Photos and a review of grandson in Ottawa
[Ottawa correspondents Ross MacDonald (photos) and Karen Coughtrey (text) continue to be busy. – AC]
Ottawa Bluesfest may be over but the thirst to see live music in this city is far from quenched and a lively young audience showed up to see grandson and No Love For The Middle Child perform at the Bronson Centre Music Theatre on Friday night.
No Love For The Middle Child, whose new song ‘Spiteful’ also dropped Friday, was accompanied by drummer Gabriel Simone and they had complete control of the stage and crowd from the get go, demanding the attendees jump and show up with dynamic energy. That they did and the audience bounced, hands up pointing along to the beat all night.
No Love For The Middle Child connected with the audience, having them sing a line of the chorus in ‘Out Loud’, crouching down to create intimacy on new song ‘Send My Love’ and even at one point jumping right down into the photo pit to sing from the same level as the crowd. That said, he also dared lodge a softball dis at Ottawa, telling the crowd Ottawa is nice before introducing ‘Pretty Little Lies’ and telling the crowd sometimes we like to hear pretty lies.
The indie-rock alternative artist’s music appeals to all sorts of musical listeners, the songs rock hard yet are tuneful and pleasing to the ears and he sang about relatable themes such as on ‘February’ a song about long distance relationships and ‘Nightmares’.
No Love For The Middle Child is a classically trained cellist (in fact he is a multi-instrumentalist, he plays seven instruments) and pulled out his cello for the last song of the set, sitting on the park bench on stage playing ‘No Sleep’.
The lights didn’t seem to fully come up between acts leading to some uncertainty as to when grandson would grace the stage. The energy changed in the room as the lights dimmed further and Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ played over the sound system, followed by Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ both of which of course had the crowd singing along at top volume. The sense of anticipation created by these songs was not misplaced as the latter was cut short as grandson took his place on the park bench on stage. He didn’t sit there long, getting up and taking big steps, stopping to pose, vogueing in a sense, his way to his rightful place centre stage. He opened with ‘Drones’ and ‘Something to Hide’.
As the lights came up slightly we could see that the park setting had been completed. The backdrop was a beautiful forest like the one on the cover of grandson’s latest album “I Love You, I’m Trying” and the park bench which had already been accompanied by park style lamp posts now also included a street sign bearing the album name. A serene setting for touring an album he explained was a call for help, written in a time he was losing his mind during and after the challenges faced in the pandemic.
grandson spoke about being thrilled to be headlining a show here for the first time in four years and while making reference to recent events where artists have had items thrown at them by fans, he agreed to take a fans cellphone for a selfie but let the crowd know that his show comes with rules. They were as follows:
- “When I say jump you jump”
- “If you know the words (or can guess the words) ‘sing that shit!’”
- “If a mosh pit breaks out, we support that but if anyone here feels unsafe, if the smallest person here does not feel welcome in that pit then it is not a grandson pit. Human bumper cars, that’s how we do it. No pushing, no elbows, chill out man, look around. We want every woman here to feel safe jumping into that pit. Any problems look to security or to us.”
- “People in the balcony, think you get to just sit there, think you’re better than everyone else? No. You need to sing louder than everybody.”
grandson spits rhymes with seamless ease but his music shows a great diversity of musical styles as he slowed it down (taking a seat on the bench) for ‘Bury Me Face Down’ and ‘Rain’ but showed a metal edge that had the crowd head banging on ‘Stigmata’ and ‘When The Bomb Goes’ and everything is tinged with a little bit of EDM.
grandson, a dual US and Canadian citizen who grew up in Toronto, does not shy away from sharing his strong views on inclusivity and received loud support for the following statement:
“This is the Nation’s capital and we want to make sure Canada stays Canada. Any homophobia, transphobia, anti-immigration, anti-feminism, blockade BS will not be tolerated at the grandson show!”
On the same note he asked the crowd to sing ‘Dirty’ as loud as they could to wake up the neighbours and the people to their right (not to put words in his mouth, but did he possibly mean politically?) to hear.
grandson explained that ‘Dirty’ was from the 2020 album ‘Death Of An Optimist’ which he lamented he’d never got to tour and also played ‘Riptide’ from that same album, a song produced by the Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park. The crowd was also treated to new songs ‘Eulogy’ and ‘Half My Heart’ which are included on the latest album and receiving lots of airplay.
In a humorous twist to the evening grandson explained that he has been accused of not being Canadian enough. He clearly takes offence to the accusation and proudly declared
“I wouldn’t have the values that I have or believe in everyone here if I grew up in America… I would say that to their face and I have.”
He introduced an alter ego Maple Cowboy and explained they’d decided to play 10 Canadian songs one for each of their Cc\anadian headlining dates and Ottawa got a cover of Nickleback’s ‘How You Remind Me’ with lyrics altered to reference cold Ottawa winters and the grandson himself.
grandson got serious again in introducing ‘Heather’ on which he invited No Love For The Middle Child to rejoin them on stage. No Love took up his cello and grandson’s drummer Tobias Kelly moved to the keyboard. grandson acknowledged that writing music with the themes of mental health, addiction, and loss like he does means that people connect with his music in a deeper way, something he sees on the clothes and the tattoos on the skin of his fans. The problem is, he continued, that not everyone makes it through those hard times and that suicide is a leading cause of death among young people. The band recently marked the anniversary of the loss of someone important to them and they know that others have also suffered losses and so dedicated the song to everyone we’ve lost. Making this a truly special and memorable performance of the night, grandson moved to the centre of the crowd on the floor, and asked those above to move to the edge of the balcony and of course to set the tone the room was lit up by the starry night of cell phone flashlights that somehow didn’t seem cliche for this connection-making moment.
Right to the end grandson had inspiring words for his young fans and he introduced the last song of the night by saying
“I wrote this song when I wasn’t sure who controlled my future and who I was going to become. I felt like between my government, my parents, my religion, my teachers, I had spent my whole teenage years being told to finish high school, go to college, get a job. Those were the three things. No hating on anyone that’s gone on that path but I knew in my heart it wasn’t for me. Even if you take just a bit of time to think for yourself I bet you have an answer when you ask yourself. What is it that you love doing? And who are the people you want to do it with? If you simplify it, the direction for your life is clear. You just can’t listen to the people who never did it that way because they will never tell you to go that way…and to anybody in this crowd that’s feeling directionless or unsure of what is next you are the one that has to answer. No one else can tell you what is best for you and I wish you the best in finding it.”
In another atmosphere-setting move grandson had a special guest “X” throw water bottles into the crowd which they would then open and spray around at the key moment in the raucous set ending song ‘Blood//Water.’ grandson had the crowd so riled up with his inspiring speech and headbanger of a night ender that no one quite believed the night was over and the stunned crowd stood there for a long while hoping the band would reappear to give them “One More Song,” which they chanted for a long while before finally agreeing to leave.
