluation: finding bands that complement one another, and balancing that with a level of individuality and contrast.
I say all this because the second the Japanese Breakfast + Yo La Tengo mini-tour was announced, I lost it. When Soft Sounds From Another Planet came out, I was captured by its dreamy sensibilities, complex arrangements, and heartfelt lyricism. I listened to songs like “Diving Woman,” the titular “Soft Sounds from Another Planet,” and “Till Death” on a frequent basis, and Jubilee, Michelle Zauner’s third record under the Japanese Breakfast moniker, is equally wonderful. On the strength of those efforts, as well as my love for the legendary and inimitable Yo La Tengo, I was unbelievably excited to see the two coming to town together. I think it’s the perfect sort of bill: in Yo La Tengo, a constant innovator in soundscapes and textures that stays true to its noisy, alternative rock roots, and in Japanese Breakfast, a project equally in consistent evolution, each album finding poppier sounds, yet remaining thoughtful and powerful.
It’s no wonder, then, that the show was a remarkable experience. The Roadrunner was packed to the brim from the start, and even though people continued to file in, once Yo La Tengo took the stage, the crowd quieted down. Opening with “Double Dare,” a high-energy track off of my personal favorite album of theirs, Painful, the band jumped straight into their hazy, sometimes gentle, sometimes harsh, consistently brilliant and unique brand of indie rock. They followed that with countless classics, ranging from “Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House,” from their 2000 masterpiece And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out, to a couple tracks from relatively recent LPs like 2013’s Fade and 2018’s There’s a Riot Going On. They dug back to Electr-o-pura, an album I think is without question their most underrated, with “Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1),” and, of course, played the undeniable hit “Autumn Sweater,” from I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One. They even went with the deep cut “Black Flowers,” a track from their 2006 effort, I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass. I was in awe of everything I was witnessing—it’s rare you get to see a band so aware of their own abilities, so in touch with what they’ve created decades after actually putting it out into the world. You can tell that when Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James McNew take the stage, it’s a source of joy and pride to share what they’ve created with the world. Few bands have been so prolific and so consistent over the course of musical careers that span as long as Yo La Tengo’s 38 years together. To close out their night, they returned to Painful, playing its closing track, “I Heard You Looking.” The band stretched it out for fourteen whole minutes, bringing Zauner out on stage to join them on the keys. “I Heard You Looking” is a swansong of trance and repetition, of building and deconstructing: as it builds, everything rings out over and over, moving more harshly, and then climbing ever upwards until it completely deconstructs itself. Ira was agonizing over his guitar as he broke into a solo that shot the song to pieces, until everything crumbled, and the band exited the stage.
It’s hard to follow that sort of act, but if anyone could, Japanese Breakfast were the ones to do it. Making their way onto the stage, bursting with energy, the band opened with “Paprika,” the opener on Jubilee, a fitting way to start their set. In between delivering her gentle vocals, Zauner’s hits on a large gong at the center of the stage brought the crowd straight into Japanese Breakfast’s musical dreamworld, to the effect of waking up from a deep slumber. Smiling infectiously out toward the crowd, it was easy to melt into the band’s locked groove as they slid into “Be Sweet,” a bona-fide jam that just loosens up your whole body. The crowd couldn’t help but dance, and it’s really the sort of track you can’t help but fall in love with, loaded with rhythm and bounce. They then moved to the hazy opening cut on Psychopomp, “In Heaven,” and kept the crowd lost in the haze with “The Woman That Loves You,” with its washed-out guitars and twinkling synths. It wasn’t long before they went back to Paprika with “Kokomo, IN” and “Tactics,” both slower tracks packed with lush string arrangements and a precise eye for pacing. “Road Head,” the song that introduced me to the band, followed—those multi-track harmonies are so irresistible on the recording, and they absolutely translated to a live setting, Zauner’s performance shining over a punchy bassline, sparkly keys, and smooth guitars. It was a bit full-circle, but I suppose everything is with music—somehow, the world is revealed to you no matter where you start with an artist you come to love. “Heft,” a more guitar-centric Psychopomp cut, was next to come, and after that, the band continued their march with “Savage Good Boy” before playing “Boyish,” a track from Zauner’s days with Little Big League which completely captured audiences when it was rerecorded for Soft Sounds. “The Body Is a Blade,” “Glider,” “Posing in Bondage,” and “Slide Tackle” followed in a run of dynamic, flowing tracks, until they appeared to close down with “Everybody Wants to Love You.”
Of course, that wasn’t the end: it never is, in this age of encore expectation. That isn’t a bad thing, per se, but it’s sort of funny how inevitable they’ve become. We can’t escape the encore because we so adamantly demand it, and hey, that’s not such a bad thing (at least if you’ve enjoyed the rest of the show). The crowd stayed and cheered, and it wasn’t such a secret that the band would be coming back—all the lighting remained the same, and that’s usually a sign that they’re not going anywhere. And so, a couple minutes pass—the air is dense with the weight of waiting, everyone desperately hoping they’ll play that one song they had been waiting to hear for ages. And then, it’s all happening: the band runs out onto the stage, they pick up their instruments, and “Posing for Cars” begins. The ecstasy in the room is everywhere, and I can’t help but lose myself in it. I’m smiling endlessly as they shift into “Diving Woman”: Ira Kaplan joins them for the last dance of the night, and his longtime partner Georgia Hubley watches from the side. The guitars reach upward, then descend, and do it all over again, the drums are pushing forward, Zauner’s voice lifts higher and higher, everything ringing in its incessant motion, the song has more life than I’ve ever imagined it could have, until everything begins to fade away, and it washes out into rapture. The night is over. I ride the bus home, happy, tired, and full of wonder.
