Let’s Eat Grandma at the Sinclair, 11/5/22
I’ve written extensively over the course of the past year about catching up on rescheduled pre-pandemic concerts, and while there’s been a pleasing circularity to checking those shows off my concert checklist, none of them came close to delivering the satisfaction I felt after finally getting to see Let’s Eat Grandma perform at the Sinclair. This show far outdates any of them, as it was one I was supposed to attend during my own freshman year close to 4 years ago – please refer to the email we sent to their PR team at the time, which I have attached below for your viewing convenience.
When the then-editors-in-chief of Melisma pitched the show to their then-underlings (myself included) just before spring break, I was honestly floored that nobody else volunteered to cover as I’d read nothing but good things about I’m All Ears, their latest release at the time. I fittingly spent that spring break in London, where I’m All Ears soundtracked my reintroduction to life in a bustling global city – the album just felt deeply correct in a place where the buildings are generally more than 4 stories tall. I soon returned to quiet Medford, MA, feeling infinitely more like myself, quite excited to cover Let’s Eat Grandma’s show just a week later.
We got the news just a few days later that the band had abruptly cancelled that tour. In posts on the band’s socials, Jenny Hollingworth (who alongside childhood friend Rosa Walton comprise the group) informed fans why they’d cancelled: her boyfriend, musician Billy Clayton, had passed from a rare form of bone cancer, and she understandably needed time and space away from the mental requirements of touring and performing to process her grief.
The cancellation of the tour was much needed as the preceding months had proven to be an overwhelming and confusing time for both Hollingworth and Walton. While preparing to tour behind I’m All Ears, an uncharacteristic gap had begun to open up between the duo for reasons that neither of them understood. The two, who had been absolutely inseparable since age 4, started to feel like they weren’t getting through to each other – they talked to each, but they weren’t talking to each other. The newly introduced physical distance between them didn’t help either, as Walton moved to London while Hollingworth remained in their native Norwich. They didn’t understand each other the way they used to, didn’t instinctively know what the other was thinking or feeling for the first time in their lives – the ensuing rift threatened to tear their seemingly invincible friendship apart.
And so Let’s Eat Grandma’s follow-up record Two Ribbons, which released in April, is a record about reconciling with and accepting change. It is an exploration of how the very nature of friendship changes as one grows, of self-discovery, and of grief. It is a necessary album for the duo: it serves as a reaffirmation of their friendship and creative partnership, reborn and reforged through the often confusing yet rewarding realities of young adulthood.
In the 1313 days since that cancellation, I’ve become a seasoned concert photographer/reviewer by covering more than 30 shows, weaseled my way into the editor-in-chief position of this publication, graduated university, and somehow found myself continuing my education in grad school. But throughout my tenure here, the thought of this show never left the back of my mind. I knew that if Let’s Eat Grandma ever came back, that I owed it to my freshman self to be there. And while they didn’t make it back across the pond during my time as an undergraduate, I handily stuck around another year to experience the joy that is graduate school. So when I was presented with the chance to make good on my own promise, I did!
A respectably large crowd had turned up to the Sinclair on that quiet and uncharacteristically warm November evening, which I found pleasantly surprising considering the lack of state-side promo surrounding both Two Ribbons and the tour itself. Walton and Hollingworth, backed by their drummer and bassist, took to the stage, and after a brief moment of suspense, launched into Two Ribbons opener “Happy New Year.” “Happy New Year” was the lead single for the album, and serves as a touching celebration of the duo’s renewed friendship – Hollingworth and Walton came to realize that while they had grown separately, that didn’t mean they had to grow apart. “You know you’ll always be my best friend, and look at what I made with you” Walton sang as she bounced around the stage in time to the bouncy synth beat. They then followed with I’m All Ears highlights “Falling Into Me” and “Hot Pink,” two bangers produced by the late-and-great SOPHIE. “Falling Into Me” even saw Hollingworth bring out and play a saxophone, which I had completely forgotten was a part of the song. I’ll also be honest and say that “Hot Pink” is the song that got me into the duo all those years ago – the track features a sludgy, scraping, futuristic build to one of the meatiest drops I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to, and I was more than happy to let it wash over me live.
