The phrase Family Business is so much more than an album title for Lawrence. It has become an organizing principle for the latest tour featuring the powerhouse brother-sister combination of Clyde Lawrence and Gracie Lawrence.
From city to city, they’ve schlepped a bespoke setup that transforms each stage—including the one at the sold-out Wiltern in Los Angeles in October—into the office of a family business, complete with desks, filing cabinets, and other accouterments of a stereotypical work environment. As fans eagerly await the night’s performance, the venue’s PA system blares with songs from a tracklist of classics about family, business, or both, including Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family”.
During the show, they wove in video skits highlighting their bandmates as “employees” while sharing personal tidbits and old photos. And, as expected, they incorporated many songs from the Family Business album into their performances. Of the 13 tracks on their 2024 release, nine made the cut for the tour—making up half of their nightly setlist. Rightfully so. The new material not only complements the rest of Lawrence’s catalog, but also expands their palette with a wider range of styles and maturing range of emotions.
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At The Wiltern, Lawrence opened, naturally, with “Family Business”, “Do”, and “I’m Confident That I’m Insecure”—the last of those touching on Gracie’s long-running consideration of her insecurities (along with her spectacular vocal power and range)—before dipping into older songs with “Casualty”. After that, Clyde took a moment to note that Lawrence has reached a point in its tenure, with four albums in 11 years, that it now has to carefully pick and choose which tracks from its past now get to stay in the live rotation. The process for doing so, at least in the case of one song per night, is entirely fan-oriented.
According to the eldest of the Lawrence kids (the youngest, Linus, isn’t in the band but has appeared in some music videos and on the band’s 2021 live album), fans who attended a pre-show VIP meet-and-greet got to drop song titles into a suggestion box, which the group’s “accounting department” then tallied to find the three most popular options. Those choices were pitched to the audience, whose cheers determined the winner. At The Wiltern, that process gave way to “It’s Not All About You” making the cut.
From there, Lawrence returned to its most recent album with Clyde taking the lead on “Guy I Used to Be”, Gracie deploying her voice beautifully and contemplatively between “Death of Me” and “Funeral”, and the siblings getting funky for “Hip Replacement.” The band then pared things down for a mini acoustic set. There was the energetic guitar strumming of “Promotion”, more of Gracie’s sweet, soaring pipes on “The Weather”, and a piano-forward introduction to “Something in the Water” that eventually crescendoed into the full-fledged version.
That return to full electric served as a pitch-perfect segue into Lawrence’s beloved and funkified cover of Sean Paul’s “Get Busy.” The band went on to end the main set mostly with previous standards, including “More” and “Do You Wanna Do Nothing With Me?”, with the Gracie-powered “23” sandwiched in between. Before breaking, Clyde orchestrated a three-part harmony among the audience—divvying up singing roles between eldest siblings, youngest siblings, and middle children and only children—during “Don’t Lose Sight”.
For the encore, Lawrence used a clever video to coax the ecstatic crowd into chanting “one more song,” only to re-emerge for a pair of additional tracks. They ramped the funk back up on “The Heartburn Song”, with an assist from Gracie’s incredible vocal range, and invited friends, crew members, and family—including Clyde and Gracie’s mom—onstage for a finale of “Whatcha Want”.
That closing, though, was preceded by a speech from Clyde that brought the notion of “family business” into even clearer view for Lawrence. He detailed the band’s “DIY” history, how they started out as friends playing gigs at college basement parties—first, with dreams of how to spin that into something more, then, eventually, plans to do so.
Those friends and bandmates, Clyde noted, became part of the Lawrence family. So, too, have all the fans the band has made over its decade-plus of performing. In the absence of support from a major label or any other music conglomerate, they have become the backbone of Lawrence’s independent operation.
As it happens, their operation has grown considerably in terms of size, scope, and production value. It all figures to expand even more in the coming months. Between Gracie’s upcoming debut on Max’s The Sex Lives of College Girls, the band’s remaining North American dates and tours across Australia and Europe in 2025, Lawrence’s family business is poised to go global. Find tickets and tour dates here and click below for photos from the concert at The Wiltern courtesy of photographer Josh Martin and live videos by carnerenas with a full catalog of songs YouTube.
Lawrence — “Do You Wanna Do Nothing With Me?” — 10/9/24
