After playing “Take It” from Jay Som’s 2017 breakout LP Everybody Works, Melina Duterte took a quick second to express her gratitude to an Orlando audience that attentively received her band’s eight-song opening set.

“It’s the halfway point of the support tour, and I always say this, but Mitski fans are the best fans,” Duterte told a sold-out Plaza Live. “Who’s excited to see [her]?”

The question (and a star sign-driven band member intro later in the set) drew a large cheer, and Duterte’s observation about Mitski devotees would ring true during Mitski Miyawaki’s 75-minute set where devotees mostly watched in respectful silence as the 28-year-old songwriter worked through a bold and brave 23-song set.

CL’s last encounter with Miyawaki happened almost exactly one year ago when her band played opener on a superbill headlined by normcore New Zealand pop superstar Lorde (Run the Jewels played support, too). Mitski, still four months away from the release of the band’s gorgeous 2018 album Be the Cowboy, stayed true to the band’s D.I.Y. roots at Tampa’s Amalie Arena and stuck with a stripped-back set where Miyawaki played bass and dressed the cavernous arena in an arresting vocal that delivered songs from a pair of breakout LPs (Bury Me at Makeout Creek and Puberty 2, released in 2014 and 2016, respectively). If theatrics were currency at that arena show, then Lorde — with her elaborate Es Devlin-designed stage setup — was royalty while Miyawaki played the part of pauper.

Miyawaki, a consummate artist with an innate desire to take herself to places where she feels uncomfortable, clearly absorbed some of that Lorde tour’s penchant for the dramatic and brought it to Mitski’s tour supporting Be the Cowboy. Wearing a plain, white, cutoff T-shirt, black bicycle shorts, kneepads and ballet shoes, Miyawaki opened the night with a cut from her sophomore 2013 LP (ironically titled Retired from Sad, New Career in Business) plus a pair from Cowboy before addressing her fans for the first and second to last time during the performance.

“Oh hello, my name is Mitski. I'm breaking the fourth wall here to tell you I appreciate you don't you forget it,” she whispered. “I'm going back now.”

What followed was 19 songs where the indie-rock heroine continuously contorted her body, fearlessly flipped her hair (during an almost krautrock take on “Dan the Dancer,” and a fun spin with disco-dance cut “Nobody”) and occasionally spun joyously while the crowd — truly one of the most reverent CL has seen in a long time — soaked itself in every glorious second. Miyawaki, for her part, seemed just as immersed in the experience. She never strained through all of the scissor kicks, inverted spins and pantomiming, and her voice — touching on her records, just devastating live and in person — never suffered whether she was upside down (the delicate “I Will”), shimmying (“Townie”), seated behind a table or pacing frantically in circles (“First Love/Late Spring”).

The only awkward moment came during a solo performance of Puberty 2 highlight “A Burning Hill” where some of the high strings on Miyawaki’s azure acoustic might have been out of tune. Miyawaki still managed to mesmerize on the cut, however, and fully recovered when keyboardist K. Marie Kim joined in for the hypnotic meditation that was Be the Cowboy highlight “Two Slow Dancers” where the purity of Miyawaki singing, “It would be a hundred times easier if we were young again, But as it is — and it is — we're just two slow dancers, last ones out…” cut deep enough to create near pin-drop silence in the room.

On “Thursday Girl,” Miyawaki scissor-kicked while using her hands to propel herself in a circle. There’s no way that the movement was easy, and Miyawaki is doing these kinds of things night in and night out. It almost makes one wonder what she would do with an even larger production budget. Fans may soon find out as the rest of the world finds out about Be the Cowboy, but for now Mitski disciples can just go to bed knowing that Miyawaki valiantly poured her heart out on the Plaza Live stage.

There was a moment on “A Pearl” where Miyawaki feigned throwing a ball in the air and batting it away. The song, another Cowboy cut, is about toxic relationships. On Thursday, that movement encapsulated where Mitski’s career is right now, and we’re all lucky to be watching her swing for the fences.

See a setlist below, and listen to songs from the show via Spotify.

Jay Som setlist

Turn Into
Take It
[unknown]
I Think You’re Alright
Lipstick Stains
The Bus Song
Our Red Door
Pirouette

Mitski setlist

Goodbye, My Danish Sweetheart
Why Didn’t You Stop Me?
Old Friend
Francis Forever
Dan the Dancer
Washing Machine Heart
I Will
I Don’t Smoke
First Love/Late Spring
Geyser
Townie
Nobody
Liquid Smooth
A Pearl
Thursday Girl
Lonesome Love
Your Best American Girl
I Bet On Losing Dogs
Drunk Walk Home
Happy
A Burning Hill
Two Slow Dancers
Carry Me Out