Review: Laura Jane Grace at The Slowdown January 2, 2023
A couple of programming notes: I did not post a daily schedule today as it was all the events that happen every Wednesday, and tomorrow I can only find one weekly event happening. I will post the on-sale list tomorrow afternoon, and on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we will have things to dig into. You can get a leg up on the weekend by checking out the weekly calendar here.
Laura Jane Grace at The Slowdown, January 2, 2023
I went into this show a bit blind, as I never followed Against Me! Laura Jane Grace’s punk rock band that is currently on hiatus. I did pick up the last couple solo albums and have been anticipating the new solo album Hole in My Head, which comes out on February 16th. When I say I went in a little blind, it is because most of this set was Against Me! songs that I am not familiar with and a few new songs. My hope was that it would be mostly new songs from the new album, but I guess that wasn’t in the plan.
Laura Jane Grace took the stage solo with a guitar, which surprised a few people that I spoke with who expected a band. She commanded the stage and strummed that guitar with force the entire night. She spoke about only having a few hours of sleep and how people take power naps with espresso, and she stated that she did something similar with mushrooms that day and that she would peak on stage. Besides her referencing it a couple times, there was nothing noticeably off to me in her performance, but I had no point of reference either.
The show felt very loosely put together, and in looking at her tour dates, she basically put together a few dates around a New Year's Eve gig in Denver and two sold-out nights in Minneapolis. Her proper US tour begins in March. She also stated that she had just gotten married a couple of weeks ago and felt off her game.
So, she opened up to requests almost immediately at the start of the set and rode that out all night, stopping occasionally to perform a new song from the upcoming album, which she would always state in one way or another was for her and her enjoyment. Those were the songs I enjoyed the most. They are urgent, repetitive in a good way, and anthemetic. She performed the title track of the upcoming album along with "I'm Not A Cop” and “Dysphoria Hoodie”, which I thought was the highlight of the night, with the chorus: ‘When it says Adidas on my chest, all day long I dream of sex when I am not thinking about Jesus. Help me, Jesus; save me, Jesus."
Longtime fans were eating this show up as they volleyed requests that were mostly honored by Grace. She genuinely engaged the fans and had a lot of fun on stage, and the joy was infectious. Maybe this is always the case with her shows, but to me, it felt like those in the audience were getting a special performance. I would be more than thrilled to get performances like this from some of my favorite artists.