Vander Waal often goes ukulele- free during first tour
America’s Got Talent winner will shake a tambourine, flair her arms or jump when she’s not in her “safe zone.”
WEST HOLLYWOOD – Grace Vander Waal 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 uke- free? That’s a new challenge the 13- year- 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 Vander Waal. 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 threepiece band to playing a uke solo and singing some a cappella.
Vander Waal performs the AGT hits on her EP and almost all of the tracks on her newalbum ( 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. But she handles the mistakes with a smile, and an adorable, “Oops!” It’s her first show of the tour, after all.
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 ofmy face. It itches so bad,” she says. “My stress shows in very, very weird ways.”