Gig Review: Japanese Breakfast And Barrie At Kentish Town O2 Forum
There’s something special about gigs in the city when it gets darker earlier. The idea of strangers closing the door on their day to gather in the night feels more ceremonious and secretive when it happens later on in the year, compared to shows that fall in the sickly heat of a pink summer evening. On a dimly lit Highgate Road, the pavement thickens with people heading towards tonight’s symphonic sanctuary, to an evening with Barrie and Japanese Breakfast at the O2 Forum Kentish Town.
Barrie
Support comes from Barrie, a project founded by Brooklyn based artist, Barrie Lindsay. The self produced album Barbara, released earlier this year (Still Listening’s Q and A with the artist surrounding the ’22 release can be found here has drawn in a healthy amount of fans that have got down to the venue early tonight. Much like Barrie’s music catalog, the live performance was well curated and felt fresh and fluid. The full choreographed band felt angelic (maybe it's the white shirts), Lindsay’s vocals pierce right through the atmosphere, allowing the sweet lyrics to resonate in the air. There’s a familiarity of Barrie’s music, but it doesn’t blend into the background of the indie-dream-pop scene. The music’s construction and live performance stands far out from others. We expect to see European headline shows from Barrie in the future.
Japanese Breakfast
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, it will have been difficult to avoid Michelle Zauner’s material reaching you in one way or another over the past year. Crying in H Mart dominated the NYT bestseller list for more than 40 weeks, the 2021 studio album, Jubilee, rose to critical acclaim, as well as picking up a Grammy nomination. Late night talk show appearances and sell out tours have made a ticket for a night with Japanese Breakfast feel like gold, a staple gig to attend this year, it’s no surprise tonight was sold out.
Although by now it needs no more promotion, tonight’s setlist mostly consists of songs from Jubilee. Zauner and her band shine brightly as they play through tracks like Paprika and Be Sweet. Zauner’s delicate voice and lyrics are not lost behind the instruments. She is a captivating lead from the moment the lights go up.
It’s hard to distance yourself from the heavy stuff when so much of it has been intertwined into Zauner’s work. This moment, exactly 6 years ago, Japanese Breakfast would have been performing Psychopomp at the Lexington, in Angel. Zauner’s writings on this record acted as magnifying glass scanning over loss. It can be easy to latch on to artists when they share their experiences (through their work) that are similar to that of your own. Music is this anomaly media that you can accompany to your own life events, music is deeply personal, even though it’s not about you at all. Zauner pours her heart out on stage tonight, sharing the more mournful tracks from her earlier albums. One can only imagine how emotionally taxing it could be for a person to continually perform these songs, night after night, as well as have fans from all over the world reach out to you under the shared experience of grief, not only is it commendable but Zauner’s ability to have done this and to still do it today feels supernatural.
Maybe that’s why Jubilee is different. Maybe that’s why the backing track used to open the set tonight, was the familiar theme tune from that Channel 4 baking show (as well as unexpectedly foreshadowing a guest appearance - Trombone playing GBBO baker Jürgen Krauss). The Jubilee tour marks a shift into a sunnier light. Tonight, every detail down to Zauner’s Simone Rocha outfit, is joyful.