Griff @ The Wiltern

Griff crushed her show at The Wiltern on October 7, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. With Stephen Dawes opening up the show, it left the audience wanting more.

Stephen Dawes

With a vocal delivery that implies a frown, singer, songwriter, and producer Stephen Dawes went viral on social media with songs like “Losing You” and his spare and affectionate 2022 cover of Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream.” Dawes went on to garner millions of streams with his own earnest, melodic pop songs, including his major-label debut, “It Could Be Me,” before the end of the same year. The Day We Met, his inaugural EP, appeared in 2023.

Hailing from San Francisco, Stephen Dawes remembers making up tunes at the piano by the time he was in the fourth grade, when he formally wrote a song for a school assignment. He joined the jazz band in high school and started learning music theory, then began using digital audio workstations toward the end of tenth grade.

Dawes released his first song soon after and continued to issue the occasional track while studying music business at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute. He had a minor viral success with “Losing You” and played his first live show in early 2022. In mid-2022, his cover of the 2010 Katy Perry hit “Teenage Dream” blew up on social media, resulting in tens of millions plays on streaming platforms by the end of the year. In the meantime, he released “Friends Don’t Keep Secrets” and signed with Republic Records. His debut for the label, “It Could Be Me,” saw release in December 2022. The Day We Met, his first EP, arrived in 2023 and included the heartfelt single “19.”

pulled from Spotify

Griff

Griff, born Sarah Faith Griffiths on January 21, 2001, is a British singer-songwriter. Her music seamlessly blends pop and R&B with a modern, genre-less approach. Raised in Kings Langley, England, Griff was inspired by Taylor Swift’s Fearless. This motivated her to teach herself songwriting and music production. After completing her A Levels, she decided to take a gap year to focus entirely on music, eventually signing with Warner in July 2019.

Griff’s debut EP, Mirror Talk (2019), featured the breakout single “Paradise,” which catapulted her into the UK Top Ten. By 2020, she had released several successful singles, including “1,000,000 X Better” with Honne and “Inside Out” with Zedd. Additionally, her solo ballad “Love Is a Compass” gained widespread popularity, thanks to a Disney holiday ad. During this time, she also co-wrote Hailee Steinfeld’s “I Love You’s” and earned a nomination for the Ivor Novello Rising Star award.

In 2021, Griff’s career continued to ascend as she won the BRIT Award for Rising Star. Shortly after, her mixtape One Foot in Front of the Other was released, with the single “Black Hole” reaching the UK Top 40. After touring with Dua Lipa, she returned in 2023 with the introspective single “Vertigo,” which appeared on her EP Vert1go, Vol. 1. The following year, she released a companion EP, Ver2igo, Vol. 2, featuring the reflective track “Into the Walls.”

Ultimately, both EPs served as preludes to Griff’s debut solo album, Vertigo, which combined tracks from the EPs with new material and highlighted her evolving, textured sound.

pulled from All Music