Concert Review: Grizfolk Stuns At Rudyard’s British Pub

Grizfolk Photo by Madeline Robicheaux

Grizfolk took their Troublemaker tour to Houston on Saturday, February 20, 2016. The band has been touring for a while now as this was the fourth to last show on their tour. They took along indie rock band Knox Hamilton, who appeals to a very similar market as the headliners.

Rudyard’s British Pub was the venue of choice for the evening, which turned out to be just the right size for the tour. This dive, on the edge of Montrose and River Oaks, is a pub by day and has an area for shows and events upstairs by night. The crowd at the show was a diverse one, with the main group of fans near the stage being of a younger demographic and the more mature group enjoying the bar and tables in the back.

Knox Hamilton Photo by Madeline Robicheaux

Knox Hamilton came on stage with their high energy number, “Set It On Fire,” which is from their EP, How’s Your Mind. The group ended up being able to perform their entire EP. The band went on to introduce five new songs to the excitable crowd. The new music has a rockier sound than that of the EP so I expect a different sound overall might be ahead for the openers. It was notable that a sizable percentage of the audience has seen Knox Hamilton before and returned as a loyal fan base. Lead singer, Boots Copeland, highlighted that all of the new songs we heard would be on their debut album, out soon. Overall, their performance was solid and a great start to the night.

Knox Hamilton Photo by Madeline Robicheaux

Next, a little late because of technical difficulties, Grizfolk hit the stage. There is something wonderful about a performance started with the same song as the album starts with and that’s exactly how their set opened up. “Into The Barrens” brought in the show followed by “Bounty On My Head,” current single “Troublemaker,” and “The Struggle.” At this point, the crowd is really psyched because they’ve realized just how wonderful Grizfolk is at preforming live. You can see the passion in the eyes of every member on stage and can tell they live for this. From a magnificent drum solo, to the shared background vocals, to their performance of “Way Back When,” their song from the Mr. Peabody and Sherman soundtrack, everything about this show was pretty spectacular.

Grizfolk Photo by Madeline Robicheaux

Moral of the story: you don’t want to miss Grizfolk live. There is a huge difference in seeing someone live who is tired and wants to go home and seeing someone live who lives to bring joy to people through music. Houston is incredibly lucky to have hosted these musicians at least 3 times already and hopefully we’ll be so lucky again very soon.

Grizfolk Photo by Madeline Robicheaux

Grizfolk Photo by Madeline Robicheaux

All Photos by Madeline Robicheaux

By Bethany Polson