Too good for Grandpa: Alumni band performs at the Rusty Nail as part of LC Art week

By Kaylie Engel /// Staff Writer 

Every couch in the Co-op turned to face the tiny makeshift stage spoiled with instruments. Good Enough for Grandpa, performing as part of LC Art Week, took to the stage facing an intimate audience filled with family, friends and strangers. The show opened and the room filled with the sounds of tablas (Indian drums), sitar synth and the angelic voice of David Allred.

David Allred and Greg Eldridge, the band’s two members and recent LC alumni, continued to construct a show that resembled a performance art piece rather than a concert. Situated comfortably in their couches and plush arm chairs, the crowd watched in awe as the tablas turned into an accordion, the keyboard to a stand-up bass and on and on.

Throughout the show Eldridge adorned a “shoe-bourine” — a moccasin taped to a tambourine. As with most performance art pieces, many other props were used. Eldridge also called for multiple moments of seriousness throughout the show, providing an emotional experience for those participating thoroughly. During one of their songs, the audience was asked to close their eyes and imagine the happiest points of their lives. Audience members were also asked to participate in a moment of silence for cows; the silence then followed by the consumption of 1½ hamburgers by Eldridge. Eldridge handled and consumed the majority of the props.

Cardboard signs of lyrics accompanied one of their tunes and the audience sang along earnestly. Raffle tickets labeled with various Nick Cage films were passed out to the crowd alongside chocolate chip cookies, baked specially by Allred’s mother, who also happened to be an audience member.

 Even without a stomach full of homemade chocolate chip cookies, Good Enough for Grandpa still would have left me feeling like I had just spent an hour and a half in someone’s living room, with their family, and one of the most interesting shows to have taken place in the Co-op.