The duo proceeded to play Two Ribbons highlights “Hall of Mirrors” – which Walton wrote about the excitement of exploring her newly realized bisexuality for the first time – and “Watching You Go,” a crushing track in which Hollingworth reflects on her relationship with death and living. “I want to shed myself and lay back in the earth sometimes / Surrender to the sky – I wanna feel whole with the world unfolding” Hollingworth sang, torn between her desire to live life to the fullest and the mournful fragility she felt in the wake of Billy’s passing. You wouldn’t have guessed it from that soaring, victorious electric guitar climax nearing the end of the song, but the song is frankly, just devastating.
After the first few songs had passed, I was under the impression that Hollingworth’s stage presence was a reflection of her seemingly quieter nature. Indeed, she had remained mostly stationary at her keyboard – at times it even seemed like Walton was prying her off of it when it was her turn to sing. But I couldn’t have been more wrong, as over the course of the night, Hollingworth opened up, dancing or strutting across the stage with mic in hand, kneeling or lying down throughout the course of a song for added expressive effect.
Hollingworth and Walton dug deeper into their discography, somehow managing to work “Deep Six Textbook” from their 2016 debut EP, I, Gemini, into the setlist. Atop a sparse drum machine beat and droning keyboard notes, Hollingworth and Walton recalled the feelings and dreams of their teenage (17 and 16 respectively at the time they wrote the song) selves – “We live our lives in the textbook, letter by letter / We're heading straight to the east coast, it just got better.” We even had the pleasure of seeing Hollingworth bring her saxophone out once again, playing an incredibly soulful solo to close out the song.
Walton took center stage for “I Really Want To Stay At Your House,” a track that she composed for the Cyberpunk 2077 soundtrack. I vaguely knew of the track's existence and purpose, but I had absolutely no idea that it went viral this year after its inclusion in the spin-off Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime series. And even if I had, I certainly wouldn’t have expected it to make its way into the setlist, but I’m quite happy that it did. I don’t think that the attendees at a Let’s Eat Grandma show are the type to full-out mosh, but when that moment comes in the future, this’ll be one of the tracks to trigger one – there’s something about that vocoded backing vocal and drop that just, for lack of a more elegant term, simply goes hard.
What stood out to me about the duo was their on-stage dynamic. The two were incredibly co-ordinated, draping their arms around each other’s shoulders, playing an elaborate game of patty cake (you ever see players turn around in between hand claps?), holding each other’s hands, dancing together, and even posing like powered down robots, obscuring their faces behind their flowing brown hair. That last move is one they’ve been pulling ever since the band’s inception, and the duo’s insistence on keeping it as part of their act was a sweet nod to the career they’ve built together.
A bizarre but welcome choice of song served as the encore for the night: the prog-esque 11-minute long “Donnie Darko” from I’m All Ears. The duo got back on stage and laid down, with Walton still grasping her trusty electric guitar, whose reverberated tones evoked the vibes of a futuristic western. The song continued to slowly build thanks to the addition of a pulsating drum kick, and the pair’s synergy and physicality ramped up accordingly. The two strutted back and forth across the stage together, played musical patty cake to the beat, sat down and stoically met the crowd’s gaze – and then each other’s. Hollingworth’s stage antics came to a head at this moment as she jumped into the crowd to take a quick lap, before quickly hoisting herself back on stage for a brief but wildly enjoyable solo on the bloody recorder. Tell me, could your fave make a recorder solo work, nay, soar? Didn’t think so. At this point, the cymbals kicked in and the track hit its explosive climax, to which the crowd erupted into cheers. Hollingworth then retook vocal duties as the band began to bring the song and set to a close, her gentle silken voice riding out a single ghostly sustained note.
Sticking to the thread of full-circle moments that I’ve opted to employ in this review, in my first ever concert review, I likened the act I was writing about to that universally constant feature of a talent show – “two girls singing together who absolutely blow everybody away, not just with how good they sound, but also because of their incredible dynamic— above all else, they’re having fun with each other, something that translates incredibly well into their performance.” I can’t help but feel that that statement rings doubly true for Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth.