Take away Grimes’ futuristic aesthetic often expressed in pictures, whether album art or magazine spreads, and you have a shy, if not talented, 23-year-old woman. I discovered this recently when I caught her sold-out Holocene show in Portland.
Claire Boucher, aka Montreal-based Grimes, kept her ponytail to the left side of her head like a girl at a slumber party, her hyperactive dance moves recalled spacemen bouncing on the moon, and her dialogue with the crowd barely registered beyond “I’m shy.”
And yet, her Feb. 21 performance was pleasing, in that it made me dance (in place), and perhaps dream about what she could be if she lets a little light in or embraces some kind of video production to bolster her set. Or any onstage production, for that matter.
