Mitski - Live at Electric Bristol

Anyone less familiar with the premise behind the album may find the show quite confusing. The latest record follows a woman who moves from a small town to the big city and becomes a hoarder consumed in their own mess, and the many cats and rats around them. For large swathes of her performance, Mitski embodies this scatty, frightened character with unusual gesticulations and spontaneous dance moves. Having not experienced her live set beforehand, there is something lost in that live environment from what you get on the record. Her strongest suit has always been her lyricism. In a Lake, the first track on both this concert tour and the album that spawned it, is a tour-de-force of songwriting. However, she often gets drowned out by the equally great musicianship of the surrounding instruments on the more sombre songs, something balanced out in the album’s production. 

Nonetheless, Mitski entertains a crowd that is willing to chant all these joyfully miserable lyrics back at her. The fans remain on the edge of their phone screens throughout, waiting for My Love Mine All Mine, the track that made Mitski go viral back in 2023. The album itself is a delight, and the broad array of back catalogue tracks that are seeded in throughout are equally inspiring. Where’s My Phone is an infectious, purposefully messy stride of an anthem that epitomises the album’s MO, while That White Cat goes down a storm. The quieter tracks, like If I Leave or Pearl Diver, are still the ones that engage the crowd the most. You can understand why the “Mitski Sad Girl Song” playlist on Spotify is so successful. 

Mitski is a treasure of an artist who, regardless of how big she has become, will never sell out. Her music still remains lovably quirky, indie and outright weird, and this bizarre concept album is proof that she will always remain an artist’s artist with a great knack for ensnaring an audience. Considering her song Rules features numbers in succession, she also spends a while talking about the significance of 6-7. Mitski has explained that this short tour is to make time for more songwriting, which suggests another album will be closer away than we think. What a treat that will be, for sure.