By some magic, Mitski found a way to let all 1700 of us in the crowd be alone with the music.
When Mitski began playing “Your Best American Girl,” the tall, denim-jacketed matryoshka doll couple standing next to me started making out. “Your Best American Girl,” like most of Mitski’s catalog, is not particularly romantic. It’s a seething, defiant rock song about feeling inadequate and undeserving of love. I imagine it’s a terrible makeout song, because it’s great to play if you’re feeling ugly and righteous and desperate that someone would just make out with you. You listen to Mitski when you want to echo the darkest and loneliest parts of your mind — to wallow in your loneliness, not to reach for connection. For a second, the kissing couple threatened to burst the protective bubble I’d built around myself and the music to get through this show.
I was nervous to see Mitski’s Be The Cowboy tour. There was no doubt she’d sound incredible live — I’ve seen her a couple times on previous tours, and she’s a tremendous musician and performer. But Be The Cowboy is such a lonely record, and the music itself is so dissonant to the massive popularity she’s gained in the last year. Every single date of Mitski’s US tour sold out over a month in advance. Emo’s was wall-to-wall packed with Austin’s coolest young music listeners, and with tickets going for nearly four times face value on Stubhub, she probably could have played a venue twice that size and still sold it out.
She’s got stans now. The line to get into the venue was wrapped around the building two hours before doors even opened, and breaks between songs were filled with shouts of “Queen!!” and “I love you, mother!!” Mitski deserves every bit of acclaim she’s received. I’m glad so many people have been able to find comfort and community in her work, and to hear themselves in her deeply solitary music. But it seems strange to buy a ticket, line up, and experience that kind of loneliness with 1700 strangers. (And, I imagine, just as weird to bare your soul every night to a crowd collectively entertained by your loneliness.)
Despite its crowd-pleasing anthems (“ Nobody ” is one of those Robyn -esque dance-your-sadness-away bangers), Be The Cowboy gets pretty ugly sometimes. Even alone, it’s hard to listen to if you’re not in the mood to hear it. “A Pearl” twists a Nirvana-esque riff into a song about turning away from a lover’s touch and retreating into the solitude of your own mind, letting the “pearl” of your past trauma roll around inside your head.
On “ Washing Machine Heart,” Mitski begs to be used like a washing machine, her heart and body a vessel for the lover to “bang it up inside.” The affection she is desperate for is marred and twisted, destructive and toxic. She wants a love that “falls as fast as a body from a balcony” and “a kiss like my heart is hitting the ground.” Her music isn’t just “honest” in that generic way. You get the impression that she’s digging up her guts to display for these records, and to see her do it live is powerful and a little bit terrifying.
