Another ‘Beginning’: VanderWaal on tour
Star shows she’s more than a voice and a uke
WEST HOLLYWOOD – Grace VanderWaal is used to performing a single song, with her ukulele, before a huge crowd. It’s what she did plenty of times last year before winning the grand prize on America’s Got Talent.
But a 75-minute set, often ukefree? That’s a new challenge the 13year-old singer/songwriter faces on her first tour, which showcases her debut full-length album of the same name, Just the Beginning.
This isn’t the green AGT VanderWaal. This is a mature recording artist who goes for high notes in So Much More Than This, who invites fans to sing along for the now-classic Clay, who talks about the meaning behind Talk Good (a speech she practices, because “I’m the most awkward person on the planet”), and who goes from playing with her three-piece band to playing a uke solo and singing some a capella.
VanderWaal performs the AGT hits on her EP and almost all of the tracks on her new album (not Darkness Keeps Chasing Me, because “it’s a bit of a Debbie Downer”), but she adds some moody covers to the mix, including Leon Bridges’ River and Billie Holiday’s version of Stormy Weather (“I know all of you don’t know that song, but you should listen to it,” she tells young concertgoers).
The show isn’t flawless: She has a brain freeze after seeing YouTuber Jbunzie in the crowd, she admits to beginning one tune in the wrong key, and she forgets a verse to one song.
Before she takes the stage, she looks zen, but her “face feels like someone skinned it, put maggots in it and re-sewed it and they’re trying to get out of my face. It itches so bad,” she says. “My stress shows in very, very weird ways.”
Regardless, she says, “I feel so calm right now.” That is, until she’s asked how she plans to end the show.
“I was gonna say, ‘Thank you, have a great night.’ But should I leave them off with a lingering note? ... I feel like this is dating advice. What do I leave them off on?”
She rethinks her set list and keeps what she had.
She’ll end on I Don’t Know My Name, the song she played on the AGT audition, and she’ll bring the house down.