Manila will never forget Mitski
There is a running joke online that many of Mitski’s biggest fans barely listen to her music. It’s a compliment, contrary to how it sounds. Her ability to pin down the specificities of loneliness is what draws people to her work, but also what makes it sometimes unbearable. It’s like seeing a ghost at a house party—even with music and streamers, the past remains. Most days we’d prefer not to be reminded.
It’s fitting that the American singer-songwriter’s new album, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me, released in February, is a concept album from the perspective of a reclusive woman in a disheveled house. At the Manila stop of the album’s tour, held on July 14 at the SM Mall of Asia Arena, Mitski performs in what appears to be a living room, with lamps, a desk, an armchair, and her five-piece band. She crooned the first set of songs as a continuous sequence; only midway does she break the trance and say hello. “What are you doing in my house?” she said, to the audience’s applause. “Just kidding, this is your house!”
Many fan favorites from her last seven albums made it to the show—such as I Bet on Losing Dogs, a brutal, barely-three-minute song full of sharp writing about love that’s doomed to fail—but the new record still takes center stage. The album and the concert both open with In A Lake, which then opens with the lines, “I’d never live in a small town / I’ve made too many mistakes / For where you gotta write your book early / Or it gets written up in your place.”
In her first-ever Manila show, the singer-songwriter made us sit with the feeling, then dance it away.
The singer has mentioned being inspired by Shirley Jackson novels, particularly We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It’s a story about a family ostracized by the rest of their community, but also sisterhood—while it’s about isolation, it’s not devoid of devotion. Similarly, Mitski’s music video for the lead single Where’s My Phone? sees her trying to protect her younger sister from intruders trying to get into their house.
Isolation and self-destruction are recurring themes in Mitski’s work, and creating a concept album set in a single house from the perspective of a woman who’s been othered is a beautiful, fully realized progression of her music, bolstered by the rich world-building of her tour. It was an all-seated show, like theater; after her quick pleasantries with the audience, she said, “Let’s get back into character, right?”
That said, the new album’s strongest writing is in the songs where she is begging not to be left alone; that in fact, she—or at least the album’s narrator—is willing to go to extreme lengths to achieve it. The show’s opening song, In A Lake, was followed by Cats, where Mitski sings, “You say it’s so hard / But it feels simple to me.”
But just as the sisters have each other in Jackson’s novel, Mitski has us, and we have her. The live show is where the isolation dissipates and loses its power. “I thought I was alone, but I wasn’t,” she said in the show. “Because you understand.”
Shortly after, the arena lit up with lights during Two Slow Dancers, then Mitski surprised the audience with her 2018 hit Nobody, which wasn’t on the setlist. It’s one of my favorite songs from her precisely because of the contrast: it’s an upbeat, danceable song about how “still, nobody wants me.” But hearing it live with a full crowd, where we couldn’t help but jump out of our seats, I understood that maybe the song wasn’t that ironic after all. Avoiding loneliness isn’t the point; it’s feeling it but still choosing to dance anyway.
“I will never forget you,” the singer declared as she wrapped up her first-ever show in Manila. And it’s an apt goodbye, because you don’t leave a Mitski show without being transformed. Walking out of the arena, I had never bumped into so many of my friends and acquaintances before. Isn’t it funny how the music I listened to when I felt most alone, most unbelonging to the world, is what binds me to thousands of other people now, who, as Mitski said, understand?
* * *
Mitski’s Nothing’s About to Happen to Me tour stop in Manila was made possible by PULP Live World. Follow the artist at @mitskileaks.
