Mission Creek Festival kicks off with Japanese Breakfast's Michelle Zauner

Some 40 minutes into a candid conversation about grief, cooking Korean food and the death of her mother, Michelle Zauner of the indie-pop project Japanese Breakfast said something completely unexpected.

“I just found the rabbit in the audience,” she said, breaking off with a laugh as she pointed not to a live rabbit, but a white rabbit mascot donning a pink Mission Creek Festival shirt sitting in the back of Hancher Auditorium — who later told the Press-Citizen her name was Bertha Jr.

The Grammy Award winner was just about to answer a question about her writing process, something moderator Bryn Lovitt acknowledged that if she didn’t ask, it would “simply not be an Iowa City interview.”

Zauner, who has dominated the music industry and literary world in recent years, encapsulated Mission Creek Festival’s goals of celebrating music and literature and kicked off the 18^th year of Mission Creek Festival with a reading from her New York Times bestselling memoir “Crying in H Mart,” which began as an essay in The New Yorker.

“This is actually the first time I’ve been asked to read,” Zauner said of her current book tour. “Isn’t that odd?”

Zauner’s mother died from cancer when the artist was 25.

“A big part of the reason I wrote this book was because for a long time, I could not remember my mom before she was sick,” she told the Mission Creek Festival audience. “That was really heartbreaking for me.”

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Zauner said she knew her mother would not want her to remember her that way, and she didn’t want to remember her that way either. It was in an H Mart, an Asian supermarket chain, that Zauner recalled a time when she was young and her mother was healthy.

Zauner said part of the reason she kept returning to H Mart was because “it was like this way back in to what was good, back to before she was sick.”

Black Belt Eagle Scout and Cat Power take over Hancher Auditorium for day 1 of Mission Creek Festival

Black Belt Eagle Scout followed Zauner, entrancing audiences with her dreamy voice and skilled guitar work, shining in solos that consistently got cheers from the nearly packed crowd.

Katherine Paul, or Black Belt Eagle Scout, is a multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter. She performed songs from her recent album, “The Land, the Water, the Sky,” including “My Blood Runs Through This Land,” “Salmon Stinta” and “Don’t Give Up.”

Paul, before launching into “Don’t Give Up,” told Mission Creek Festival goers that they if they ever feel alone, know they aren’t because they have the trees and the land.

“The Land, the Water, the Sky” captures the Oregon musician’s return to her ancestral lands of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, exploring knowledge, teachings, the passing down of wisdom and celebrates lineage and strength in her third album, according to the artist's website.

Paul mentioned how inspired she was by Zauner’s talk and was excited to see Cat Power.

“I’m really happy to be here,” she said.

Festival attendees stood in applause as Paul’s set finished with “Treeline,” a song with a steady drum beat that had the musician swaying back and forth, her voice growing in intensity as she delivered the final lyrics.

While Paul’s set highlighted her excellence as a singer and instrumentalist alongside talented musicians, Cat Power’s remarkable voice did all the talking, accompanied by a pianist who occasionally would play the guitar.

Cat Power, or Chan Marshall, immediately jumped into song after song, including her slowed, stripped-down cover of The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” her cover of Frank Ocean’s “Bad Religion” and “Here Comes A Regular” from The Replacements.

Marshall didn’t say much to the audience for about an hour into her set, repeatedly taking sips from what appeared to be mugs of tea before cracking a joke that this was the comedy portion of her set, adding she was going to have the pianist tell 28-minutes worth of jokes.

Later, she told the crowd she’d take requests, prompting a spur of unintelligible suggestions, save for a few like “Free Bird” by Lynrd Skynryd, which caused some laughter and a boo.

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Mission Creek Festival honors late ‘founding principal guides’ Trevor Lee Hopkins

Andre Perry, executive director of Hancher Auditorium and the Office of Performing Arts and Engagement at UI, and John Schickedanz, Englert Theatre executive director, thanked audiences before Cat Power’s performance.

Thursday was the first time since 2018 that Hancher Auditorium has hosted Mission Creek Festival performances, Schickedanz said.

Perry also took some time to speak about the loss of Trevor Lee Hopkins, who died in March. Perry described Hopkins as “one of the founding principal guides of Mission Creek Festival.”

“He gave all of us a chance to do what at the time was a wild, and maybe not wise idea,” Perry said. “He made space for us.”

Mission Creek Festival 2023 is dedicated to his memory, according to a festival press release.

“We’re still reeling from the loss of Trevor, we’re still trying to reckon with someone who's gone from this world way too soon, but we do know that he was full of love and we’re doing our best to carry that love forward for as long as we can,” Perry said.

Mission Creek Festival continues Friday and Saturday with Sudan Archives, Snail Mail, Courtney Marie Andrews and more.

Visit Mission Creek Festival’s website for the full schedule.

Paris Barraza covers entertainment, lifestyle and arts at the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Reach her at PBarraza@press-citizen.com or 319-519-9731. Follow her on Twitter @ParisBarraza.

This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Michelle Zauner, Cat Power pack Hancher Auditorium for Mission Creek