To begin their upcoming spring/summer tour, punkgrass duo Grace and Tony played The 5 Spot last Thursday. The tour will be the group’s most canvassing jaunt yet. The Lawrence County, Tennessee natives will cover eight of these United States and will venture across the pond to the UK for their first international performances.
Performing songs from their recently-released November, the twosome strummed and picked a guitar, a banjo, a ukulele, and a mandolin, swapping instruments between themselves as the songs rolled along. (There was even a brief appearance by a kazoo.) However, as fervently as they played these bluegrass instruments, the tunes were often drowned out by the noise of the crowd. This is almost certainly the fault of a rude crowd and inefficient sound mixing, and not of a low-quality performance. Going forward though, Grace and Tony might want to consider keeping their acoustic performances in more intimate venues and bringing on some additional musicians for club gigs. This would not only help in keeping audience’s collective attention, but would more truly represent their studio efforts, which are well developed and missed in the acoustic format.
For an exemplary representation of their sound, have a go at the video below. It is for the title track of their latest release, and has been gaining some air play on the Country Network. –Jonathan Parrish