Review: Mckenna Grace packed Los Angeles' Moroccan Lounge for debut live performance
Film/TV star Mckenna Grace delivered her first-ever live performance in front of a packed crowd at Los Angeles' Moroccan Lounge last night.
Known for her work on Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Designated Survivor, and her Emmy-nominated performance on The Handmaid's Tale, the star dove into the music world with a record deal with Photo Finish Records (3OH!3, The Maine) at the age of 14. Now at 16-years-old, Grace has a slew of singles and a forthcoming debut EP titled Bittersweet Sixteen arriving on March 3 (pre-saves can be made here).
For anyone's first performance, it can be filled with nerves. Whether there's five people or 500 people in the audience, there's always a billion thoughts running through everyone's head. Grace admitted to crying a few times in the greenroom prior to jumping on stage and witnessing a packed audience waiting for her first song.
Under a sea of flashing lights, Grace kicked off her first-ever set with a small portion of her debut single "Haunted House," which was featured in the Ghostbusters: Afterlife soundtrack. The artist immediately switched to her latest single "Checkered Vans," which found Grace bouncing around during an upbeat tune about heartbreak (“I swear you exist just to spite me, I'm your cigarette so gaslight me”). While she was energetic, Grace joked about her record label hiring a movement coach so she wouldn't appear as a robot on stage.
With the concert being a celebration of her Bittersweet Sixteen EP, Grace did play some unreleased tunes for the crowd. The title track was written when Grace was 15, and it revolved around wanting to date when she eventually turned 16. The slow number found Grace crooning "They say I'm too young to think about love, but without love, I feel incomplete."
After letting her backing band rock out for a majority of the set, Grace gave them a breather and busted out an acoustic guitar for her cover of Alanis Morrissette's hit single "You Oughta Know," which found Grace flipping around some of the lyrics ("Would she kiss you in a theatre?"). With the next song "do all my friends hate me?," Grace dove into the world of overthinking things. The song was written after Grace only received one text notification after landing on a plane.
Grace joked about how she accidentally brought the mood down with her Morrissette cover and "do all my friends hate me?," so she decided to end things on an upbeat mood with the soon-to-be-released track "Buzzkill Baby." While Grace croons "I'll never be Taylor Swift" in "Ugly Crier," it won't be long until she become a household name like the stadium headliner.
Opening the set was San Francisco indie-pop singer Forrest Nolan, who recently toured with Gracie Abrams. Armed with just an acoustic guitar, the musician delivered a 15-minute set filled with melodious songs and laughs. The artist joked about wanting Lil Wayne on one of his unreleased songs, and he performed a song he wrote for a dating app titled "Would you like to go on a date with me sometime (please say yes)." Nolan expected the crowd to simply talk over his set, but they were clapping along with his music by the time his set was over.
Mckenna Grace setlist
1) Haunted House
2) Checkered Vans
3) Ugly Crier
4) unreleased song
5) You Ruined Nirvana
6) Bittersweet Sixteen (unreleased song)
7) Post Party Trauma
8) unreleased
9) cover of Alanis Morrissette's "You Oughta Know"
10) do all my friends hate me?
11) Buzzkill Baby (unreleased song)