Effective immediately, all concerts and events at First Avenue and associated venues will require either proof of a full series of COVID-19 vaccination, or proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken in the prior 72 hours. More info HERE.

Please note: At the artist’s request, masks will be required at this show except while drinking.

Presale starts on Thursday, April 21 at 10AM | Tickets on sale on Friday, April 22 at 10AM

Doors open at 7PM | Show starts 8PM | 18+ | $39.50

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From the moment she began writing her new album, Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner knew that she wanted to call it ​Jubilee​. After all, a jubilee is a celebration of the passage of time—a festival to usher in the hope of a new era in brilliant technicolor. Zauner’s first two albums garnered acclaim for the way they grappled with anguish; ​Psychopomp​ was written as her mother underwent cancer treatment, while ​Soft Sounds From Another Planet​ took the grief she held from her mother‘s death and used it as a conduit to explore the cosmos. Now, at the start of a new decade, Japanese Breakfast is ready to fight for happiness, an all-too-scarce resource in our seemingly crumbling world.

How does she do it? With a joyful noise. From pulsing walls of synthgaze and piano on “Sit,” to the nostalgia-laden strings that float through “Tactics,” ​Jubilee bursts with the most wide-ranging arrangements of Zauner’s career. Each song unfurls a new aspect of her artistry: “Be Sweet,” co-written with Wild Nothing’s Jack Tatum, is a jagged, propulsive piece of ‘80s pop that’s followed by a sweetly melancholic ballad in “Kokomo, IN.” As she rides a crest of saxophones and synthesizers through “Slide Tackle,” a piece of nimble pop-funk run through a New Order lens, Zauner professes her desire to move forward: “I want to be good—I want to navigate this hate in my heart somewhere better.”

In the years leading up to ​Jubilee​, Zauner also took theory lessons and studied piano in earnest for the first time, in an effort to improve her range as a songwriter: “I’ve never wanted to rest on any laurels. I wanted to push it as far as it could go, inviting more people in and pushing myself as a composer, a producer, an arranger.” She pours that sentiment into the album from the very beginning, weaving a veritable tapestry of sound on the opening track “Paprika.” To build such an anthem of self-actualization, Zauner maxed out the technical limits of her recording rig, expelling her anxieties and egoism with layers upon layers of triumphant horns and marching snares. “How’s it feel to be at the center of magic? To linger in tones and words?” she ponders, conjuring the widescreen majesty of Kate Bush. “I opened the floodgates and found no water, no current, no river, no rush!”

Later, on “Savage Good Boy”—a kooky, terrifyingly prophetic jam co-produced with (Sandy) Alex G—Zauner reduces the excess of modern capitalism to an emotional level, sarcastically imagining the perspective of a billionaire trying to convince his lover to join him underground as the apocalypse unfolds. “I want to make the money until there’s no more to be made/And we will be so wealthy, I’m absolved from questioning/That all my bad behavior was just a necessary strain/They’re the stakes in a race to win.”

“I don’t want to weave politics into my music in a way that feels cheap, but I couldn’t make something that doesn’t comment on the reality we live in,” says Zauner. “I think that you need to push yourself to care, and that’s part of what this album is about: If you want change, in anything, you need to go to war for it.”

At the end comes “Posing for Cars,” one of the longest, most visceral Japanese Breakfast songs to date. In its muted opening, Zauner quietly re-embraces impassioned facets of youth—wistful daydreaming, fierce loyalty—atop a bed of slowly-strummed guitars. Those same feelings pour out of her fingertips as she erupts into a cathartic, nearly three-minute-long solo to close out the record, with gradual swells of distortion that evoke the arena-sized guitars of bands like Wilco or Sonic Youth.

Jubilee​ is an album about processing life and love in the quest for happiness, and how that process sometimes requires us to step outside of ourselves. “Savage Good Boy” isn’t the only time Zauner takes on a persona; On the cavernous masterpiece “Posing In Bondage,” she imagines a woman left behind in the confines of an empty house, traversing the blurred lines between domesticity and dominance as she sings to an absent lover. Meanwhile, “Kokomo, IN” was written from the perspective of a small-town Indiana boy, forced to say goodbye to a girlfriend who’s shipping off to study abroad. But throughout ​Jubilee,​ Zauner is hardly fictionalizing her lyrics, instead pouring her own life into the universe of each song to tell real stories, and allowing those universes, in turn, to fill in the details. Joy, change, evolution—these things take real time, and real effort. And Japanese Breakfast is here for it.

The Linda Lindas first played together as members of a pickup new wave cover band of kids assembled by Kristin Kontrol (Dum Dum Girls) for Girlschool LA in 2018 and then formed their own garage punk group just for fun. Sisters Mila de la Garza (drummer, now 11) and Lucia de la Garza (guitar, 14), cousin Eloise Wong (bass, 13), and family friend Bela Salazar (guitar, 17) developed their chops as regulars at all-ages matinees in Chinatown, where they played with original L.A. punks like The Dils, Phranc, and Alley Cats; went on to open for riot grrrl legends Bikini Kill and architect Alice Bag as well as DIY heavyweights Best Coast and Bleached; and were eventually featured in Amy Poehler’s movie Moxie.

When the pandemic put a pause on shows, The Linda Lindas went on to self-release a four-song EP, make their own videos (including a get-out-the-vote effort with friends such as Tony Reflex from Adolescents, Adam Pfahler from Jawbreaker, Tae Won Yu from Kicking Giant, Allison Wolfe, Lois Maffeo, Money Mark, and Mike Watt), and grow a following beyond Los Angeles. But they never expected or could have even dreamed that their performance of “Racist, Sexist Boy” for the Los Angeles Public Library in May 2021 would take them from punk shows to TV shows.

A month later, when the school year ended and summer began, The Linda Lindas got to work on their first full-length LP. Having written a mountain of new material individually while sheltering in place and attending class virtually, the band was more than ready to enter the studio where Mila and Lucia’s dad (and Eloise’s uncle and Bela’s “uncle”) Carlos de la Garza oversaw recording and production. The Grammy-winning producer’s work includes Paramore, Bad Religion, Best Coast, and Bleached.

A product of generations of underground music in L.A. and beyond, The Linda Lindas’ debut channels classic punk, post punk, power pop, new wave, and other surprises into timelessly catchy and cool songs sung by all four members—each with her own style and energy. A handful of cuts have already been previewed at shows and enthusiastically approved by diehard followers in the pit at L.A.’s DIY punk institution The Smell and Head in the Cloud festivalgoers at The Rose Bowl alike. The Linda Lindas are stoked to unleash Growing Up.