At a Mitski Show, You Can Start Over

There is a moment near the beginning of the set when Mitski changes a line. “In Manila, you can start over,” she sings, adjusting the lyrics of “In a Lake” for the city she is standing in for the very first time. It’s a small thing, but the crowd felt special. The SM Mall of Asia Arena felt like a completely different kind of place on July 14. 

That is what a Mitski show does. It takes the feelings you have been carrying around (the ones you thought were too specific, too embarrassing, too “yours”) and puts them in a room with several thousand other people who have been carrying the same ones. “I thought I was alone,” Mitski told the crowd at some point during the night, “and it turned out I wasn’t because you understand. I still can’t believe it, really. I don’t know what to do with this feeling.” Neither did we. 

The setlist was vast: 26 songs that spanned her entire catalogue, from the opening one-two of “In a Lake” and “Cats” all the way through to “Pearl Diver” as the encore. Each song arrived with carefully chosen visuals projected behind her, such as silent black-and-white films flickering in the dark, snatches of old Hollywood — The Invisible Man, Dracula, Woman on the Run. It gave the show the feeling of something curated and deliberate, a world Mitski had built and was inviting you into for one night only.

Within that world, certain moments stood out. “Stay Soft” came in a full rock arrangement, which felt rawer and more urgent than the album version. “Heaven” did the opposite. Listening to it, I felt weightless, almost dissociative, the kind of song that makes you lose track of where you are. “Dead Women” was hypnotic in a way that is genuinely hard to put into words. She is, it turns out, even more magnetic in person than any recording could prepare you for. There is something about the way Mitski holds a stage that is difficult to look away from. 

There were communal moments, too. The crowd sang every word of “Francis Forever” and “I Bet on Losing Dogs” and flashlights flooded the arena for “Two Slow Dancers” and “My Love Mine All Mine.” There was also the surprise addition of “Nobody,” introduced to the setlist for the first time in Manila, which had the entire floor on its feet. After a show that had spent most of its runtime in the deep end emotionally, it was a release. People danced and let loose.

“If I Leave,” “I Want You,” and “Two Slow Dancers” wrecked people in the ways you’d expect, while “Pearl Diver” wrapped the set with a nice little bow.

Mitski mentioned that she still can’t believe any of this, that she thought she was alone in it. Twenty-six songs later, the arena had already proven her wrong. For one night at the arena, something happened to all of us.

MITSKI ‘Nothing’s About to Happen to Me’ in MANILA is presented by PULP Live World.
Photos by Yobhel Valenzuela

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