Following her most recent album Willoughby Tucker, I Will Always Love You, Ethel Cain once again returned to the stage for the “Willoughby Tucker Forever" tour. The tour began in Seattle, Washington on August 12, 2025 and includes 92 shows across the globe. On September 15th and 16th 2025, Mother Cain blessed the Queen Elizabeth Theatre for 2 incredible performances.

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Photo credits: Olivia Thompson

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Who is Ethel Cain?

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Ethel Cain is a stage persona and fictional character created by singer/songwriter Hayden Silas Anhedonia. She is very well known for her southern gothic style, beautiful lyrics and intricate sound. Anhedonia was born on March 24th 1998 in Tallahassee, Florida. She grew up as a Southern Baptist, and, at 16, she left the church due to the animosity she faced for being a trans woman.  Her debut album, Preacher's Daughter, explores themes of religious trauma, abuse, heartbreak, and death as it tells the story of Ethel. The story of Ethel is a work of fiction with many elements of Anhedonia’s real lived experiences, like being the daughter of a preacher, experiencing love and losing it, and religious trauma.

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Highlights

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Making a great concert is very difficult, there is so much to consider in terms of what’s going to create an experience beyond the music, and that’s exactly what Ethel Cain did. 

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First let’s start with set design, arguably one of the most important aspects of a concert. The stage was set up to visually bring to life the southern gothic aesthetic she is so well known for. Dead looking moss-like plants along with vines hanging from branches, a wooden cross centre stage, every detail transported you into the world of Ethel. 

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The concert opened with “Willoughby’s Theme” followed by the song “Janie”, a beautiful ballad that also opens the album this tour is based on. Janie is about the development of a fear of abandonment due to the loss of a childhood friend. The repetition of the lyrics “I will always love you” while a white light shines on her symbolized acceptance in that, while they may no longer be friends, she will always be an important part of Ethel’s life and a positive “light” in her life, furthering the narrative storytelling in the song.

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Speaking of light, much of Ethel’s work plays with the idea of light and dark, good and evil, and the lighting used gave a visual representation of those themes during each of the songs. Songs like “Dust Bowl” and "Vacillator” had bright lighting making Ethel look angelic. During “Dust Bowl”, the bright white lighting spun around her, furthering the narrative that Ethel represents purity and goodness. However, after “Vacillator” and “Onasist”, the lights turned red, demonstrating the parallel theme of darkness. The atmosphere completely shifted, the sounds were almost ritual; it felt like something was being sacrificed. 

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Every aspect of this night encapsulated Ethel’s eerie vibe so well and brought her music to life.

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Concert ended early?

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Throughout this tour, the setlist has remained relatively the same other than a few minor changes here and there. The first night in Toronto the whole setlist was played including the 3 encore songs:  “A House in Nebraska” followed by “Crush” and ending the show with “American Teenager”. However, on the second night when the encore began, Ethel came on the mic and said, “Thank you Toronto. See you next tour” and proceeded to skip most of the encore only playing “American Teenager”. When the song ended, everyone assumed she would come back out for the last two songs and that she was changing up the way she would play the encore. This was not the case. The lights turned back on and the stage began to get cleared. It’s still unclear really what happened that night, but fans speculate she got overwhelmed and felt she was unable to continue.

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Despite ending early, the night was otherworldly and one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had. So much work and effort was put into making this possible and it showed.

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