Blessed be the daughters of Cain: Newport packs MegaCorp Pavilion to experience the story of Ethel Cain live

Artist Hayden Anhedonia is known for storytelling through music, taking listeners on the tumultuous journey of a preacher’s daughter who shares her stage name, “Ethel Cain,” and curates a unique aesthetic that incorporates her Southern roots along the way.

Her concert in Newport, Kentucky, was no exception. From the set design to her powerful stage presence, watching from the pit felt like being placed right into the story that has made me feel understood at many times in my own life.

The show, which took place on April 25 at MegaCorp Pavilion, was a part of the “Willoughby Tucker Forever” tour following her most recent album release, “Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You.”

The stage design, featuring smoke, overgrown ivy, rusted fences and a customized scythe microphone stand, took viewers to the small fictional town of Shady Grove, Alabama, where her personal Cain was raised and would lose her first love, Tucker.

The band “9 million” opened and gave an energetic start to the night, even leading members of the crowd decked out in denim, lace, crosses and floor-length dresses to crowd surf in the pit. My lace veil was carefully bobby pinned together, so I didn’t partake, but it made for a fun watch.

After 30 minutes of anticipation and smoke-filled air, Anhedonia took the stage and opened with the angelic track “Sunday Morning,” followed by her biggest hit “American Teenager,” a more upbeat pop track over lyrics that dive into Cain’s struggles growing up in the religious South. The track energized the crowd, as Anhedonia encouraged them to jump and sing along.

Anhedonia then played some heavier tracks from her most recent album, including the single “Nettles,” which paints a picture of Cain and Tucker’s relationship, while hinting at Cain’s later disappearance. This song was on repeat for me for weeks after its release in August 2025, and it was the first — but certainly not last — song of the night to make me shed tears.

This was followed by “Dust Bowl,” which featured some of the most stunning lighting effects I’ve ever seen at a concert, with a simple spinning backlight creating an ethereal silhouette of Anhedonia during the moody track’s culminating bass-heavy beat drop.

For me, the standout performance of the night was “Ptolemaea.” Named after Dante’s ninth circle of hell (reserved for traitors), this track is one of the darkest and most experimental listens of her album “Preacher’s Daughter” and tells the fate of Cain after leaving her hometown. The ominous instrumentals, broken up by soft singing, spoken word lyrics with distortion and eventual screaming, depict her betrayal by a future lover when she is kidnapped and eventually killed by him.

The song is a perfect, gut-wrenching culmination of the trauma and fear that has followed Cain since her childhood. Anhedonia held back none of this during her performance in Newport. From the moment the song ramped up as she sang “Even the iron still fears the rot, hiding from something I cannot stop,” to the guttural pleas of “stop” during the bridge, to the cathartic screams of the whole crowd during the peak of the song, being in the pit during this performance was chilling and unforgettable.

My only complaints about the night were my personally beloved, but 15 minute long, “Waco, Texas” being taken off the setlist early in the tour and my jealousy that the Newport show wasn’t one of the lucky groups to hear “Sun Bleached Flies,” a beautiful piece about Cain coming to painfully accept the unfair circumstances of her life through the light of forgiveness during her death.

The piano ballad “A House in Nebraska” nearly made up for both, as Anhedonia’s emotion-packed and gospel-toned vocals were on full display as she sang about Cain longing to see her first love, Tucker, again. I’m not exaggerating when I say there wasn’t a dry eye — every single person next to me was in tears.

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Anhedonia lightened the mood when she came out for the encore with her tambourine and harmonica to perform the final song of the night, “Thoroughfare.”

After years of deeply connecting with Anhedonia’s work, this concert was a truly unforgettable experience that left me with an even greater appreciation for her art and storytelling. I will be looking out for future tour dates and forever waiting to hear those opening piano notes to “Sun Bleached Flies” live.

Rating: 9.5/10

kennelse@miamioh.edu