The entrance to Ethel Cain’s show was through velveteen-draped doors. Inside, a crowd stood dressed for devotion: dark lipstick, lace veils, and hats embroidered with “GOD’S FAVOURITE.” The room — all gothic-styled ceilings and hushed reverence — felt architecturally aligned with her mythology. Cain doesn’t so much perform as she summons.
The ‘Willoughby Tucker Forever’ tour marks a deepening of the musician’s Southern Gothic universe — that humid, haunted America she’s been meticulously building since Preacher’s Daughter. It was stinking hot inside Auckland Town Hall, with fans literally fanning themselves.
An altar adorned the centre stage: a cross as her microphone stand, positioned before what looked like a casket. Smoke coiled upwards as if something — or someone — was about to rise from the grave. The audience held its breath as though inhaling before a prayer. Then came the sharp and deafening screams — ricocheting off the cross. Mother Cain resurrected.
As the layered vocals of “Sunday Morning” began, the Sunday service had officially started. Like an evangelical sermon, Cain was sent to convert. The whole hall felt possessed by her presence.
Dave Simpson/WireImage
Cain’s voice is a weighted blanket: melancholic and sombre, pillowed and poetic.
In divine timing, “Willoughby’s Interlude” softly transcended through the venue, as members of the crowd closed their eyes in a meditative prayer.
When she launched into “Stranger”, the crowd was clearly no stranger, chanting “[a]m I no good? / Am I no good? / Am I no good?” like it was a national anthem. The crowd knew every word so intimately that if she had stopped singing, the show would have continued without her.
Love Music?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in Australian/New Zealand music and globally.
Then she performed what was clearly an exorcism, head hanging over her body, draped across the cross, hair dangling, limbs jerking in demonic spasms. She was down low, earthbound. Heavy drumming thundered beneath ascending vocals; it felt like we were climbing some invisible staircase. A séance unfolding in real time.
“ARE YOU READY TO SCREAM, AUCKLAND?”
Blood-curdling screams erupted from the entire radius of the Town Hall — loud enough to wake the dead.
Dave Simpson/WireImage
Despite the demonic demeanour, she sang like an angel. Hands lifted in worship amongst the azure haze. Her vocals stretched on for eternity, an eternal exhale.
“This one is our saddest and slowest song. It is called… ‘Crush!’”
Then, the band left into the darkness. But by the powers of the collective chant, she returned, raising her hands once again, for a final two songs.
“Now, we’re a long way from home right now, but I’ve got a little country to give you before I go,” she said. Harmonica-infused harmonies and country chords carried the crowd through “Thoroughfare”.
“Hey, do you wanna see the West with me? / ‘Cause love’s out there and I can’t let it be.”
Somehow, amongst the atmospheric darkness, there was light. Someone in the crowd was blowing bubbles, and another was holding their hands on their heart. Despite Cain’s melancholic resonance, the room felt uplifting, enlightening, hopeful.
“Happy Friday the 13th!” were the final words of service.
Check out Ethel Cain’s upcoming Australian tour dates here.
