Greta Van Fleet recently liked (then later unliked) two tweets from fans defending drummer Danny Wagner after multiple online attacks and criticism.
A fan named Haleigh wrote, “I really can’t stand how here are still some of y’all who are trying to tear Danny down. Either you stand with him and everyone else in the band or you stand alone. We don’t need anymore negativity in this group. We need to spread love rather than hate. Be kind baby.
Ash wrote, “Danny doesn’t get enough credit.”
Vanyaland recently wrote in a Boston Calling review:
And as long as we’re on the topic of redundancy, oh my gawd, just f**k Greta Van Fleet to hell. The fact that they’ve packaged a complete and utter lack of imagination and sold it to hideous boomer culture fetishists and people with way too much reverence for their dads’ record collections is egregious enough. But even the discourse surrounding GVF has been exhausted since ye olden days.
Where do we draw the line between acknowledging your influences and plagiarism? If you’re a really talented technical musician, does it matter if your songs are so terrible one of them, described by singer Joshua Kiszka as a “celebration of life and love,” is unironically called “Flower Power?” Better question — why should an entertainment consumer such as myself care about any of that when I can just walk to the other side of the festival and watch CHVRCHES play basically the same set I saw them play in October and it’ll be great? (Which it was! My thanks to whoever made it rain glow sticks during “Deliverance.”)
Fortunately, Variety were much nicer in a rave review of a recent Asbury Park show:
But perhaps what Greta Van Fleet does best is keep alive another age-old rock band tradition: instrument solos. The fireworks started almost immediately with the set opener “When the Curtain Falls,” which came complete with a mini-bass solo while pyro went off at the sides of the stage.
Later in the set, Josh led the audience in a wordless singalong during “Flower Power” while his brother played a Duane Allman-influenced solo, and Wagner took off on a solo of his own during the closing “Safari Song.” Yet arguably the greatest solo of the night belonged to Josh’s outfit, a wild combination including red leather pants and moccasins that was a work of art in itself.
