A Night of Jumping With grandson, K Flay and Jack Kays
“I keep letting’ you down, There’s no denyin’. I love you, I’m tryin’.” The show at Franklin Music Hall on Sunday was anything but a let down. Canadian-American musician grandson is currently on his world tour “I Love You, I’m Tryin'” for his most recent album by the same name. The Philadelphia show was the 18th night of the tour and featured support from K Flay and Jack Kays.
The night started with alternative/indie singer-songwriter Jack Kays playing a mix of acoustic and heavy hitting tracks. He primarily played pieces from his 2021 album MIXED EMOTIONS, including his most popular “Morbid Mind,” but also introduced the crowd to an unreleased song, “Caffeine.” Between songs a fan in the front row passed Kays an amazing drawing of the singer that he held up for all the crowd to see before jumping into the last couple songs. Kays clearly loves and appreciates his fans as he made sure to say hi, sign autographs and take selfies with everyone at barricade and was hanging out at his perch table after his performance.
K Flay burst onto the stage next, starting her set with “The President Has a Sex Tape.” The alternative/indie pop star always brings a crazy amount of energy to every performance and brings the crowd to her same level. She played songs from her four previous albums as well as two then unreleased songs, “Punisher” and “Shy,” the second of which is now available across all streaming services. The audience was jumping, singing and dancing along with K Flay for the whole set as she ran from one platform to another, whipped her hair around and lay on the stage kicking her feet in the air during a guitar solo. During her set she took a moment to talk to the everyone about her recent hearing loss that she faced only six months ago and how at the time she could not imagine being back on tour playing live again. K Flay brought her set to a close if her newest single “Raw Raw,” which featured crowd participation for the chorus, and finally “High Enough.”
For the main act of the night, grandson started sitting on a park bench between two lampposts next to a street sign that read “I Love You, I’m Trying” as the rest of his band took the stage. He created a calm start to the night with “Two Along Their Way” before making a sharp turn with “Drones” that had everyone jumping along with him. The performance continued with primarily songs from his recent album, I Love You, I’m Trying, but also included tracks from all three volumes of his a modern tragedy EPs. grandson took the stage wearing a camo-print jacket and matching pants, but ditched the jacket for a white tank top a few songs in. If you looked across the crowd during grandson’s set you would have seen smiling faces, people singing along, hands waving in the air and tons of jumping as they followed his lead on stage. With such positive high energy in the room, it’s no surprise grandson felt he needed to be right in the middle as he joined his ecstatic supporters for a few songs. He closed out the night with “Blood // Water,” which perfectly summed up the night, a calm start before a heavy hitting, high energy chorus that had everyone jumping along one last time.
grandson’s world tour is showing no sign of slowing down as he continues across North America before heading East to Europe. Jack Kays and K Flay will be joining him for more dates but later shows will feature support from No Love For The Middle Child and MONOWHALES. For a full list of upcoming tour dates and to buy tickets visit his website.
