The Grammys Big Winner: Live Performance

Haim
(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

Este Haim, Daneille Haim, and Alana Haim of HAIM rock the 63rd Annual Grammys at the Los Angeles Convention Center on March 14, 2021.

In an exceedingly trying year devoid of live performance, it was gratifying to see the 63rd annual Grammy Awards do something it’s never done: devote itself almost entirely to live performance. The core mission of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which oversees the Grammys, is to honor the year’s best recorded music. And of course the show’s always had inspired performances with impressive and creative production; but it’s also had loads of interminable speechifying, comedic skits and drawn out tributes. Thankfully this year, more than ever before, live performance took center stage.

Broadcasting from The L.A. Convention Center, just outside of an empty Staples Center, its usual home which could be seen clearly from the awards stage, felt like a symbolic gesture. An inadvertent reminder that without functioning venues, this interdependent music industry ecosystem simply cannot thrive. As TV’s most affable host Trevor Noah joked, if these artists can create a hit single and get “billions of billions of streams” they stand to make, “two or three dollars…” which for some artists may not be that hyperbolic or funny.

Harry Styles
(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

Harry Styles, mid feather boa throw, performing during the Grammy’s first televised segment which featured three major live performances in Los Angeles on March 14, 2021.

Noah also stated the show’s mission at the top. “I know you haven’t been able to go to a concert in a long time and neither have I,” the host said as he walked to an adjoining performance area. “So tonight we’re bringing the concert to you. After everyone makes their way down this red carpet, they’re going to head inside here to perform for each other and for you. And unlike an actual concert, two teenagers stacked on top of each other won’t stand in front of you and block your view… That’s what tonight is all about, it’s about bringing us all together as only music can…”

He should have said as only live music can. Before the first segment was done, there were three power-packed live performances popular music fans could only dream of: Harry Styles turned in a looser and groove-filled version of “Watermelon Sugar” (which won the night’s Pop Solo Performance Grammy); Billie Eilish sang from atop a crashed car (the Grammys’ production value of choice) with a spangled head piece and her colla-bro-ator Finneas for the Grammy’s gorgeous Record of the Year on “Everything I Wanted;” and Album of the Year nominees Haim, featuring sisters Este, Danielle and Alana Haim, turned in a rawking rendition of “The Steps” while switching off instruments.


Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
– Float On:
Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars of Silk Sonic performs during the 63rd Annual GRAMMY Awards on March 14, 2021 in Los Angeles. (

With so many power-packed performances, it was hard to keep track: Soul Sonic, Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars’ side project, performed their 70s retro-tastic soul hit “Leave The Door Open” complete with orange stretch leisure suits; Dua Lipa mashed up  “Levitating” and “Don’t Start Now” in full over-the-top Grammy production glory; while DaBaby took an awesomely maximal approach to “Rockstar” with orchestral accompaniment along with Roddy Rich, Anthony Hamilton and violinist Mapy; while Bad Bunny and Jhay Cortez turned “Dakiti” into a neon-hued rump shaker.

The Grammy’s most overt tribute to the live music industry, however came with the awards presented from four “precious independent venues,” as Noah called them, which like every venue across the globe have suffered disproportionately during this cursed pandemic.

Rachelle Erratchu
(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

The Troubadour’s night manager Rachelle Erratchu onstage during the 63rd Annual Grammys announced Harry Styles win for Best Pop Solo Performances for “Watermelon Sugar.”

The first venue-award segment featured J.T. Gray, the owner of Nashville’s beloved Station Inn, established in 1974. Gray said, “You never know who’s going to show up at the Station Inn,” and then name-checked  Vince Gill, Chris Stapleton and Dierks Bentley and pointed to the faded posters on its historic club walls.  But the affable Southern gentleman spoke like a businessman when he acknowledged the difficulty of “sustaining revenue loss” at a “privately owned small venue. ” But reopening, he said on a positive note, is going to be a “celebration, like never before!” He then presented the Grammy for Best Country Album to Miranda Lambert’s “Wildcard” (Lambert, it should be noted, said in her acceptance speech she “can’t wait to get back out with the band.”).

