The live version of Tommy’s Song is Grayscale‘s tribute to Thomas Patrick Walsh, vocalist Collin’s cousin who sadly took his own life in April 2018 at just 20 years old.
Understandably, the song is extremely personal to the band and exceptionally difficult for Collin to write.
The band said: It was challenging for us to write a song in a way that we felt captured the impact of the situation appropriately.
“‘Tommy’s Song’ was written with the help of our friend, Skylar Patzer, who beautifully performed the piano track on this song, and also featured a choir singing the reprise and carrying the song through its grandiose ending.”
“The first (and possibly last) time we performed this song live was on October 5, 2019 at the Theatre of Living Arts in Philadelphia, PA, on our first ever headline tour. We only wanted to perform this song the way it was intended to be realized, which was with a full gospel choir. The 1,100+ crowd sang with the choir in tandem, ‘I heard Gospels singing in my head’ to close out our most memorable show to date. The performance was exactly how we pictured it — beautiful and conclusive.”
“Today, we wanted to share with you the impact of this song,” the band says. “We captured ‘Tommy’s Song’ live on camera so that you can watch and feel what it was like that night, and to show you how this story has affected not just Collin and the band, but every single person in the room that night.”