Live Review: Mitski, Moaning Lisa

Moaning Lisa, for those not in the know, is an early Simpsons episode where America’s pre-emptive progressive cartoon daughter awoke one morning to an existential state of distress, and found her only salve and escape was through playing the saxophone. Obvious parallels can be made with tonight’s opener Moaning Lisa, a Canberra-based, riled-up rock four-piece and 2018 triple j Unearthed feature artists. We’re only a few songs in and are already being corralled with period flow banter, Mitski adoration and a pummeling of fuzzy '90s grunge riffage. An unabashedly cathartic and feminist set, it’s obvious they really enjoy playing together. Second last song and sly Sleater-Kinney homage Carrie (I Want A Girl) is a hell-raiser and highlight. 

Mitski Miyawaki, known by everyone here tonight as Mitski, is an elusive artist to pin down. Having gained broad-hand critical acclaim for 2018’s Be The Cowboy, tonight’s performance, at the oddly shaped Corner Hotel, adds further mystique to one of the indie-rock world’s most treasured new artists. Gone is the furious strumming and cacophony that came with her previous Australian tour. Tonight it is replaced with intimate blocked choreography, no wieldy guitar and a measured business blouse and navy blue skirt combination. The band handle Miyawaki’s mind-bending chord progressions with a measured gusto, allowing our singer free rein of the stage to furiously pace and flail her arms to heart's content.

“I appreciate photos, but no flash, please… I’m like a deer in headlights,” Mitski says gently after the boppy A Pearl, and it's clear by the third song, the devoted here would follow her to the ends of the earth. The morose and glittery Nobody is an obvious highlight mid-set, and the crowd even nail the numerous key changes. A slight interlude to meditate on the age-old vomiting versus diarrhoea debate cuts through the mood, before the gentle strumming of breakout track Your Best American Girl engulfs the room. The veil is only ever dropped fleetingly, it seems. 

Drunk Walk Home from 2014’s Bury Me At Makeout Creek ends the main set in a violently ecstatic fashion, with Mitski finally letting down the walls to jump, scream and flail in happy abandon before the encore. Accompanied with only keys, the packed room at the Corner has never been so quiet as for the heartbreaking Two Slow Dancers. Deep cut Goodbye, My Danish Sweetheart, from Mitski's Bandcamp days, ends the night on a high for the day-one fans, and it’s impressive to see that even in the earliest stages of her output the songs were still as dense, witty and uncompromising as any other.

The setlist tonight runs much like Be The Cowboy does; on first listen it could seem disjointed. But as it sits and grows with you, you realise these fleeting, disjointed glimpses are exactly what Mitski intended to communicate to the world. A wholly intimate set from one of the world’s foremost conveyers of pensive optimism. The crowd can finally feel some sense of release... now to cry alone at home.