{"id":608719,"date":"2026-08-29T23:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T23:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/608719\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T23:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T23:42:14","slug":"at-electric-picnic-violet-grohls-30-minute-set-has-highlights-but-some-obvious-issues-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/608719\/","title":{"rendered":"At Electric Picnic, Violet Grohl\u2019s 30-minute set has highlights but some obvious issues \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Violet Grohl Electric Arena, Electric Picnic \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s \u2018whatever\u2019 to me,\u201d Violet Grohl<\/a> said recently about claims that she\u2019s a nepo baby. \u201cI\u2019m beyond grateful for the life that I was born into,\u201d she told<\/a> the online music magazine The Forty-Five. \u201cIt\u2019s such a privilege to be able to be around musicians and in a space that nurtures my interest and allows me to grow and to make a record.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those musicians include her dad, Dave Grohl<\/a>, the Foo Fighters<\/a> frontman and former Nirvana<\/a> drummer, whose musical tastes she has evidently inherited: on Saturday afternoon the young singer and songwriter is on Electric Picnic<\/a>\u2019s Electric Arena stage for 30 minutes of rock that has some obvious highlights but also some obvious issues.<\/p>\n

Among the former is Bug in the Cake, from her debut album, Be Sweet to Me, which she released in May. The track is a tribute to her Irish grandmother, Virginia Hanlon. \u201cIt\u2019s dedicated to her and her love of your country,\u201d she tells the modest early-afternoon audience.<\/p>\n

Another standout song is Applefish, a sad, dreamy ballad that provides some moments of sonic respite. It suggests what Grohl\u2019s capable of artistically.<\/p>\n

\"ElectricElectric Picnic 2026: Violet Grohl on stage on Saturday. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw \"ElectricElectric Picnic 2026: Violet Grohl on stage on Saturday. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n

One stumbling block in all of this is that, although her band are excellent, you don\u2019t get a sense that they\u2019re friends who spent teenage Saturdays practising in their parents\u2019 houses as they dreamed of making it big together. <\/p>\n

Equally, despite her appreciation for having grown up around musicians, it can\u2019t be easy for Grohl to develop her voice and find room to experiment when she\u2019s so in the spotlight so early in her career \u2013 just a few days ago one British tabloid ran a story about her having to cancel shows in Manchester and Glasgow because she was ill. The first words in the headline? \u201cNepo baby Violet Grohl\u201d.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an irony here: Grohl must have more resources at her disposal than almost any other 20-year-old singer, but she has no breathing space to grow. The result is that her music suffers: it\u2019s undoubtedly well made but at times sounds stilted.<\/p>\n

Overall, her somewhat low-energy performance on Saturday gives off an air of ennui and disaffection that isn\u2019t helped by the fact that Grohl, who\u2019s dressed entirely in black, seems to be chewing gum all the way through her set. <\/p>\n

Fans hoping to find the next big thing in rock might need to wait a while for her to become a fully fledged musical force.<\/p>\n

For all the latest festival news, reviews<\/a> and more, download the Irish Times app<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Violet Grohl Electric Arena, Electric Picnic \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606 \u201cIt\u2019s \u2018whatever\u2019 to me,\u201d Violet Grohl said recently about claims that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[40226,12421,93,683,61,60,680,173624],"class_list":["post-608719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-dave-grohl","tag-electric-picnic","tag-entertainment","tag-foo-fighters","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-nirvana","tag-violet-grohl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}