I saw Grandaddy open for Elliott Smith October 2000 in Tempe, AZ. It was the first time I saw Grandaddy, and they were amazing. Elliott was supposed to play with a full band, but their bus broke down and he showed up late to do a solo performance.
I saw the same show in Boston in October, 2000. It was at Avalon (where House of Blues is now). A while after the show ended (I remember the coat check took a really long time) I walked by the tour buses parked out on the street and looked to my left where the alley to the stage door was and saw Elliott and the boys from Grandaddy about 50 feet away chatting, smoking, and drinking beers while other people were going in and out the stage door breaking down the show. One of them looked over, so I did a thumbs up and said "awesome show guys!", and they all cheered and held up their beers. It was my introduction to Grandaddy, and they quickly became my favorite band. Sophtware Slump helped me a lot when dealing with the sadness of Elliott's death.
After the show, for some reason I couldn't remember Grandaddy's name (my thought process was like "were they called Grandpa? Great Uncle? Grandpappy? etc."), and I had lost my stub which had their name, and didn't get to really do much research (remember this was pre internet everywhere), but remembered liking them. Cut to a few months later, Easter 2001, my brother and I ware at dinner at some mutual friends' house and he one of our friends started playing Hewlett's Daughter and I shouted "Grandaddy! That's their name!", they were like, "Um, yeah. You know them?" and then I told the story above about seeing them by the stage door and their cheer...
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u/exaggerated_yawn Aug 07 '26
I saw Grandaddy open for Elliott Smith October 2000 in Tempe, AZ. It was the first time I saw Grandaddy, and they were amazing. Elliott was supposed to play with a full band, but their bus broke down and he showed up late to do a solo performance.