Two Saturdays ago, Sept. 13, two of our editors had the privilege of seeing Ethel Cain live at Outer Harbor in our neighboring city of Buffalo. The outdoor venue was beautiful — there was a lovely sunset as the show began, which reflected vibrantly on the open water of Lake Ontario. The venue was not overwhelmingly large. The General Admission (GA) crowd encircled the stage, which was positioned against the water. Several feet back from the general admissions crowd, a modest lawn sloped steeply upward in colosseum style. A large pavilion of food vendors stood to the left of the stage selling amenities for concert-goers, like affordable tacos and acai bowls. We got surprisingly good spots, given that neither of us paid for VIP seating. We were standing near the stage and big screen, right next to the premium GA. The opening band, 9Million, put on a decent performance. Their music was a solid grunge-revival sound, although their annoyance at the crowd for their low energy (not ‘crowd surfing’), took away from their set.
After a brief period following 9Million’s performance, Ethel Cain emerged, to rapturous applause from the audience. The stage was decked out to look like a Florida swamp. Dense vines clung to the ceiling and weeds festooned the floor in front of the performance stand. Cain’s podium was fashioned after a well, made out of leaves, with a massive wooden cross facing out towards the audience.
The set began with the ambient instrumental track “Willoughby’s Theme” (which to the audience indicated that her new record “Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You” would be played in full), and the crowd waited with bated breath as Cain’s head lolled dramatically towards the ceiling during the purely instrumental buildup. “Janie” brought in the first song with Cain’s mellifluous vocals, much to the approval of the crowd, who erupted in applause upon hearing Cain’s voice. The song, like most of the tracks performed at the concert, was a slow, ambling tune that allowed Cain’s vocals and lyrics to shine through the dreamy guitars and atmosphere. Providing a sharp contrast, she then proceeded into “Fuck Me Eyes,” an uptempo number that brought more energy into the crowd; the roaring guitars and driving synthesizer shifted the vibe of the show into a classic rock direction. She followed this with the album’s lead single, “Nettles,” a slow, country-tinged number that involved some lovely live banjo. String lights lazily pulsed and flickered in the weeds like fireflies during this track. The sweet smiles exchanged between Cain and her banjo player added to the merriment that the warm song bubbled into on stage as the timidity of the first notes swelled into something more swinging and playful.
In the middle of the set, Cain played a couple songs from her 2025 EP, “Perverts,” a much darker project that leans more into an ambient and noisy direction than her more accessible albums. One of the highlights of the whole concert was her performance of the ominous song “Onanist,” which crescendoed into a grating wall of noise accompanied by rapidly flashing white lights. The song ground to a halt with only a single red light shining from behind Cain, making her look like an unholy conjurer. This turn away from more pleasant tracks was a welcome one, and added some variety to the set, as well as exhibiting Cain’s knack for showmanship. During this portion of the song, Cain vocalized like a woman possessed, gasping and moaning in a sensual yet unsettling way that fit the grimy, sinister tone of the song. With many of the songs on “Perverts” being sexual and eerie, these uncharacteristic vocals neatly fit into the almost horror-esque ambience of this portion of the set.
Later in the set, she eased into a really rich rendition of “Tempest,” that sounded almost half-speed, interspersed with impressive guitar shreds that transported the audience to a dream state. Cain then halted the music to pass out water to thirsty members of the audience for a comically long ten-minute period, and her set concluded with the lengthy “Waco, Texas.” Ethel Cain left the stage, giving the crowd a brief break before her triumphant encore. For the encore, Cain played her poppiest, most well-known songs, much to the screaming adoration of fans. One highlight of the encore, “Thoroughfare,” was notable for its powerful country pulse and Cain’s squealing harmonica solo, but the audience was most receptive to “Crush” and “American Teenager”, her two biggest hits. The whole crowd sang along gleefully to these tracks (especially the latter) which ended the concert on a wonderful note. During “Crush” when Cain sang the lyric, “I owe you a black eye and two kisses” and blew two kisses to the crowd, the eager crowd erupted into screams of excitement. There was a palpable sense of adoration that came to a boiling point during these tracks, and it was delightful to witness. From the back of the venue on steep upward slopes of grass, the amalgamation of fans bounding and hopping to “American Teenager” below was an endearing end to the show: Despite Cain’s typical murky lyricism, everyone clearly knew all of the words. Even the sparsely populated lawns had groups spinning and singing in circles amongst strangers.
It was an ethereal performance that lived up to our expectations. The remaining shows in the “Willoughby Tucker” tour have moved to Europe and Australia until July 2026, but if you happen to find yourself in the U.K. or Belgium in the next few weeks, we highly recommend catching a show.
