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Live Review from Underground 93:
Setlist:
1. Alone
2. Life is Simple
3. Nosy
4. Can’t Take My Eyes Off You (Frankie Valli)
5. Without Him
Grin walked onstage with the night’s most extensive pedalboards, full of distortion, tremolo, fuzz, overdrive and phasers. The axes were pretty impressive as well – with a P-Bass, a Tele and a Gibson SG. Their set opener was drenched in quintessential Noughties rock – post-grunge, post-punk and classic-rock-esque at the same time. Alone and Nosy had some very well executed stop-start moments, with the band demonstrating some great coordination. Drummer Wah was most redolent of Mike Chiplin (the Lostprophets’ ex-drummer) and was highly skilled at bringing out the salient features of the otherwise almost indistinguishable guitars; in particular, his extensive use of the bass drum contributed to this end.
Life is Simple began with an arrangement reminding one of Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills”, moving on to meld fascinatingly with a Brit-poppy riff; parallel to the early days of Blondie (certainly, singer Jenny’s vocals too were not far off from Debbie Harry’s rich, full voice.) Their cover of Frankie Valli’s classic was done especially keeping non-Cantonese-speakers in mind, and received with thanks (however, at points they could revise their rendition a bit, for while Jenny’s voice if strong, it needs to be stronger for this song, but nothing a little reinterpretation of style won’t put right.) Moving into without him with the classic riff from the Courageous Cat theme song, it was a dark-hued and fast number to put an end to their set, with the band’s second-prefect coordination on full display, before they packed up (remarkably quickly) and hurried off.
Shashwati
Live Review from Underground 38:
Good to be back in HK and at the familiar and comforting world of the Underground, funnily enough I had seen GriN at one of the last Underground shows I had attended and I thought the band tonight seemed more nervous than should be for a band who’s made it to the finals of numerous competitions. I found Jenny’s short skirt distracting enough to forgive the occasional offkey vocals. GriN’s music is pop, energetic pop. I have to say that Jenny’s cute and did make me grin.
Mark Emerson
Live Review from Underground 8:
I rushed down to the Underground as I wanted to see Jenny, the sexy and confident lead vocalist of GriN. Luckily I got there in time for their strong set. The only song I didn’t like was the cover that they played, although I can see why they chose to cover it. GriN play an exciting brand of power pop, Jenny’s voice is great and works well with the backing vocalist. I’d like to see Jenny loosen up more (with her vocals) and I want to buy their CD. Oh alright, I’d like to buy Jenny a glass of wine too. Whenever I can stop drooling over her.
Dan Smith
