Kina Grannis at Varsity Theater, Minneapolis (15 Oct 2014)

Tour Dates

Opening up the show was Imaginary Future (aka Jesse Epstein), who had a very brief set, playing songs from his album Fire Escape.

After a short break, Jesse is back on stage, this time on guitar in Kina Grannis’ band. It’s been over two years since Grannis was last in Minneapolis, and, as she mentioned on stage, she really missed being close to her fans.

The story of Kina Grannis is an interesting one, because it was just her love of writing music that got her where she is today. Having spent many years as a struggling artist (busking for money and signing up for as many open mics as she can manage), Grannis described that experience as close to being homeless.

As we previously wrote, all that changed when she won the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest in 2007. This got her song on the Super Bowl and also a major label deal.

That’s only part of the story, as she tells us on stage. In addition to just talent winning, she also had to encourage her new fans to vote for her song to win… and she did this with a daily video on YouTube. She became obsessed (addicted?) to YouTube, and eventually YouTube became her mouthpiece for unveiling her music, her demos, her thoughts, and constant interaction with fans.

At the end of the day, Kina Grannis is doing what she loves doing, and that’s all thanks to YouTube and her passionate fans.

Since this was the first show, Kina was still working out all the kinks in the show. For example, you can fill out some questions for her in the Q&A box, but only a few diehard fans heard about this (the rest of the audience had no clue about the box). Also, instead of answering the questions during her solo set, she answered it when the full band came on stage… which she did confessed later on that was probably not a good idea to make them sit and wait for her answers.

The other first was that Kina threw her headcrown in the audience, and the fan who grabbed it was asked to come on stage to help her sing. When that proved too random, she asked for volunteers. When everyone in the audience raised their hands, she said out loud, “Why did I do this to myself?” Eventually two other fans were asked to come on stage, a total of two girls and one boy. I thought I heard their names as Beth, Sadie, and Isaac.

Like I previously mentioned, the new album Elements was deeply personal for Kina. In fact, for “Forever Blue”, Kina got choked up when she started talking about the death of her grandfather.

Anyway, my favorite story was how the song “Little Worrier” came about. Kina had a cabin in the woods all by herself and she spent the day writing music and enjoying the peace and quiet. Unfortunately, as it got dark, her thoughts turned to something more sinister. Her imagination got the best of her and she swore she heard footsteps downstairs. She called her brother and father, and they quickly dismissed no one was there. Her sister, on the other hand, told her to call 911 right away. Kina then shouted downstairs, that she knew someone was there and she was going to call the police!

As it turned out, it was only a mouse.

So that was the start of the Kina Grannis 2014 tour! Grannis’ latest album Elements is out now.