My introduction to Japanese Breakfast (@jbrekkie on instagram) was actually through Michelle Zauner’s literature work. My coworkers started a bookclub (which I didn’t participate in) where they read “Crying in H-Mart”. I filed Michelle’s name in the back of my mind until I saw that she was a musician. This piqued my interest in Japanese Breakfast.
In Raleigh, stormclouds brewed while Japanese Breakfast was preparing to go on. The stormclouds ominous presence lorded over Coastal Credit Union in preparation for the night. Center stage was Michelle Zauner’s Gong, adorned with flowerey decor. The anticipation for the show to start was rising, and at 7:30 Michelle and her band walked on stage, everyone in the front row screamed and cheered, and with little to no ceremony started into Paprika.
Halfway through the show, Michelle mentioned that this was going to be the last show on this tour. This concert of course followed the June 8th announcement of Michelle’s pregnancy. She didn’t say that this final show was due to the pregnancy, and we wish Michelle and her family well for this exciting announcement!
After Japanese Breakfast wrapped up, Death Cab for Cutie (a bonafide household name at this point) took the stage promptly at 8:45 PM. The storm clouds overhead still loomed, ominously over the pavilion. Thankfully, the stage was covered when Benjamin & Company took to the stage to launch into Riptides from Death Cab’s most recent album, I Built You a Tower.
Three short minutes later, we were treated to Roman Candles off of their album “Asphalt Meadows”. The crowd behind us was loud enough to nearly drown out Ben Gibbard’s singing. The pavilion rumbled from either thunder or Jason McGerr and Nick Harmer’s low end drum and bass grooves.
Finally, this introductory backwards trip through Death Cab’s discography ended with “The New Year” off of their 2003 classic “Transatlanticism”. Without skipping a beat they kicked off with a classic, and were accompanied by the crowd for the duration of the song. At the conclusion of the song, the photographers were cleared out of the photo pit to make space for the official touring photographer.
The next 2 hours were a career spanning jam of nearly 20,000 fans and 20+ years of musical history. Ending (before the encore) with the ubiquitous “Soul Meets Body”, we were treated to a set of both hits and lesser played fan favorites. Of course we got classics like “I will follow you into the Dark” we also got some (relatively) deeper cuts like “Champagne From a Paper Cup”, which launched the encore sequence.
Paper cup bubbly, went right into “We Laugh Indoors” to get the crowd into the thick of the encore songs. After 20 songs in the main-set a 4 song encore was well received by the crowd. The penultimate song, “I built you a tower (b)” being a heavy tease right into the epic of Transatlanticism, which concluded the set on a stormy night in Raleigh, North Carolina.
GALLERY
