The world of Nothing’s About to Happen to Me, Mitski’s latest album, is intended to be unkempt. It’s a home overgrown with cats, bugs, antiques, and trinkets, and a general hoarder’s mess. But walking up to The Shed on Wednesday evening to see the third of Mitski’s six New York City shows, the surrounding environment of the Hudson Yards district couldn’t have been more different. The high-rises are sleek and soulless, the streets sanitized, the eerie quiet of a privately-owned public space muting the city’s usual noise.
There is no ‘mess’ over there — making it a peculiar choice from Mitski and her team to hold the opening dates of her residency tour at The Shed, rather than remount her new show at familiar, lived-in spaces like Brooklyn’s Kings Theater or the theater district’s Town Hall, where her last two New York stints took place. Then again, The Shed is a multi-use performance space most often employed for plays and immersive theater, so it makes sense that Mitski would opt to present her latest material in a room intended for storytelling.
Her previous tours have seen Mitski push her performance style towards more overt theatrical experiences rather than traditional concerts, so it was easy to assume that this new run would mark a complete departure. She’s made the residency-style itinerary deliberately, choosing big, lofty spaces to house her similarly gigantic voice. Plus, she’s spent the last couple years developing a new musical adaptation of The Queen’s Gambit, so Mitski’s certainly gotten comfortable with dramatic sequences.
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I came thinking this would be Nothing’s About to Happen to Me: The Musical, a lot like my preconception of the album, which promised a character-driven immersion where Mitski truly reinvented herself. But once again, Mitski has subverted expectations. It was a great performance, but it was also a particularly raw and understated way to present her live show — a total contrast to her last three outings, which boasted sharp choreography and stark, intentional moments of vulnerability.
With 10 of Nothing’s 11 tracks represented in the setlist — though not played in tracklist order — it felt like Mitski was seizing the opportunity to present the songs on her album in their fullest form, with the volume up and the narrative aspects minimized. In between those songs, she plucked numerous tracks from across her catalog, omitting some big hits but attempting to keep the vibe unified and moving.
The biggest adjustment from the last tour is that Mitski has, at last, turned up the amplifiers. Her band, led by musical director and Mitski’s close collaborator Patrick Hyland, can absolutely rip, and many of the evening’s arrangements felt in conversation with the cathartic power pop that characterized Mitski’s early work. It helps that Nothing’s About to Happen to Me has its fair share of loud, fuzz-laden tracks: “Where’s My Phone?” was as visceral as its corresponding music video, “Rules” dialed up the chaos, and pre-encore closer “That White Cat” was a hectic ritual.
That wasn’t all — several of her older songs were rendered more electric and powerful this time around. Laurel Hell’s “Stay Soft” was the biggest reinterpretation, proving to be the total opposite of what its title asks for; Mitski and her band, with red lights flashing chaotically, presented a thoroughly rock-ified rendition of the song, providing a jolt of energy to the set’s latter half. Meanwhile, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We’s “Buffalo Replaced” also took on a more vibrant hue than it had on the prior tour, where it had been enjoyable but maybe a little sleepy.
Beyond the more powerful arrangements, though, it was surprising to see Mitski perform in such a restrained fashion. Previously, Mitski would communicate the emotion behind her music almost entirely with her hands and arms (has anyone leaned harder into hand choreo than Mitski over the years?). But this time, choreography wasn’t part of the equation. It was, in fact, more gripping to witness her performing the devastating “If I Leave” with her hands entirely in her pockets.
It seems that for this tour, she’s forgoing the usual bells and whistles of her performance style and resorting to casually pacing around the stage, mic in hand, or simply standing there and letting it rip. The latter move was perfect for a song like “I’ll Change For You,” a newer cut and one of her best songs to date. Just like she’d done during her Colbert performance of the song, Mitski embraced her inner cabaret singer. She knew she didn’t have to do much to communicate the track’s palpable emotion — just remain there at the mic, poised and open, allowing us in to see what’s inside.
Mitski is an artist with many, many good songs, but it’s pretty surprising to see her perform an 80-minute set without “Nobody,” “First Love/Hate Spring,” and “Your Best American Girl.” Perhaps “My Love Mine All Mine” and “Washing Machine Heart” have gradually gone to replace those songs as her most beloved — and regardless, she still drew upon her early discography, even closing with a song from her 2012 debut, “Pearl Diver” (I would have preferred “Liquid Smooth” or “Strawberry Blonde,” but oh well). It’s not necessarily a complaint given the emphasis on new material, but if you haven’t gotten to see Mitski yet and are considering it for this run, be aware that she might not be busting out some of her most iconic tracks.
A few years ago, Mitski discussed feeling so jaded, burnt out, and disenchanted by the music business that she was considering leaving it forever. But when addressing the audience on Wednesday night — with the same candor as a kooky aunt, I might add — she referred to performing her music as her “favorite thing to do in the whole world.” Hands in pockets, mic in hand, just standing there and filling the room… it was the least theatrical she’s been in years, and somehow the most compelling.
See photos of night one of Mitski’s performances at The Shed on March 2nd, along with the setlist from her March 4th concert.
Setlist:
In a Lake
Cats
Working for the Knife
Buffalo Replaced
Dead Women
I Bet on Losing Dogs
Where’s My Phone?
Heaven
I’ll Change for You
When Memories Snow
Instead of Here
Circle
Washing Machine Heart
Dan the Dancer
I Want You
Francis Forever
If I Leave
Stay Soft
A Horse Named Cold Air
Two Slow Dancers
Lightning
My Love Mine All Mine
That White Cat
Encore:
Pearl Diver
