After an eight year wait, the Grammy nominated indie pop band Japanese Breakfast came back to Australian shores with a taste of their Melancholy Tour for this year’s RISING festival in Melbourne.
Coming off of the high of Michelle Zauner’s critically acclaimed 2021 memoir Crying at the H Mart, Japanese Breakfast released their fourth studio album this year with, For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women); a more romantic and moody album in comparison to their last album Jubilee, which felt more upbeat with a dream pop influence.
Braving the icy cold Melbourne winter, everyone came prepared in their best puffer jackets to give a warm welcome to local Melbourne band, ENOLA. With their punk rock flair and energetic stage presence, they got the crowd up and moving and ready for Japanese Breakfast.
Kicking off right on time, Japanese Breakfast walked onto the gorgeous set stage to perform a few songs from their new album, including the poetic single “Orlando in Love.” The stage is set with a beautiful smokey, sea and sky backdrop that Japanese Breakfast have brought along with them throughout this run of the tour, to fully emulate the emotional and romantic aesthetic that the album brings. They even brought in the gong and the lantern, with the only piece missing being the clam shell that’s usually in the middle of the stage (which Zauner explained they weren’t able to bring).
After playing a few songs from For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women), in true Aussie form, Zauner asks the crowd “how we’re going”, and then giving us a fun anecdote on how Peter Bradley (the band’s guitarist) thought people in Australia were purposefully messing up the greeting of “how are you doing?” to mess with him.
Going back to the classic hits from the 2017 album Soft Sounds From Another Planet, Japanese Breakfast play fan favourites “Road Head” and “Boyish”, bringing back the nostalgic and shoegaze soundscape we all know and love.
A fun interaction with the crowd saw Zauner sharing why they haven’t toured Australia in the last eight years, and through some brutal honesty, she mentions that they weren’t sure if they were ever going to come back because of how expensive it was to bring everything down over here. But through exploring Melbourne’s CBD and getting to try some delicious Asian cuisine, they were hooked and made sure to tell us they’ll be coming back with a little less time in between.
The rest of the set sees Japanese Breakfast play the majority of their songs from the newer album, with one or two songs slotted in the setlist from the previous three albums. The crowd is incredibly engaged throughout, and you can feel the positive energy from the audience through Japanese Breakfast’s incredible stage presence and euphoric sound up until the very last performance.
FIVE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
RISING festival runs in Melbourne from 4th June ’til 15th June – Find the full program, info & tickets HERE
