The day I went and saw Japanese Breakfast at the Opera House on a whim and a prayer

Japanese Breakfast is a musical project I had definitely heard of before May 2025, but my knowledge did not extend beyond this fantastically textural name. It was only when a friend mentioned that they were heading to the Opera House to see the act, who were performing as part of Vivid, that I sat down and listened to a couple of songs. I was intrigued by frontwoman Michelle Zauner’s esoteric blend of shoegaze, dream-pop and eighties-ish synth boppy-ness, and told my friend I was definitely going to have to listen to more.

Fast forward to Tuesday the 3rd of June, and I was sitting with said friend in the front-left balcony seats of the Sydney Opera House, with a close view of the stage and a clear look at the control booth (more on that later). How did I, a person more familiar with the sweaty-ness of a pub-rock gig, end up at Japanese Breakfast only a month after I heard Zauner’s music for the first time? Serendipity, interpersonal drama, and curiosity had intervened to catapult me into the glare of the strobe lights of Australia’s most impressive building. 

And I loved it! Songs that I had only recently heard for the first time blossomed on stage in their full, ambient glory. My friend remarked (complimentarily) that Zauner’s voice sounded exactly as it did on her recorded music — clear, alluring, and oozing with melancholy. The dreamy drones of her backing band, involving guitars, brass, and violin, were often reminiscent of shoegaze greats My Bloody Valentine. At times I found myself involuntarily choking up as Zauner sang of mundane, perfect heartbreak. At others, I was forced to bob along in my seat. A particularly lovely moment was Zauner’s order to clap along to one particular song, which was followed with military precision by an audience that watched the entire show with gaping awe.

Halfway through the show the lights broke, something I can only describe as a typically Sydney experience. At first it seemed deliberate, with only Zauner’s lamp remaining lit on stage as the band was plunged into darkness. After that awkward few seconds beyond plausible intentionality, a glance at the sound control booth revealed waving arms and a frantic pushing of buttons. Commendably the band continued to play, under a couple of dimmed house lights. In a way, this created a  pared-back experience that ratcheted up the intimacy of the performance in a beautiful way. In this soft yellow light, Japanese Breakfast shone. 

Eventally however, a brief intermission was required to figure out what the fuck was going on with the Opera House’s equipment. After a few minutes, the house lights went down, the strobes came up, and the crowd went wild (in the most polite form of wildness possible). Zauner continued to charm the audience with humble quips about wardrobe malfunction as the band returned to the stage. This was another highlight of the show; Zauner’s stagecraft was exquisite, oscillating this way and that, leaning into the audience, and delighting the crowd with little anecdotes about her time at Taronga Zoo (an Echidna was met, apparently). 

Despite the interruption, Japanese Breakfast maintained their momentum throughout. An encore featuring ‘Be Sweet’, Zauner’s infectious and deservedly well-known track, was a major hit. Other highlights for me were the shoegaze-tinged ‘Honey Water’, the jaunty ‘Mega Circuit’, and the ethereal ‘Road Head’. 

In the end the show was a marvelous introduction to Zauner’s work, and I certainly look forward to expanding my Japanese Breakfast listening hours in the coming weeks. It was a testament to the power of arts initiatives run by the government, and a symbol of all the things that make Sydney a place we love to hate, hate to love, and maybe even love to love (sometimes). Most importantly, it was an elegant vindication of taking gig opportunities when they land in your lap; even if on a whim, even with limited knowledge of the artist. So let that be a lesson to you, dear reader — if a friend offers tickets to a show with a moment’s notice, take them! You never know what musical delights you may discover…

Japanese Breakfast’s 2025 tour setlist, although some songs were apparently played out of order.