Courtney Barnett turned The Sanctuary at First Unitarian into a sacred listening room

The rainy, autumn Saturday night turned out to be the perfect setting for listening to Courtney Barnett and Stella Mozgawa play their new instrumental album End Of The Day (music from the film Anonymous Club) in the First Unitarian Church Sanctuary.

Anjimile started the night performing songs from their most recent album The King. Early in the set, they covered “Cry Me a River” before moving into songs about their experience as a trans person. Anjimile set the vibe for the night in their opening set for Barnett and Mozgawa to perform End Of The Day almost in its entirety.

The sanctuary was silent. The duo played a 30-minute instrumental set without stopping and the audience was fully engaged the whole time. In addition to the seated audience being dead silent for the whole instrumental set, you barely even saw the light of phone screens popping up over people’s heads. The sanctuary felt like a listening room.

After a brief set break, Courtney Barnett came back out for set two in which she performed some older songs solo. The room was still silent other than some conversation between Barnett and fans in between songs. Barnett did her ten-song solo electric set starting with “Rae Street” from her 2021 album Things Take Time, Take Time followed by a couple 2018 songs, “Need a Little Time” and “City Looks Pretty.” After ten songs, everyone stayed in place hoping for more, and they got what they wanted. Barnett came back out for a two-song encore that started with her cover of Chastity Belt’s “Different Now” and ended with Things Take Time‘s bookend “Oh The Night.”

Check out photos from the show in the gallery below. After a short break, Courtney Barnett’s tour resumes November 2nd in San Francisco at Bimbo’s 365 Club; full dates here.