Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Japanese Breakfast, and The Linda Lindas at Forest Hills Stadium
On Saturday, October 1, 2022, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs headlined a sold out concert at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens. The band released their fifth album the day before called, Cool It Down, and were joined by Japanese Breakfast and The Linda Lindas on the extremely exciting bill. This show also marked the first time I took photos of the YYYs in about sixteen years.
The first performers of the night were The Linda Lindas, the young band from Los Angeles that I saw earlier this year when they opened for Jawbreaker. They charmed the audience with their catchy songs, enthusiasm, and appreciation for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs inviting them to perform at this show.
Japanese Breakfast came next and Michelle Zauner, backed by a full band, performed a set where most songs came from her latest record, Jubilee. The first song of her set was “Paprika” where she occasionally hit a large gong on stage that was adorned with lights and flowers. She included a few older songs such as “Boyish” (from her previous band, Little Big League), and “Everybody Wants To Love You” from Psychopomp, which was the release I first became familiar with her music.
I first discovered the Yeah Yeah Yeahs back in March 2002 when I attended a benefit for Bust Magazine at Knitting Factory in downtown Manhattan. I knew nothing about the band prior to this show but thanks to Karen O.’ s stage presence, I immediately became a fan and saw them a few times around New York at venues such as Bowery Ballroom, Village Voice Siren Festival, and others.
I hadn’t seen the band perform after their 2017 reunion so I was extremely excited for them to hit the stage last night. It was lightly raining at parts of their set and although it was not ideal weather, I was pretty grateful that it wasn’t worse.
The three members of Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Karen O., Nick Zinner, and Brian Chase) took the stage of their hometown, accompanied by Imaad Wasif, who hadn’t played with them since 2006. Karen O. noted that this show was their largest one in NYC and they had many family members and friends in the audience (Forest Hills Stadium has a capacity of 13,000). For their largest show here, they showered audience members in Y-shaped confetti, streamers, and at one point, giant balloons resembling eyeballs emerged from the stage to be bounced around by fans.
In addition to songs from the new record, the band performed older tracks such as “Black Tongue,” “Maps,” “Y Control,” and “Heads Will Roll.” “Fleez,” was dedicated to ESG, another band from New York City that has influenced many acts and have been sampled by numerous others, and is name checked in the song (the post chorus verse comes from their song “Moody”). She also dedicated a song to her long time costume designer, Christian Joy, who created the outfit she wore on stage for the first YYYs performance after the release of Cool It Down, their first new record in nine years.
Karen O. was an absolute whirlwind on stage all night. She twirled, danced, kneeled, jumped, and was a constant source of movement while Nick, Imaad, and Brian played behind or next to her. The only moments she seemed to truly slow down was when slower songs were performed, like “Maps,” or “Poor Song.” The Linda Lindas and Japanese Breakfast both expressed being influenced by her, with Michelle Zauner noting that Karen O. being half-Korean like she was, made her felt she could be a musician too. Karen O. returned the compliments during her time on stage noting that they had an amazing girl gang and a younger version of Karen would have been “so stoked” about this show.
I captured all three acts’ performances from the floor of the stadium in the above gallery and ended up coming home with confetti falling out of various places, an unexpected reminder of the wonderful show I witnessed on Saturday night.