Mitski brings her “This Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We” Tour to Durham

FEBRUARY 4TH 2023 | MONTANA DONAHUE

Mitski brought her The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We tour to Durham, North Carolina for two nights on February 2nd and 3rd, 2024. I had the pleasure of attending her first night playing at the Durham Performing Arts Center. This night was the 5th night of her North American Tour with a packed house.

Her opener for the night was Tamino. His opening set was the first taste I got of his music and I thoroughly enjoyed it. While lit by a spotlight, he serenaded the crowd with a few of his songs like “Indigo Night” and “Habibi.” He also played a couple of unreleased songs! He has such a rich and smooth voice, I could have kept listening for hours. He was the perfect opener for Mitski. He will be joining her for the majority of her North American leg.

Mitski graced the stage at 9:05pm with her song “Everyone.” She sang “Buffalo Replaced” and “Working For the Knife” before she thanked the crowd for being there as well as all the parents who were chaperones for the night. I could not think of a more perfect venue for Mitski to sing at than a stage meant for theatrical performances. The acoustics were phenomenal and captured her voice beautifully. Mitski is truly a story teller with her amazing stage presence. Each song had a different prop or choreography that went along with it. I have to give it up to her lighting/stage crew because each song was so visually interesting and helped portray the tone for that song. For example; her song “Happy” has a faster tempo, so the lights were flashing and changing as she danced and jived. She played roughly 25 songs, including some folk versions of songs like “Pink in the Night,” “I Don’t Smoke,” and “Love Me More.” Her most recent album, The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We, draws a lot of inspiration from Americana origin, so playing some folk versions of her songs and even a jazz folk debut of “Valentine, Texas” felt fitting. She performed on a round, slightly raised stage surrounded by a 7 piece band with an array of instruments. While her show didn’t have the audience head banging and screaming the lyrics back to her, she had the crowd's attention the entire time she was on. She crawled around on the floor during “I Bet On Losing Dogs” and had stringings of beautiful reflective cutouts descend during “My Love Mine All Mine” and artfully sent them back up during “Last Words of a Shooting Star.” She finished out her astonishing set with “Nobody” and “Washing Machine Heart.”

Mitski’s tour will continue on through North America until mid April with multiple nights in each city. Then she’ll take it to Europe and the UK before heading back to the states later this fall! Be sure to snag a ticket while you can because her dates are selling out fast.

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