So after back-to-back-to-back performances by Surfer Blood and Haerts and Mitski, I did the only logical thing at Shaky Knees and went to see John Grant.
Grant was born in Michigan, raised in Colorado, and currently lives in Iceland. By this time of day (2:30 pm), the temperatures were already well up in the 90s, and at least one member of Grant's band is Icelandic by birth, so the hot temperatures were something of a shock to them, although they did their best to persevere and put on a great performance.
To be honest, I only know of Grant through one song, GMF, which is a great song and enough to make me choose Grant and the Piedmont Stage over Two Gallants at the Ponce De Leon Stage and even the shaded Buford Stage with the band Tennis (which was too bad, because singer Alaina Moore apparently performed virtually half naked).
But we've seen Tennis before and not John Grant, so it was an easy choice. He performed GMF about half-way through his set, getting it out of the way so we could concentrate on the rest of his songs.
I even managed to make a 30 Seconds Of John Grant video during the notorious chorus to GMF.
For the American media, Grant re-recorded the song as Greatest Living Person, which still works but isn't nearly as epic, and oh look, KEXP included GMF in their Best of 2013 podcast. The 4:22 of silence after GMF in the Best Of video isn't a John Cage composition - Phosphorescent's label apparently objected to my including Muchacho's Song, and had YouTube delete that portion. I didn't know that was even possible, but they didn't catch the song here (ha, ha!).
Grant finished his set at 3:15 pm. I hadn't even been at Shaky Knees for three full hours yet, and I still had managed to catch four bands (Surfer Blood, Haerts, Mitski, and John Grant). I was on a roll, and kept on going.
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