Rachelle Errathcu, night manager at L.A.’s famed Troubadour, who’s worked at the iconic West Hollywood venue for 15 years, accurately compared seeing a show at the Troubadour to “going to church.”  She said how people in at the Troob “don’t want to be anywhere else but in that room.” This was said while images flashed of Billie Eilish, Guns N’ Roses and Elton John playing the 500-cap room. Errathcu also dscussed importance of the community venues create before popping up at the award show to hand Harry Styles a Best Pop Solo Performance Grammy. 

Billie “Mr. Apollo” Mitchell, the awesome tour director of NYC”s historic “World Famous” Apollo, told an incredible story: It concerned meeting the late great James Brown in the 1960s who told Mr. Mitchell, when he was a young errand boy at the Theater, that he couldn’t work there unless he kept his grades up. After making the honor roll, Brown gave Mitchell a gift upon his graduation that allowed him to go attend business school. He also spoke about the historic theater’s social, cultural and political importance, both front and back of house, and called the Apollo a “beacon for African Americans.”
Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B.
(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

Megan Thee Stallion, the night’s big winner with three Grammy trophies, and Cardi B perform “WAP” during the 63rd Annual Grammys on March 14, 2021 in L.A..

And finally Candice Fox, a bartender at the L.A.’s Hotel Café also spoke of club’s communal energy and how her venue is a home for many people, whose drinks she knows by heart. Here, too, were images showing the lack of separation between fan and artist with musicians performing in the middle of the dance floor.

There were many more excellent performances on the night, including: Taylor Swift with Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner in a moss-covered indie treehouse performing  “Cardigan;’  an amazing run of female country powerhouses that went from Mickey Guyton’s brilliant “Black Like Me” into Lambert’s “Bluebird” and then Marren Morris’ “Bones” with John Mayer on guitar; as well as Megan Thee Stallion (one of the night’s big winners with three Grammy statuettes including Best New Artist, Best Rap Song and Rap Performance) and Cardi B. whose multi-media extravaganza led into the duo performing “WAP” on a massive bed.

Two more performances, however, would easily make it as finalists for what should be a new award category: “The Best Live Grammy Performance Segment By A Group Or Solo Song and/or Record Ever” Award.

Brandi Carlile
(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

The wondrous Brandi Carlile pays tribute to John Prine during the 63rd Grammys’ epic In Memoriam segment.

An epic In Memoriam segment featured a suite of pitch-perfect somber and resonant performances paying tribute to the tragedy of “nearly one thousand souls who have brought enduring music to our lives,” who Noah said had passed in this horror of a year. The segment began with the late and brilliant Bill Withers playing “Ain’t No Sunshine” live with images of musicians and music industry personnel who passed, which included Little Richard. That segued into  .Paak and Mars, who did a fiery and faithful medley of Richard classics which presaged a snippet of Eddie Van Halen performing his mind-boggling “Eruption.”  Lionel Richie followed with a tribute to his dear friend Kenny Rogers performing “Lady,” a song he actually produced; while Brandi Carlile paid gorgeous homage to the great John Prine with a stunning solo acoustic rendition of “I Remember Everything.”

Brittany Howard and Chris Martin
(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Brittany Howard and Chris Martin perform a rousing rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” during the 63rd Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, on March 14, 2021.

All that was left was for the wondrous Brittany Howard, who earlier had won best Rock Song for “Stay High,” to close out the segment with her  warm embrace of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” with Coldplay’s Chris Martin on piano. The entire In Memoriam package served as another breathless reminder of why we all so very much need live music.

Lil Baby, in a very different vein, gave a critically important performance of “The Bigger Picture” with an elaborately staged production that called out heinous police brutality with cameos from social justice advocate Tamika Mallory and rapper/activist Killer Mike. The former made a powerful statement: “President Biden,”  she said, “We demand justice, equity, policy and everything else that freedom encompasses. We don’t need allies, we need accomplices.” It ended with a full firework display.

Lil Baby
(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

Lil Baby giving one of the most powerful Grammy performances of “The Bigger Picture” with a full set piece on March 14th, 2021.

Lil Baby’s powerful Grammy performance and so many of the night’s others, helped reinforce a basic truth: While recorded music can be inspiring and transcendent on so many different levels, ultimately it’s the live performances that bring those messages home.