Since the start of the pandemic, I’ve seen Laura Jane Grace play live three times. In 2020, Grace played a virtual concert following the release of “Stay Alive.” It was an event and album partly made to help keep music industry folks working at a time when new music was almost at a standstill.
In 2021, it was on the eve of a postponed tour of Canada, playing in Cleveland’s Grog Shop to salvage at least some available concert dates. Last year, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Grace walked on stage, warning the crowd that her voice was shot.
Despite each concert having something working against the punk legend, the concerts didn’t skip a beat. Even from my couch, watching Grace play alone on a stage matched the feelings of “Stay Alive.” In Cleveland, Grace played through unreleased songs, including “Dysphoria Hoodie” from an album not releasing for another two years.
Without a voice in North Carolina, she still put everything into the concert, playing songs she assured the crowd wouldn’t go well and still nailing each bit of yelling anger. Between songs, and sips of water or tea, Grace told people she’d stay as long as she could to meet people after the show to make up for an event that still showed her on-stage presence and authority.
Each performance showed how Grace doesn’t want to let down the people who’ve committed to her music.
Sunday, at A&R Music Bar, Grace played a concert built off four years of pandemic struggle. A night showing what it is to see her perform live. Everything came together.
Up first in the three-band traveling tour was Dikembe. An emo/punk band from Gainsville, Florida, Grace’s former home and hotspot for punk music in the south. When Dikembe wasn’t sharing how excited they were to play with the Against Me! frontwoman, or warning the crowd about the band to follow, they were playing solid emo music.
It was emo music that doesn’t have the stereotypical whine often associated with the genre. Instead, it mirrored more of the Sunny Day Real Estate-esque sound, with some songs featuring more of a punk cadence.
Dikembe front man Steven Gray assured the crowd they weren’t ready for Thelma and the Sleaze. He was absolutely right.
Led by singer and guitar player Lauren “LG” Gilbert, who stepped on stage in a cowboy hot and suspenders over a bikini top, Thelma and the Sleaze sent a jolt into the crowd. Following each riffy garage rock song, sounding straight out of the 80s, Gilbert pleasantly thanked the crowd with a genuine “thank you, motherfuckers!”
When Gilbert wasn’t making the crowd laugh talking about the order of her favorite things, how as a queer youth in a small town she avoided bullying by selling drugs and jokingly asking if it was alright that she sing songs about sex, the Sleaze was shredding. It was pure fun. The set featured all the rock moves. Abandoning the cowboy hat, leaning back-to-back with guitarist Liliana “Luscious” Jones during solos and feeding into the overly positive crowd reaction.
Thelma and the Sleaze looked every bit of a headlining act, playing a set that didn’t follow the rules of time. When they announced the arbitrary “we’ve got a couple songs left,” it felt like they only just stepped on stage. With all the presence of an act at the top of the billing, it set things up well for the headlining Grace.
Instead of the solo, acoustic, act leveraged over much of the past few years, Grace came out in what was basically an indie/punk supergroup.
Playing bass was Matt Patton, the 12-year member of the legendary Americana group Drive-By Truckers. It’s a connection Grace announced as coming from a random request she sent on social media for someone to join her to record in her St. Louis, Missouri studio. Playing drums was Mikey Erg, part of early 2000s punk band The Ergs! and recently as a solo act who’s collaborating with the likes of DIY punk pioneer Jeff Rosenstock.
From left to right: Paris Campbell Grace, Laura Jane Grace, Mikey Erg and Matt Patton performing “Baby, I’m an Anarchist”
What followed was a 24-song set spanning 24 years of Grace’s discography. Featured were 10 songs from “Hole In My Head,” the latest solo LP from the Against Me! lead singer. It’s an album that demands a full band’s support and Patton and Erg helped bring Grace’s newest solo record to life. They weren’t alone either, with Grace’s wife Paris Campbell Grace joining for backup vocal work.
Of the times I’ve seen Grace perform, Sunday featured unseen joy that wasn’t present at her previous pandemic-era concerts. It was evident in small glances and smiles directed at her wife to a high level of energy throughout the set. Every so often, Grace added songs from the Against Me! catalog, including three from “Reinventing Axl Rose.” Which coincidentally enough turned 22 years old two days later.
Grace paired together songs like “I’m Not a Cop” and “Hole in My Head” from her latest album with “Pints of Guinness Make You Strong” and “Walking is Still Honest.” All receiving the same kind of reception from the crowd. A mosh pit that would exist at an Against Me! show was replaced with a mostly full A&R Music Bar of people singing along to every word.
There were also new, unreleased, song from an upcoming album called “Laura Jane Grace & the Mississippi Medicals” titled “Razorblade Blues.” Plus, paying homage to her favorite Hoka running shoes in “Hoka Hoka.”
When it came time to close the show out, Grace went with favorites. Of the four final songs, three came from the Against Me! catalog, but it began with “Dysphoria Hoodie.” Although the night began with Grace wearing a hoodie, she discarded it early on, still applauded how cool she looked wearing it.
While the song no longer came with the preface she included in past years, talking about the rules of the dysphoria hoodie, and its application to anybody, it didn’t make it lose any of its impact. That and the nine other new tracks all showed a songwriter who doesn’t seem to ever stop writing. The career Grace made off her songs, and the new album, helps make no new Against Me! music in eight years not as hard to take. Afterall, you still hear it in the new Grace continues to release.
Grace, Patton and Erg ended the evening with classics from 2014’s “Transgender Dysphoria Blues.” Coincidentally in another presidential election year, it all ended with a political song from 20 years ago, getting the crowd clapping along to “Sink, Florida, Sink.”
There are some national touring acts who you can see once and get the experience. Grace is at a point in her career that if she’s near your city, you can’t miss seeing her.
The only downfall to the night was nothing at all associated to a musician. After staking out the merch table, I later returned to buy a cassette copy (I’m one of those people) of “Stay Alive.” It was no longer on the table, so I asked Grace (Paris) if that was the last copy. It wasn’t. Instead, the cassette was stolen off the table.
Don’t be a jerk, Columbus.
