Ethel Cain really out here in Portland on a Monday evening performing for my slowcore/Americana dreams. Sold out and packed to the brim. Sooooo goooood.
Arriving at Mississippi Studios about 5 minutes to doors, I saw that the line to the venue entrance was no less than 80 people, which is crazy to me for a threshold of ~300 capacity. I knew I had no chance to get a good front row spot, so I made the quick decision to bolt for a balcony seat, which still provided a great view of the stage.
Colyer
Fairly impressive solo opener. Started a bit slow, but his songs became more and more enjoyable as his 35min set went on. He draws influence from noise rock, soul, shoegaze, alternative rock, and perhaps a few other genres. Most of his songs featured a backing track which felt cheap at first, but I didn't mind it as much in the later tracks. Overall not bad at all. Good vocal performance too.
Ethel Cain
Oh wow. Wow wow wow. Hayden Anhedönia (who goes by stage name Ethel Cain) delivered dreamy, heartfelt vocal performances throughout the 10 song setlist, eight of which were from this year's outstanding
Preacher's Daughter. Lineup here consisted of three musicians, with Colyer returning to the stage as guitarist, a drummer, and Hayden herself. Setlist ran exactly 1hr with encore.
She kicked off with "Strangers," which set the somber, slowcore mood beautifully before segueing into the upbeat "American Teenager." No time to dwell on the latter track, as after a few cute jokes and interactions with the crowd, Hayden moved along to the excellent "A House in Nebraska" and "Family Tree" to bring back the moody atmosphere. Like with the opener, a few tracks like "A House in Nebraska" had a backing track for the introductory piano lead-in. Some of her pitch was a touch flat, but it didn't bother me at all. Going from one corner of the stage to the other, she was also locking hands with front row audience by this point and did so for all of the songs thereafter. The slowcore, Americana setlist stayed consistent from here on, with an unreleased cut as well (can't remember the name).
This performance of "Family Tree" was killer, probably my favorite of the set. Glad I chose to record this one:
Sadly, my favorite Ethel Cain song "Hard Times" wasn't given a spot in the set.
Post-show
After waiting at least 10 minutes to descend the stairs from congestion of the stairway, I hurried over to see prices of merch on the main floor.
Preacher's Daughter is not available on LP at the moment as Hayden is an independent artist and had concerns about hypothetical sales. Some shirts, tanktops, sweatshirts, tour posters, stickers, and hats were available, though most shirts were in S/XL sizes remaining by the time I got to the front, as the merch line ran at least 60 deep.
By the time I got to near front of the line, Colyer must've looked at my gear as he had asked me:
"Hey, are you a Trail Blazers fan?"
I replied:
"Yeah, sadly. Why do you ask?"
"You guys have Gary Payton Jr., he's my favorite player right now! I've gotta watch some Blazer games this year."
"I'm glad he's here too, he's a former OSU Beaver!"
After that brief, surprising conversation with Colyer, I was about five people away to the merch table where Hayden was also there saying hi, exchanging hugs and signing purchased merch, with some even asking her to sign their foreheads lmao. I initially wanted to just say hi, but I decided to get the 24" x 18" poster at the last minute before my turn.
Hayden was very kind and we shared hugs, with her signing my poster directly after. Also got a photo with her, but it didn't turn out great; blurry and off-center. Probably going to keep that one hidden unless people ask...
This one is probably slotting in somewhere among my top10 favorite shows this year so far. Fantastic value for a $17 ticket.
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