It was hard to not see these things on the second night of three sold-out shows at Toronto’s Massey Hall. Her stage setup seemed to interrogate that very disconnect between herself, her fans, and the nature of performance. As she emerged with her seven-piece band, donning a simple set of stage blacks, and burst into “Everyone” from 2022’s Laurel Hell, she appeared behind a circular curtain, a silhouette magnified into a giant by tricks of light. With the added attention the complication grows. 

The visual metaphor is striking considering Mitski’s profile has grown significantly on the strength of her seventh album The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We, an Americana-powered departure from her previous albums. However there was an entire back catalogue of gems I was, perhaps selfishly, hoping to see, and I was pleased to see previous hits like “I Don’t Smoke” and “Happy” spun into honky-tonk versions suitable to her latest era.

The sparse staging amplified Mitski’s performance art. Having trained with movement artist Monica Mirobile, her songs are newly informed by an ever-shifting stage presence. For an artist whose public persona is one of withdrawal, her live presence is assertive and funny. As she quipped in her opening monologue with a faux-dramatic flourish: “I’m here! I’m suffering through it for you!”