Miki Berenyi Trio Setlist

Doldrum Days
Hurricane
A Different Girl
Undertow¹
Leaves Me Cold¹
Gango
Kinch
Manu
8th Deadly Sin
Vertigo
Ubique
Big I Am
Ladykillers¹
Stranger

¹ Lush song

Tour Dates

10/18: St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club
10/20: Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge
10/21: Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
10/23: Seattle, WA @ Neptune Theatre
10/24: Vancouver, BC @ Hollywood Theatre
10/25: Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
10/27: San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
10/28: West Hollywood, CA @ The Roxy Theatre

Rocktober is nearly at its peak, and the number of touring bands is nearly astronomical. But with all the choices, perhaps the easiest of the month was the chance to see the Miki Berenyi Trio playing at a smaller venue in St. Paul’s Turf Club.

DJ Jake Rudh was already going as people were let into the main floor from the downstairs Clown Lounge. We’ve seen a fair amount of Rudh in 2025, most recently at the elbow concert at First Avenue in September. It’s a reminder of how busy Rudh is; with that focus on certain kinds of rock music from the 70’s-90’s, if you find yourself attending those kinds of artists, Rudh might very well be there, like the proverbial moth to the flame. The Turf Club set up had Rudh on the far wall opposite the bar about halfway from the stage and was a perfect spot for him. As might be expected, it was a heavy English and shoegaze set of music & videos from Rudh, which was an excellent precursor for the evening’s live music. Rudh always has such a smooth looking and sounding play list that it might seem simple, but having seen him enough times, I feel confident in saying there is a lot of work going into each of his sets. As they say, when things look effortless, it’s often because you can’t see how much work went into it.

I got to talk to Rudh a bit and asked how he keeps each set and event from falling into a rut. He first noted that there are a tremendous number of genres in his wheelhouse from 60’s psych rock all the way to the shoegaze and trip hop of the 90’s. It gives him plenty of room to mold different sounds, with tonight’s obviously leaning into that shoegaze mood. Rudh also mentioned that although most of the music is backwards looking, it always needs to be a little unpredictable to keep audiences engaged. Those slight (or not) nuances keep Rudh a critical voice in the Twin Cities DJ scene, and always a pleasure to hear.

Gina Birch (appearing here as the pretty brilliantly named Gina Birch and The Unreasonables) was the first to the stage. Birch is a singer, songwriter, bassist, and filmmaker who has been on the music scene seemingly forever, first with the post-punk band The Raincoats back in the late 1970’s. She’s been a stalwart on the art scene ever since, although she only put out her own debut album, I Play My Bass Loud, in 2023 and had a follow up Trouble, released in July 2025. Starting with the song Rage, Birch started solo with guitar and laptop, and hit hard right away. At points almost snarling, Birch used the reverb to full effect, with the echoing “cauldron of rage” lyric. Finding out that her bandmates had not yet received their visas and the earlier videos still playing, Birch took a moment to get things from “turning pear shaped”. With video turned off, Birch seemed to reset and move forward effectively.

Next was Birch’s first solo single, Feminist Song, which included some brutal lyrics, like “When you ask me if I’m angry, I say why the hell would I not be?”. The guitarist/percussionist and bassist from the headliner joined her onstage, and Birch set aside her bass for a spoken word number with some ambient playing underneath it. With backing vocals from the laptop, Birch added with her guttural lead vocals. The “next one is about shoes” was a good set up for I Will Never Wear Stillettos. The final song Trouble had Birch getting the audience to sing along, and it was a timely message on this particular weekend in the US.

Last up was the Miki Berenyi Trio. Berenyi is legendary for her role fronting the highly influential shoegaze 90’s band Lush (with 1994’s seminal album Split) as well as Piroshka and this more recent trio. The trio had their first album release, Tripla, in April 2025. Berenyi stated right up front that she was fighting off something and might sing some things an octave lower. That worked for the opener Doldrum Days, as she also let bassist Oliver Cherer take the closing repeating chorus. Moving into a Lush cover of Undertow, Berenyi warned it would definitely be in the lower register, as “I cannot hit that high note”, but that hardly mattered as the effect was there in any register. With a longer Kevin McKillop guitar intro, this was cooly played and had the audience rocking along.

Continuing with another Lush song, Leaves Me Cold, the Miki Berenyi Trio had the crowd fully engaged and bouncing to the songs. Some swift numbers let the band keep moving, even as Berenyi continually apologized for her vocal issues. Gango may have perfectly played into that, as the lower vocals were spot on for the music. With all three rocking out in guitar for the outro, it was a reminder of how much skill they had as musicians. I appreciated how hard Berenyi was working, considering the vocal issue. 8th Deadly Sin was a great number off the new album, and all three musicians were having fun with it. Berenyi was worried as they entered the song Vertigo, but she carried it fine with an enjoyable drum machine back beat. Skipping the planned song For Love, the band continued to try to play numbers that would still work in Berenyi’s limited register. A small break to get some “boiling water” had Berenyi apologizing where she didn’t need to, and it was great to see the band move back into the music with Big I Am which had some of the best guitar work of the evening.

Before starting Ladykillers, Berenyi said “on your head be it”, but again, absolutely crushed it (along with bassist Chrerer’s vocals) which showed the high standard she holds herself to. Closing a little earlier than usual, Berenyi was both apologetic and practical and the crowd was completely cool with the moment they had given. The Miki Berenyi Trio may have been a little disappointed with the evening, but the audience clearly still relished the evening’s music and the very long line at the merch table showed what a fun time had been had.