Violet Grohl gives herself a timid first lap: 45 minutes, not one more, without reminder. In a small room immediately won over to her cause, Dave Grohl’s daughter remains discretion personified, carried by solid compositions.
Of course, she knows she is being observed. Tonight like every other night. Also aware that part of the audience, in a mixture of curiosity and kindness, focused more on her name than on what she has to offer musically. However, she could and should have felt perfectly at ease in this room, which was immediately won over to her emerging cause and which must be barely larger than her bedroom in the family home. She will remain discretion personified, visceral shyness or a bit staged, one hand firmly gripping the microphone to never let go throughout this short set (45 minutes and not one more, without reminder). Stoic. As if it were a question of finding a presence, a countenance. As if it could not be otherwise than to leave her father’s exuberance far away or that the latter had forgotten to share even a few crumbs.
We can say to ourselves that seeing her let go a little would not stand out in the setting, that getting in tune with the energy deployed by her traveling companions would be an undeniable plus to solid compositions executed without slipping. Including what has become a gimmick of the tour, namely allowing one cover, just one, different each evening, “Transdermal Celebration” from Ween the day before yesterday in London, “Sun God” from Squirrel Bait tonight, as the only real subliminal link to the punk and alternative 1980s of Dad Dave’s first weapons. Maybe that will be for another time. After all, Violet Grohl has the future ahead of her.
We had already been able to measure this restraint when Violet Grohl performed “Bug in the Cake” at Jimmy Fallon, a piece which opens the set here.
Setlist
Bug in the Cake
THUM
Last Day I Love You
Cool Buzz
Stimulating Breakfast
Big Memory
Pool of My Dreams
Applefish
Sun Is Blind
Sun God
595
Often Hours
Plastic Couch
