Grandson – Live at the UnderGround CLT (Sept 2019)

What a great show. I had the pleasure of seeing Grandson play once a year earlier at the same location when they opened for Nothing But Thieves. I attended that show exclusively to see Grandson, but it is always a bit disappointing to have such a focus on an opening band. Not only does an opening band not get to play long, but the stage setup is is sub-par and the sound is frequently poor as compared to the headliner. I recall at this show in particular, the sound was way too low and so the powerful moments in the songs really lost their impact as a result.

This headlining show made up for those deficiencies considerably. And, as you can see from the picture, I even got to meet Jordan, the lead singer. There was a pretty inexpensive VIP option where we got to come in early for a meet and greet and also listen to an unreleased track.

The unreleased track played was produced by Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park (who he’d worked with previously) and was a solid Grandson track, very good and exactly what you’d expect. It was incomplete but we heard most of it and it sounded pretty close to done in my opinion. He said he was a bit unsure of how it would be released or when because with the American Tragedy EP series compete, he has multiple other projects in the works. This song will be a part of one of those, but he didn’t drop any hints on what is planned.

I was in early so got right up front and was able to easily take unobstructed video of the whole show without much effort. This was the first show I’d recorded with my new iPhone 11 Pro so I was excited to see how much better it could do with sound and challenging lighting and I think it came out great. The iPhone has gotten better for concerts with each release. I mostly zoomed way out to use the new wide angle lens and capture the entire stage. I was pretty into the show so didn’t do much zooming; particularly because I kept the camera very low and out of the way.

Here it is, the full show, beginning to end…