Gracie Abrams sold out three nights at the Greek Theatre in LA, and she's giving us a personal behind-the-scenes look at her must-haves in her dressing room, how she prepared for the tour, the relationships she has with her team, and more!
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00:00Hey Billboard, I'm Gracie Abrams. Welcome to my tour stop at The Greek in LA. This is our third night
00:08at my tour stop. This is a matcha because everyone was telling me to stop drinking Celsius because I
00:13was doing like three a day during rehearsals and I know that that's really not good for your heart.
00:19It's probably not good for your soul. So, matcha. Love it. Yeah.
00:24These are our signs and this is how we know where things are on tour. It's like following
00:33the yellow brick road or something. Welcome to my dressing room.
00:40Important part of the dressing room, in my opinion, is the makeshift bed with the heating
00:50pad. I feel like there's a heating pad in every space that I occupy on tour. I keep my guitar
00:56back here before shows because I like to practice, if you can believe it. We have this book that has
01:05all of the looks for tour that me and Spencer Singer, who's my stylist and one of the great
01:11hearts and souls that we have in this world, we got like very organized about it this time. So,
01:17there's all these different looks. I'll block my face out because I look like actually a true
01:25zombie in these pictures, but lots of details. I'm a very visual person and so having everything
01:32organized in a book is the dream of my life, pretty much. Really important, bread and butter
01:37pickles. Super necessary. Separately, also really important, peanut butter cups. And we love wine.
01:46I haven't had any wine since starting this tour, but tonight is our last of three shows
01:52at the Greek. We have two days off and so I think I will have some wine tonight to celebrate having
01:59sold out three shows here with my friends. Pretty crazy. I've been Gracie's tour manager
02:03since her first show ever, end of August, 2021. Really just been unbelievable how quickly it's
02:08all happened and to see her like that first show, how nervous she was, had so much stage fright,
02:14so much anxiety going into it. And then now when you see her, like the confidence and like she
02:18completely owns the stage and she loves doing it. That's cool, Gabe. Is that different?
02:29Like 10 seconds ago, that's it. Yeah, I liked it. Just a full 180 when she started performing. It
02:35was like, this girl's going to the moon. I do vocal warmups every single day before
02:42singing, ever. I've had friends come in here and be like, why you do the biggest straw ever? But
02:47it's not for drinking, it's for blowing bubbles and stuff. And then this helps warm up your throat
02:53in a nice way. To get ready for a show, not very long, but I do like to be alone before shows
02:59for like a good 30 minutes. But that's not really like about the glam of it all. I feel most myself
03:05when I look most myself. So I think I'm not working with very much. It's like the Selena Gomez
03:13brow gel and like, yeah, blush, anything that makes me look sunburned and like I've been not
03:20living on a bus or in a dark venue every waking hour for, you know, weeks on end. This is the sexiest
03:26part I can show you. It's disgusting here. This is my nasal rinse billboard. What do you think? I did this
03:33today and like, I don't like it because it feels wrong that like anything should come out of your
03:39mouth. Like, do you know what I'm saying? There's kind of something really gnarly about that, but
03:42it does help. I was told that, um, doing that daily is smart and I said, okay. And I said, great. There
03:50have been like a handful of shows this tour where I have spoken to myself in the mirror and I've not
03:56done that before on tour, but the psychology of that is probably like some sick and twisted, I don't
04:00know what it is, but I've been enjoying having some kind of like conversation with myself ahead
04:05of a show. What are some of the things you said? Like, don't fuck this up. Like, don't trip on your dress.
04:20We've been starting to pick chunks that feel like good to sound check and that are really dynamic
04:25so you can kind of get the full force of the show in the PA. The way that we're doing the tour right
04:31now and how it goes from all these different sized venues from outdoors to indoors to theaters to
04:36amphitheaters, everything has a kind of a unique challenge. I've loved this tour so much and it's
04:41the biggest tour that we've, the biggest headline tour by miles. It's rare to have, um, you know,
04:47like a week at home at the very beginning of our tour, so being in LA this week has been kind of
04:53like the real gift. This album was totally written with the spirit of a live show in mind the whole
05:00time. I think a lot of that was because Audrey and I were, you know, writing most of these songs
05:04together from home on our couch and I was lucky enough to have the experience in the moment of
05:10like, I'm singing these songs with a friend who's so important to me and I feel, you know, that
05:18a similar kind of affection for all the people that are generous enough to come to the shows and
05:23and I feel a closeness with them that like transcends beyond the like fan-artist relationship.
05:32Having the opportunity to sing the songs with like thousands of people every night who I love, yeah,
05:37I mean it's like already exceeded my wildest expectations and dreams kind of for what the
05:42tour would be and we're truly six shows in so it's a blessing. Every day we ask ourselves is like what
05:49is a Gracie Abrams show? What do we want a Gracie Abrams show to be? Her music's so dynamic and kind
05:54of evocative and elicits a lot of emotion so the ability to have a lot of dynamics in the show
06:00from, you know, a lot of stark backlight silhouette to really big energetic moments. What's so magical
06:06about this tour so far is that I will be singing my bit and because the audience is so loud I can
06:12hear them singing the backing vocals or like the ad-libs or like they're taking it upon themselves
06:18to show up and like really participate in the show.
06:21I made a mistake, I tell you I'm sorry, sorry!
06:26So it's been this like really beautiful back and forth that I appreciate so much.
06:30What's the most typical day of the tour?
06:34We like, what's the most typical typical day, um, well we wake up whenever we wake up
06:41like maybe like 10, 11 and find like a matcha, find, you know, coffee, maybe go to thrift store,
06:50vintage stores, I think we really like to do that in different cities. I feel like we know each
06:56other's wardrobe, we all do the band, everybody collectively so it's like if somebody comes in
07:01wearing something new that we haven't seen before we're like that must be brand new because we've
07:04seen everything so especially because I feel like we also buy everything together. I've loved this
07:10venue forever, it's a real dream, this is like bucket list venue for sure and I know for Casey
07:16as well who also grew up here who's in the band we just both have always kind of been dying to
07:20play so that's it means a lot to be here. Oh space puns tonight y'all, come on! I'm trying to be like you!
07:29Meeting her definitely was one of the best things that's ever happened to me just like from a
07:32friendship standpoint but also musically you know you dream about like being connected with an artist
07:38and a songwriter who has such a voice and such a vision like that's what you know it's like that
07:44just feels like the luckiest thing ever. It's amazing and validating to see someone that's so
07:49wonderful be recognized in that way that's absolutely the best part but it's fun and silly
07:55because I'm like oh my god wait her like oh yeah I mean of course obviously I feel lucky because I
08:01get to just hang with her all the time and soak that up. It's such a muscle and it's really I
08:06think for me about feeling as much in my body as possible during a show because performing wasn't
08:12something that I felt naturally inclined to do at all. I was not initially thrilled about the concept
08:18of standing on an elevated surface and singing to real people. It has just taken a minute to
08:26get comfortable. I'm really grateful that I get to work with people who have been doing this for
08:32so much longer than I have and who I trust deeply to kind of help you know steer the ship
08:40too because it's such a touring is such a group effort.
08:47Thank you so much Billboard for spending the day with me. It's time to go to stage but I'm so
08:52excited it's gonna be a great show. I'm gonna go spend the remaining five minutes pre-show
08:57with the band who I love and I'll see you guys next time I hope. Thanks, love you, bye.
09:02Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to our third LA show, The Secret of Us Tour.
09:16I couldn't have imagined ever playing one night here let alone
09:19selling out three so thank you for doing that for us.