By Gabby Scheer
In today’s indie music scene, Japanese Breakfast is inescapable. They’re everywhere- from soundtracking The Summer I Turned Pretty to the hit film Materialists, from late night television appearances with Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert, to nominations for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album at the Grammys.
They’ve even infiltrated literature, with lead singer Michelle Zauner’s New York Times bestselling memoir Crying in H Mart. The band’s reach stretches wide, and Sept. 8, 2025 they reached Lawrence, Kansas.
Liberty Hall had the pleasure of hosting a band who has played legendary venues such as Red Rocks Amphitheater, Radio City Music Hall, and the Hollywood Bowl. The intimate venue set the mood for the Melancholy tour- the serene atmosphere was a perfect match for the ethereal music being performed.
The band’s set, designed by Kat Borderud, almost seemed built for Liberty Hall. Waves, clouds, and a massive clam shell formed a fantasy world that melted into the paintings lining the walls of the venue. One mural, a celestial image of a woman in a teal dress playing the violin, seemed at times to step down from the wall and perform alongside the band.
The night kicked off at 8 p.m. with opener Ginger Root. After a quick survey of the crowd, frontman Cameron Lew determined only 57 people in attendance were familiar with the band’s music, but it didn’t take him long to capture the attention of everyone in the crowd. Their quirky, upbeat performance told a fictional story about Ginger Root being hired to write music for a 1980s J-Pop idol, only to end up performing in her place after she was fired by her management.
The playful narrative was followed by a grounded, heartwarming story from Ginger Root. Lew reflected on being in college and writing an essay on a piece of music that was important to him. He wrote about Japanese Breakfast’s debut album Psychopomp, and acknowledged how surreal it felt to now be opening for their tour. He closed his set with advice to the crowd: “if you want to try something, try it” just before the grand finale with the expansive Show 10.
The stage was quickly transformed for Japanese Breakfast, and the lights dimmed as their otherworldly set came into focus. Lead singer Michelle Zauner ran out from the darkness, beginning the show by lighting a lantern that served as the primary light source for their opening song Here is Someone.
Though the tour was titled Melancholy, the performers seemed anything but. The setlist was centered on sad songs, but Zauner and her bandmates spent most of the night smiling, dancing, and recounting their memories of Lawrence. Most notably, Zauner mentioned that the last time they were in Lawrence, an anonymous member of the band broke the number one tour bus rule- don’t poop on the bus. It was brought up various times in the show, and Zauner even had the crowd take a “survey” on who they thought the culprit was. Zauner thinks it was her husband/guitarist, Peter Bradley.
The playfulness between members of the band was justified before Magic Mountain, the closing track of For Melancholy Brunettes and Sad Women. Zauner told the audience that as an only child, touring can be difficult for her, because she is accustomed to spending time in solitude. Introducing her band, she said she chose “the best of the best” because her “only child syndrome” demanded selectiveness.
Zauner brought her playful attitude to the crowd as well. She frequently came up to the barricade to sing lyrics with fans, and made lively, mischievous gestures to the crowd. While Michelle Zauner kept her focus on the crowd, Peter Bradley kept his focus on Michelle. Watching the two interact added a new level of intimacy to the performance. At certain lyrics they exchanged quick glances, but the small moments that carried the weight of years together. Bradley’s steady gaze made the songs feel less like performances, and more like glimpses into a shared life.
Similar to the band’s attitude, the live arrangements of their songs were far from melancholy. Highlights included a sprawling violin solo in Kokomo, IN, and a massive upbeat trumpet solo in Paprika. More subtle percussion decorations were added to The Body is a Blade with Deven Craige on bass adding loud stomps, and again on Paprika with Zauner hitting a light-up gong on the beat. The most transformed track was Posing in Bodage, where the band deconstructed the original production and built it into something bigger, amplifying the most climactic moments.
At the climax of Posing in Bondage, Zauner poetically blew out the lantern she had lit at the start of the show, seeming to signal the end of Melancholy, which led perfectly into the encore that was heavy with songs from their album Jubilee. The lengthy encore included 3 songs from the album- Posing for Cars, Paprika, and Be Sweet. Unlike the rest of the set, the songs played during the encore left all elements of melancholy behind as the band played some of their most upbeat, heavy songs.
The final song of the encore that ended the night was Diving Woman, from their sophomore album Soft Sounds From Another Planet. The track’s dreamy layered production with cutting lyrics encapsulated the band’s sound perfectly. As the crowd filed out of Liberty Hall, it was clear the Melancholy tour had not lived up to its name. Japanese Breakfast made sure nobody in Lawrence was left feeling melancholy.