GRACE LEER

w/HunterGirl, Chris Sligh, Audra McLaughlin, and more!

Grindhouse Nashville's "Midweek Grind"

Thursday August 4, 2022

@ Live Oak in Nashville, TN

(Review by: Jeffrey Kurtis)

Admittedly, we confess that we may be a little late to the Grindhouse Nashville party seeing as though  it started in 2017 and we’re just now finding it, but we’re so glad we finally made it and are excited to be 100% on board!

This is our second time in the past month that we made it out to Live Oak on a Thursday night for a Grindhouse “Midweek Grind” songwriter round, and just as with our previous visit to the hotspot on Demonbreun Hill, their lineup remains one of the strongest in a town full of very solid competition.

One of the coolest things we’re blessed to experience by living in Nashville is the crazy amount of talent that runs through songwriter lineups like the one that Grindhouse gifted music lovers with during their free weekly showcase on this night.

The Walk Ons, a featured first round duo consisting of Kyle James and Brad Hutsell, showed off their songwriting prowess when James delivered his Kameron Marlowe co-write “Leavin’ To Me,” and Hutsell offered “Hey Whiskey,” a song that’s just been cut by country megastar Tim McGraw for his next album.

The first of the four rounds certainly kicked things off in great fashion but rounds #2 and #3 really elevated the overall vibe as they each brought the crowd deeper and deeper into the songs while skillfully capturing their undivided attention.

Round #2 relied heavily on the stunning vocals of Audra McLaughlin and newcomer Jessie Wilson to deliver powerful performances of their freshest songs, and round #3 leaned on hit song maker Chris Sligh who delivered his take of “Here Comes Goodbye,” the Rascal Flatts hit that gave the American Idol alumni his first #1 song as a writer and had everyone in the crowd singing along with him.

But as had already been par for the course on this night, it was the final round of the evening that would bring the bar up to an incredibly high level. 

Dan Alley, who did his part to hold his own from the center chair on stage, was bookended by two amazing American Idol alumni; HunterGirl and Grace Leer.

“I’ve been really lucky enough to release some songs this year and I’m gonna play those,” stated Leer, a first time Grindhouse Nashville performer making her debut, as she kicked off the round with her recent single “After 1,” a heartbreak song about the struggles of moving on and always finding yourself being sucked right back into the feelings which immediately allowed the full range of her vocals to radiate throughout the venue, dropping to her lowest register before pushing into higher notes through the chorus as she belted out the hook.

The round absolutely started very hot with Grace Leer, and just two songs later, last season’s American Idol runner up HunterGirl finished off the opening round by bringing her outstanding voice to “Houdini,” a song she said to be about a guy who had ghosted her.

And so began the 1-2 vocal punch of HunterGirl now being followed directly by Leer! As each vocalist soared, one right after the other, the crowd became the beneficiary of an amazing display of truly powerful vocalists, each who stayed in their own unique lane to offer something different from one another, making for a very memorable hour of music.

“I was throwing a party at my friend’s house, and I was really excited to see a guy,” began Leer. “But an unfortunate thing happened so I wrote song about it next day. This is a true story,” she admitted as she performed her debut single “Brought A Girl,” an ultra-catchy song about the guy she was sweet on showing up to the party with another girl, which had toes tapping off barstools, shoulders bopping along in rhythm, and even a few crowd-goers up on their feet shuffling a two-step in the aisles toward the back of the venue.

“I’m gonna sing a sad song,” Leer told. “This is the one about a guy that ghosted me. I was really into him, and I thought it was going well, but ghosting is a funny thing; It leaves you with so many questions. It leaves you feeling sad. One weekend, I talked about it to all my friends, called my mom about it, drank red wine about it….and everyone said the same thing; it wasn't meant to be,” she finished as she tapped into her vulnerable side on the softer paced “Meant To Be,” during which she struck all the right emotional chords to perfectly capture the confusion of the situation that inspired the lyrics.

“I didn’t write this last one, but I’m so lucky to get to record it,” Leer shared. “It’s a song that’s celebrating the country music grew up; the older traditional country and 90’s country,” she finished as she closed her part of the round with her brand-new single “Ones Before Me,” a tempo driven toe tapper which just as she had done when she opened with “After 1,” hit all the different edges of her range to leave the crowd with a moment that they’d remember long after the night was over.

HunterGirl for her part, continued to up the ante, challenging herself from song to song as she brought the crowd to a hushed standstill by offering hope through a thought-provoking lyric on “What If it Ain’t About You”; something she’d also do when she performed her current single “Redbird” to close out the entire night.

It was said early on that each round was going to continuously build on one other from the first note until the last, getting stronger and stronger as the evening proceeded – Boy, did it ever do just that; culminating in this final round.

HunterGirl and Grace Leer both sat very comfortably in their own unique zones and effortlessly did what they do best, as they leaned into each of their songs and put on such awesome vocal displays that they left no one in the crowd wondering why they are two of country music’s most buzzworthy artists, but rather left the packed house wanting one more song from each of them as the night came to its inevitable close.

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