Mitski, Your Best American Girl, Gave Us Her Best Canadian Show
Earlier this week, American indie-rock goddess Mitski Miyawaki graced Toronto’s Danforth Music Hall with her witty and confessional power-pop-punk. The 28-year-old had the sold-out audience transfixed by her commanding voice, offbeat, yoga-like stage moves, and disarming self-awareness. (“I’m not good at stage banter so let’s just see how long we can remain silent without it getting weird,” she said at one point while her guitarist tuned his guitar between songs.) Drawing on songs from her 2014 breakthrough Bury Me at Makeout Creek (including an explosive performance of her first hit “Your Best American Girl”) and latest, critically-lauded LP Be the Cowboy, Mitski ran the gamut of candid emotions – her lyrical topics range from anxiety, loneliness, heartbreak, and fucking up – delivered with the awkward vulnerability of a stoned, late-night, three-part text to an ex-lover. She writes the songs I wish Weezer would write today.
Sharp was at the show to capture Mitski in all her unfettered, neurotic, peculiar glory.
Photography: Val Sankar
