Mitski brought her Be The Cowboy tour to Athens on Tuesday for a sold out show with support from Jay Som. Be The Cowboy was one of the absolute best albums of 2018 and her previous album Puberty 2 was one of my favorites in 2016 so I’d been looking forward to this show for a while. It’s actually what got me to look up how far Athens is from me. Turns out it’s very drive-able, closer than Atlanta even, who knew? Probably literally everyone but me. Thanks Mitski!!
The night started out with Jay Som. She has a handful of songs that I’m familar with and like from the Music Choice Indie cable channel. She didn’t play any of those but still had a good short set. I definitely need dig deeper into her music.
Mitski came out right on time and played a set that spanned her entire career, not just the critically acclaimed Be The Cowboy. There were a lot of songs from her album Bury Me at Makeout Creek (If you haven’t noticed Mitski is very good at naming albums). She had a choreographed routine involving a desk that she sat at, stood on, pushed over, did workout exercises on, hid behind, and more, all while singing her songs. She had noticeable bruises from (presumably) this, some actual pain for her art. Her whole set got a great reaction from the sold out crowd but the Be The Cowboy songs got the biggest reaction, some turning into massive singalongs. Nothing on that album is bad but my favorites were in the set, Geyser, Why Didn’t You Stop Me, A Pearl, Nobody, and Washing Machine Heart. I also got to see Puberty 2 favorites Your Best American Girl, Dan the Dancer, I Bet on Losing Dogs, and Thursday Girl plus many old songs as I mentioned.
After a short fake encore break she came back with Two Slow Dancers a song way too good not to play. Not seeing that would have been the only thing that would have left me disappointed. Then she wrapped it up with Carry Me Out and called it a night. Don’t pass up the chance to see Mitski if you get it.
Entreaty 
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