7 Minute Miles

Grieves at First Avenue


Kid one’s consolation prize for skipping New York was a Grieves concert at First Avenue with her friend. When their chaperone got sick and Colleen hurt her arm, I got drafted to go (since my night was now free).

Grieves and Budo were part of the Red Rocks show we saw last winter, but this was their first time headlining First Avenue. They added another guitarist (hello @connrfychan) and put on an energetic show in front of a sold-out, all-ages audience. I asked for the set list afterwards (see below) and felt pretty old when the sound board guy said, “here you go, sir.”

There were two openers and I was actually most excited to hear the first one – Sweatshop Union. These guys are from Vancouver and one of their songs was used in a promo video for Schweitzer Mountain. They seemed like a good skiing/snowboarding party band at the time and their live show didn’t disappoint. I met one of them at the merch table afterwards and picked up their Bill Murray EP – nice kid.

The Tribe and Big Cats were the other opener, but I just couldn’t get into them – a little too formulaic, in my opinion. It’s a bit awkward, too, when an unknown MC wants you to throw your MF-ing hands in the air when hardly anyone knows you or your songs. Gotta start somewhere, though, I guess…

Grieves and Budo setlist:

  • Sunny Side of Hell
  • Tragic
  • Bow Down
  • Bloody Poetry
  • Learning How to Fall
  • Nature vs Nurture
  • Boogie Man
  • Pressure Cracks
  • Falling From You
  • Greedy Bitch
  • Scar Gardens
  • Irreversible
  • I Ate Your Soul
  • On the Rocks
  • Everyone
  • Kick Rocks
  • Pack It Up
  • Against the Bottom
  • Lockdown
  • Lightspeed
  • ENCORE
  • Super Scary Monsters (with Prof)
  • Gwenavieve
  • Wild Thing
Originally published by DK on November 5, 2012 at 9:37 pm in Concerts, Longform, Music


flourish icon