Photos and Review by Eleanor McIntyre
March 4, 2025
Bowery Ballroom
New York, NY
On Tuesday, March 4th 2025, Grace Enger was welcomed back home by the Bowery Ballroom crowd. New York and New Jersey residents, who filled the sold-out space, raised their hands at Enger’s request to let her know who had shared the experience of calling this area home. “FIGHT!”, she yelled, urging the New York and New Jersey natives to prove which region is superior as she tuned her guitar after an energetic entrance to “Think I Wanna See You Again” off of her 2023 album “Well Here We Are”. Enger expressed her reminiscing about living in an Orchard street apartment where she spent time writing some of the songs she'd play throughout the night. I can only imagine how special it must feel to be performing the songs on the very stage that’s set around the corner from the place where they were brought into reality. Hearing Grace recant her dream coming true with her audience, made me feel like I had a tiny part in it, even if that part was just watching it happen in real time.
Halfway through the show, Grace brought out friend and opening act, Jake Minch, an indie alternative songwriter, whose Tik Tok livestreams I discovered a few months ago, solely because the algorithm gods love me. It’s funny to think that one day you could be brushing your teeth before bed while listening to a musician who is cities away, serenading you with their musical diary. Whether it’s a presentation of their own song ideas that they’re workshopping with a small circle of viewers or it’s fulfilling requests of covers from their favorite artists. Now, that same person is on a stage singing to you and hundreds of other people who know them the same way.
Together Grace and Jake sang “Good Stuff”, a single they released back in April of 2024. Their voices, both soft, yet full of soul, complemented each other in every harmony. They manage to skillfully manipulate every light breath, strum, and hum. They’re honestly wizards, stringing together such delicate magic.
Earlier in the night, Jake opened up the show by accidentally stumbling into a twinkly-lit tree (a sweet touch to Grace’s stage design), then quickly recovering. The tone he set was one that never seemed to leave—raw, introspective, and deeply personal. The atmosphere shifted when he sneakily moved into a cover of Phoebe Bridgers' “Funeral”, which like his single “Hand Gun”, fans had no trouble singing along to. The overwhelming reaction to hearing some unexpected Phoebe was a mix of appreciative silence and bursts of enthusiastic, girlish screams. Internally, I was right there with them.
All night, the ballroom was a reflection of humanness. One moment where Grace literally and figuratively shined was when she took to a small piano to the right of the stage to play a few songs underneath her glowing trees. She had entered the stage as a force of nature, and now, still full of power, was a soft breeze that would rise and fall on all of us. There’s a rasp and rawness to her voice that she knows exactly how to manipulate. It’s not a whine, but more of a vocal stretch, a sound that feels as though it’s being pulled from the very core of her, almost beyond her control. Grace’s band was no slouch, either. Consisting of only two members, a drummer and guitarist, they sounded so full and were never really lacking. If a band has a strong drummer like Sierra Leuschen, the rest of the band can breathe easy, and there was plenty of easy breath work on this stage. Guitarist, Andrew Wholf, showcased some serious skill, especially during a cover of Paramore's “Still Into You”, which Enger and Wholf performed sitting on the edge of the stage. Wholf would get a little creative with the strings, and at one point almost made a mistake where he slightly missed a note, but the look on his face covered up the truth of whether it was truly purposeful or a masterful recovery of what would have otherwise been a mishap.
Another one of the more poignant moments I recall was at the start, when Jake performed a song about his sibling—an emotional track about the absence of being there for someone close. It was a vulnerable confession. It was clear Jake was taking a deep dive into personal themes, and the music followed suit. Throughout the set, Jake explored themes of youth, addiction, and the difficulties of coming to terms with being thrust into adulthood quite early. The guitar strums were sometimes gentle, sometimes harder, as if he was making sure every word hit just as hard as the next. He referenced seeing Peter McPoland perform at the same venue and observed how "much smaller" it felt now, a nod to the passage of time and his own feelings about his place in the music world. It was an honest moment of reflection amidst a set filled with storytelling.
The night had so many of these moments, with band members jumping and bumping into things on stage, laughing to each other, reminding everyone just how very real, very human, the experience of performing and being a part of that experience is.
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