Japanese Breakfast @ Black Cat - 9/7/2017
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Japanese Breakfast @ Black Cat - 9/7/2017

At this point, it’s safe to say that Japanese Breakfast is no longer just a curious side project of Little Big League’s Michelle Zauner. On night 1 of her headlining tour across America (and soon, Europe), Zauner explained that opening for other artists like Slowdive and Mitski has been great, but headlining in support of her well-received sophomore album Soft Sounds from Another Planet is even greater. "I've felt like a bridesmaid for the last year and a half - that's why I'm wearing white tonight." 

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Arcade Fire @ Capital One Arena - 9/16/2017
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Arcade Fire @ Capital One Arena - 9/16/2017

The penultimate song on The Suburbs was an inflection point for Arcade Fire. The track, “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains),” featured an exuberant Regine Chassagne on vocals over a retro-glossy synth-pop track. It suggested that her real comfort zone was not in aspirational arena-filling anthems, but on the dance floor. Although the album went on to win Album of the Year at the Grammys, the sound that Arcade Fire was known for changed in line with the new musical times - more “Sprawl II” than “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels).” Their latest album Everything Now signaled that it wasn’t just a phase - the title track and other tracks are more danceable than anything in their back catalog but at the expense of the anthemic qualities of their earlier work.

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