College Student-Created Festival is a Celebration of Chicago Youth Culture
If you were in the Lakeview, Chicago area last Friday night, you might’ve found yourself on one of two opposing sides—filing a noise complaint, or among the more than 100 people rocking out to local Chicago music in an apartment complex courtyard.
The courtyard belongs to one Grant Lendvay, a sophomore Sound Recording Technology major at DePaul, who organized the event.
This isn’t the first event like this Grant has put on. The first was a house-show he threw his senior year of highschool in his basement, and the second was last summer, but there weren’t as many people since most students were home.
“I realized the potential of the courtyard when my roommate James Doolittle…had a little birthday party with like 30 people in that courtyard until like 1AM,” Grant said.
After that, Grant planned for only a month straight to get Grantchella off the ground.
“The whole goal was to throw a music festival and combine all the energy of the lovely house shows that are happening in the scene and to just have a really good night,” Grant said.
Grant enlisted his friends to help out with the planning. Corinne Klein designed the original poster, Adam Atrix helped collect vendors, Brett Manion supplied gear, and Alexander Lehr, another SRT student, managed the bands’ live sound and mixing.
“When it actually came time to play music, I was the one behind the board,” Alexander said. “Very simple setup, just a couple microphones and a kick mic going into this board and then out to the speakers.”
Alexander said, “I had full faith in Grant Lendvay, I always do,” when Grant told him about his plans. He says he supported the idea because, “That’s exactly what was missing from my high-school experience that I wanted so badly.”
The day of the event there were seven local Chicago bands/artists ready to play. The intended four vendors had nearly doubled to seven, selling everything from clothes, to crystals, to baked goods. Presale tickets went for $5 through Venmo the week leading up to the show, and general admission was $10 at the door.
Doors opened at 6. I showed up a little after seven o’clock with some friends. Those working the door drew purple hearts on our hands and welcomed us in. Local DePaul band Soaps, following Cry Wolf, was in the middle of their set, with people herded around the makeshift stage.
Grant handed out bubble wands to people in the crowd; the evening felt like a mix between a music festival and a hazy memory of a childhood birthday party.
The space was charged, people were dancing and head-banging to the live music, and even those in the surrounding courtyard apartments watched the show from their windows. For me, it felt like this manifestation of Chicago youth culture. A celebration of all that was buzzing around DePaul and all the creativity of its students.
Other local bands Intoner, Mimaroglu (Grant’s and Alexander’s band), and Daundry followed Soaps, and with each set more and more people showed up. Just for presale alone, Grantchella sold 113 tickets.
“That blew my mind,” Alexander said.
“I have not played a show that has sold more than…sixty, fifty tickets…so to double that was wild to me.”
“I certainly was not expecting the number of people,” said Cormick Costello, bass player for band Intoner.
“When it finally started filling in and I just started seeing everyone, it was certainly a sight.”
Cormick said it was interesting seeing so many familiar faces from other Chicago shows.
“It was really cool to see them all there, and I think Grant did a really good job finding people,” he added.
According to local municipal law, events can’t be shut down until 10 PM for noise. Grant gave surrounding neighbors two weeks notice for the show and free admission. Despite this, Daundry was in the middle of their set when police officers showed up around 9:30 reporting they had received a number of noise complaints. Grant was ready to shut the event down, but the officers clarified that he didn’t have to until 10, after which they would come back with a fine.
After I left, Daundry finished their set, then in agreement with the police the event was shut down at 10, unfortunately before DJ David Choi and band Any Two Words could perform.
Amidst the shut-down, Grant found a silver lining.
“The energy confined in the courtyard was so strong, when everyone was like ‘Wow, this could get shut down at any moment, I better be here,’” he said.
Grant is planning on continuing the annual trend of Grantchella. For the future he wants to look into different locations, create more activities for people to do (like by hiring a pop-up tattoo artist), enlist more bands, and he’s even thinking of expanding the fest into more than one day.
Whatever Grantchella 2024 has in store, I look forward to the event and am confident it will be a success.
I think Cormick said it best: “...any young person could put anything on ‘cause like, we’re the ones that are at least naive enough to try and throw something like that.”
Special thanks to Grant Lendvay, Alexander Lehr, Adam Atrix, Cormick Costello and Colin Burke for help with this article.
Thank you Maddie <3