Ethel Cain: known for using cannibalism as a metaphor for love, depicting the toils of religious trauma in the conservative South and hating this Lana Del Rey Instagram post. What some listeners may not know, however, is that Ethel Cain is simply the fictional character her creator, Hayden Anhedönia, becomes in concept albums and performances. Released on Aug. 8, 2025, Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You prequels the plotline Cain traced in her debut album, Preacher’s Daughter. Cain’s first love, Willoughby Tucker, is introduced in Preacher’s Daughter’s third track, “A House in Nebraska.” This latest album chronicles years of their relationship to listeners, or so say dedicated fans on Reddit.
Anhedönia performed as Ethel Cain on Sept. 17, 2025, at the Masonic Jack White Theatre in Detroit, Michigan. After the opener 9million concluded, people decorated in camo print, white lace, septum piercings and mustaches sat in anticipation. Seated in the middle of a friend group, conversations were had over me and smelling salts were sniffed beside me. The demographic seemed right.
“Willoughby’s Theme” began and someone a row behind me let out a sob. Screams of “Hayden we love you!” rang out over the bass. The stage became a rural country scene, one plucked out of Cain’s Southern gothic universe. Drooping willow branches hung from above, fog billowed across the stage and the guitarist began to strum. Green lighting and fog merged to cloak Cain; the audience screamed as the mist parted to reveal her silhouette propped against a cross-shaped microphone stand. She stood on a raised platform not unlike an altar — she became a preacher’s daughter. Fans in the audience idolized her; the silence between songs was filled with shouts of love, lyrics were belted so violently that voices cracked and hiccuping sobs didn’t cease after the first song.
Fog rolled around red velvet curtains and the stage lights flickered hues of blue, green, pink and red throughout the show. Cain’s appearance was obscured for most of her performance, with only the eclipsed outline of her figure working to persuade the crowd that this was Ethel Cain — not Hayden Anhedönia. This was her fictional persona performing for us.
“Willoughby’s Theme” opened the show with unsettling dissonance, setting a mood of eerie anticipation. While the first track didn’t energize the audience like it might at a traditional concert, it firmly established the intimate yet haunting atmosphere that defines the world of Ethel Cain. The piano played through the refurbished church as a careful guide through the song. Over the foundation of the emotionally rich lullaby, static slowly broke through, disorienting the simple piano that played over the audience. The strings added another layer of uneasiness, scraping and screeching like nails on a chalkboard, creating a tension that traveled through the room. The dynamics were striking as moments of quiet reflection suddenly burst into a shrill tone that pulled the entire venue into the disquieted mind of the singer on stage. Cain was here to remind the audience that they weren’t simply attending a show, but stepping into the retelling of a dark and intimate story.
Maintaining the emotional intensity, Cain seamlessly transitioned into the next song, “Janie,” which introduced the audience to Ethel Cain’s high school best friend. It’s a song steeped in mourning, as Cain grieves the slow loss of their closeness after Janie fell in love and began spending all her time with her boyfriend, leaving Cain behind. This song captures the gut-wrenching experience of people moving forward into the future without you. Cain’s fragile voice, as she sung “You’ll keep changing, I will stay the same,” paired with the slow, trembling strum of a guitar, mirrored the weight of the feeling of powerlessness during uncontrollable change. This quiet heartbreak ended with Cain singing, “I know you love her / But she was my sister first,” leaving a sense of yearning lingering in the air as Cain transitioned into the next song, “Fuck Me Eyes.”
The tempo shifted dramatically as an electric synthesizer slowly pulsed into the room, and the crowd responded immediately with high-pitched screams. “Fuck Me Eyes” retains the echo-like harmonies that characterize Ethel Cain’s music, but this performance was even better than those of her other tracks, as Cain sang about a promiscuous woman whispered about in her small town. Lyrics like “They never see her wipin’ her ‘fuck me’ eyes” dig into the misunderstandings that dominate girlhood, and the crowd felt every word. As Cain stood before the microphone, the instrumentation swelled with crashing cymbals and the quick rhythm of the synthesizer. The audience’s voices rose with hers, not to overpower but to echo her conviction, magnifying the song’s sense of defiance as she belted, “I’ll never blame her for trying to make it.” The song is both compassionate and intense with judgment, and the audience hung on every twist and turn.
“Dust Bowl,” the album’s third most-streamed song with seven million plays on Spotify, was one of the night’s most anticipated moments. Stretching strings and crackling strumming filled the venue, the subtle roughness of these sounds creating a warmth that enveloped the audience. The song’s instrumentation hummed with a grainy, lived-in texture as if being played through an old amp buried in sand. Cain’s vocals floated above it all with a delicate vibrato, illustrating sun-bleached landscapes and endless horizons. The crowd leaned into the strong fragility of this track, singing along in awe.
Ethel Cain’s encore surged with a distinct shift in energy and tone, moving from somber immersion to pure cathartic release. “Thoroughfare,” off the album Preacher’s Daughter, kicked off the encore with its nine-minute saga, detailing the dark story of Cain’s journey across Western America with the man who would murder and cannibalize her by the end of the album. Cain fully embraced the country twang of this narrative song, with the harmonica wailing between verses.
Then came “Crush,” the TikTok-famous track tied to edits of the latest trending DILF. As expected, the crowd lost it, screaming every word, especially the cheeky line, “I owe you a black eye and two kisses.” By the time “American Teenager” hit, the energy was unstoppable. This Obama-approved hit (featured on his “Favorite Music of 2022” list) had everyone on their feet, shouting and moving to the lyrics as Cain jumped around the stage. Cain closed the night in chaotic euphoria, a cacophony of sound and emotion that tore through the venue’s church doors.
Daily Arts Writers Carly Anderson and Carolyn Lira can be reached at carlyand@umich.edu and carlira@umich.edu, respectively.
