Turning Japanese

If the audience for last week's Northern Pikes show was nearing retirement, this week's sold-out crowd at the Horseshoe on Friday leaned toward the just finished high school end. There were also many more women than most indie shows. All due to the fact that all 3 acts tonight are fronted by young women of colour. Representation matters.

The evening started with a solo set by Jay Som. It was a good set, but I didn't find it wholly compelling. The positives: Melina Duerte's deftness on the guitar and her lyrical venture outside the usual love song to sing about issues like young people cobbling together multiple jobs to live. Her main weakness, which I've noticed in several new artists recently, was bland melodies. Japanese Breakfast is a new project for singer/guitarist Michelle Zauner (Little Big League). Her songs were more typical of indie pop, but she was experienced on stage, handled her guitar well, and coaxed high energy from the trio.

Being only a two-piece on tour, Mitski's music was stripped down from her recordings, often played as single-finger barred chords. But with an accomplished drummer, she achieved a Nirvana meets White Stripe aesthetic that kept the crowd amped. The simpler set-up also revealed her forte, Mitski write killer songs. After a towering and raucous "final" number, she insisted that she'll finish the night with two songs instead of going off backstage and waiting for the requisite encore call. She gave perhaps the reason I've heard for not doing these routine callbacks: "Nobody likes to keep going after they've come". Damn, girl.