grimes at a festival

I saw her at Sweetlife and also 930 Club the day before* and I can confirm that she does vary the order of songs slightly in each show, and the setlists for festivals (and possibly also for her shows as an opening act) are two songs shorter.

Here are the songs (in chronological order because I forgot setlist order) that she played at 930 Club, and the two in parentheses are the ones she did not play at Sweetlife Festival, but she played all the others.

Genesis Oblivion Be a Body (Symphonia IX My Wait is U) Go Realiti Laughing and Not Being Normal Scream Flesh Without Blood Kill v Maim Artangels intro World Princess Pt. 2 Venus Fly (Butterfly) Ave Maria

I imagine this could change. Butterfly is a song beloved by her fans, but unknown to the general public. The same is true of World Princess 2. Both songs also have an immediately pop-appealing sound, so there's no reason to save them just for her solo gigs. But the difference is, she has developed a very strong way of performing World Princess 2 live, so she feels confident doing it for large crowds. On the other hand, the live performances of Butterfly have been more difficult vocally, and she does it at her solo gigs because she knows fans love it (at 930 club everyone, even males, was singing along to the final "if you're looking for a dream girl...") but she's probably trying to perfect it more before she adds it permanently to the set at the larger gigs with a more unforgiving audience. She tried doing Butterfly at the first Coachella date and it received a negative response due to her vocals, and then she dropped it in the second Coachella date, but kept World Princess.

Ps. Pls don't hate/be jealous- it's the first time I ever saw one artist more than once on the same tour and also the first big concerts of any kind that I went to in like two years since I saw MIA... and I was so broke and car-less and Grimes-fan-friendless I had to walk and take two trains, two buses and after like seven hours of transit I got to Merriweather Post Pavilion (seeing that beautiful venue- aka "Ferngully"- for the first time- I finally understand what Animal Collective were inspired by) too late to see the other artist I most wanted to see there, Thundercat who worked on the Kendrick Lamar album... and then I had to walk like ten miles to a metro in the middle of the night to get home, after getting out of a Lyft car when I realized they charge like $20 per mile or some insane shit and the prices are secret until you get in the car (on the plus side my Lyft driver was a Rihanna fan and I was telling her about Grimes and her inspiration from Rihanna)... but it was all *totally fucking worth it to see Grimes live. and even though I only had shitty lawn tickets at Sweetlife it was actually a good thing cause I had already watched her close-up the night before at 930 and on the lawn, I was able to actually dance to the whole set, surrounded by other people dancing, which you can't do as easily in a super crowded club. So both shows were perfect for me. Oblivion was actually better in the festival because it felt like being in the Oblivion video, to be outside in the floodlit lawn as it was getting dark surrounded by people dancing and trash on the grass like at a football game!! However, anyone who is only seeing her once, you need to make sure you are not stuck in the lawn of a festival, because if I had only seen her that way, I would've only got 10% out of her performance. The way she uses lights and dancing cannot be conveyed simply on a jumbotron, you need to be close to it and I was feeling sad for everyone who was priced out of the pavilion seats and didn't get to experience it in an intimate club. Seeing her come out to Realiti on a jumbotron at 6:30 pm when it was still light, even in a beautiful venue (tho unfortunately the actually beautiful stage is the smaller "treehouse" one, where she didn't perform) was nothing compared to being surrounded by darkness in a club and the lingering cold breeze of HANA's wind machines, and green lights piercing the darkness and then Realiti and it felt like midnight at the north pole at the end of the world. It was fine for me to see it at 6:30 on jumbotron in bright daylight with the crowd still only half paying attention (they soon realized the error of their ways thankfully), in fact it was pretty interesting to see it that way, to see how she was able to slowly invoke a spell to turn the sky dark and even bring back the rain, and finally by the end of the set to get everybody dancing who maybe only knew two of her songs, but it was only fun to see it that festival way because I already saw it the other true way, so please, please if you love Art Angels do anything you can, to see one of her solo gigs or make sure your tickets for the festival or opening-act show you see (if it's the only time you see her this tour) are as close as possible. Otherwise unless you really really love dancing and don't care if you can't see the show, you may as well stay home and watch the Coachella video in nice quality. I know that despite the beauty of MPP as a venue, and despite seeing at least one other really awesome act (Shamir), I would have felt like being on the lawn for Grimes at that festival was such a waste of money and time, if that had been my only experience of AA tour. Lawn has a uniquely terrible view at Merriweather Post Pavilion, okay, but it's still bad everywhere, especially for concerts involving spectacular lighting and choreography. Sell your soul to see it up close and with your own eyes, I've seen Radiohead live and LCD Soundsystem live back in the day before they "broke up" and Grimes is way better live, I've never seen any show better than Grimes this year except Grimes at an even smaller club four years earlier and that wasn't better, just different and equal. I'm already trying to think of ways to see her again. My record for seeing one artist live is four times, and I want Grimes to surpass that record soon.

/r/Grimes Thread