Mitski Shines Bright at the Mother Church

Mitski at the Ryman, 4/12/2024
Photo: Victor J. Reed

Internationally renowned singer-songwriter Mitski moved into the Ryman for a mini-residency of four sold-out shows — an extended adopted-hometown celebration of her latest LP The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We. Each night of the run featured support from a different artist, each of whom complemented a different side of Mitski’s unique artistry.

Sarah Kinsley opened the first night, Sunny War the second and Cowboy Junkies the final night. Night 3, on Friday, featured dazzling Australian songsmith Julia Jacklin. This show (and an appearance the next night at The Blue Room at Third Man Records) fell between strings of residency dates for Jacklin at intimate spaces in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Brooklyn. Those places and the Mother Church are perfectly suited to her songs, which are compellingly thoughtful and prone to intersect with listeners’ personal experiences whether they’re about her own life or not — a quality she shares with the headliner. Jacklin’s set was spare, her enchanting vocal melodies accompanied only by her own electric guitar. There were a couple of ticketing snafus, one of which sadly led to our photographer missing her performance. I was actually hunting for my seat during part of Jacklin’s set, and I briefly thought it was Mitski onstage. I could go on, but what higher compliment is there to give?

If Mitski’s set on Friday is anything to go on, this tour should cement her reputation as not just a prolific and consistently great musician but also a stellar performance artist. Her career-spanning set featured her expressive dancing, tailored to each song. Echoes of movement accompanying a given tune appeared in later songs with related themes, generating a cohesive effect — a modern dance piece in which the lone dancer was also the central performer in the live musical accompaniment.

If you haven’t listened to Mitski in a while, or you only know her most popular songs, you might be surprised at the sound she’s cultivating these days. While country music has been an influence on her work going way back, it’s come to the surface in a big way. Mitski’s country sound is more akin to Patsy Cline than anyone who’s made the charts in the past several decades. The evening’s backing band included an upright bassist, multiple acoustic guitar players and Nashville hero Fats Kaplin on fiddle and pedal steel, among other instruments.

The country influence wasn’t confined to Mitski’s newer work — it seems clear that her move to Nashville has been a catalyst for her creativity. New arrangements of longtime fan favorites like “I Bet on Losing Dogs” and “Happy” reflected deep listening to a wide variety of country; even songs from her 2022 ’80s-pop-influenced LP Laurel Hell, like “Love Me More” and “Working for the Knife,” were reimagined with country flair.

I don’t have one negative thing to say about Mitski’s performance. Her singular vocal stylings have never been stronger, her lyrics have never been more emotionally evocative, and her commanding presence has never been more effective. Unfortunately, the overall experience still left a lot to be desired.

I’ve seen a lot of live music, in just about every genre and every size of venue in town, both before and after the pandemic. Yet I have never experienced a crowd anywhere whose behavior was so out-of-sync with the show as it was on Friday. Make no mistake — I support people enjoying a show, whatever that means to them. It makes no difference to me if a fan is sitting or standing, cheering or silent, dancing or just absorbing the moment. As long as you are respectful to the performers and not interfering with others’ ability to enjoy the show, I think you should be able to experience live music however you choose.

But I personally dealt with neighbors screaming at ear-splitting volume at regular intervals throughout the entire show, jeering at the performers as though they were objects to be manipulated at their every whim. I heard other patrons complain of drunk neighbors screaming jokes during quiet, intimate moments, being cussed out for asking rowdy attendees to tone down their antics and clocking someone nearby browsing porn on their phone during the show they’d presumably paid to see.

Unfortunately, this tonal mismatch is a well-documented phenomenon at Mitski’s shows. Before COVID, Mitski made plans to quit the music business entirely, worn down by the grind of giving so much of herself on terms dictated by capitalism instead of her needs as an artist and as a human. People watching the whole show through their phones, treating her as a commodity rather than a person, is a symptom. When she complained, nothing changed.

Naively, I hoped a show in Nashville would be different. Maybe in all the years we’ve spent on our own, we’ve forgotten that the world doesn’t revolve around us. A wise person once said, “Reading comprehension is in its flop era,” and I’d say this extends to reading a room. What else could explain such blatantly disrespectful audience behavior?

I don’t want anyone else to have the kind of experience I did — finally getting to see a musician they love and leaving with the experience soured. Artists are a vital part of Nashville’s ecosystem, and we have to learn to treat them right. We can’t be Music City without it.