This Saturday, November 22, The Path will play their last show at Higher Ground in South Burlington. It’s the end of a long-running Vermont hardcore institution, and Nick Grandchamp is marking the night by bringing Get a Grip back for a reunion set — and by releasing three unreleased Get a Grip songs recorded in 2017 (see our 2017 farewell interview here).
Nick explained why it all fits together: “Get a Grip will be doing a reunion set at the show and I thought it be fun time to release some unreleased Get A Grip songs and talk about how important The Path was to Vermont hardcore.”
The Path’s impact is grounded in longevity and consistency. They stayed active for more than a decade, always moving, always putting something new on the table. Nick described them as a band that kept pushing forward “like a train,” with enough tours and releases behind them to trace a full arc of Vermont punk and hardcore history. He put it simply: “The amount of love, passion and dedication the band showed scans over a decade here in the green mountains.”
Even during Covid — when most bands slowed or folded — The Path accelerated, writing and recording two records in just a few years. The sound stayed tense and immediate, something Nick calls chaotic and pulsating. In his view, “The Path is exactly what I would want to play for someone who doesn’t know what hardcore punk is about.”
Matt and Jon held the center from the beginning. Nick calls them “true believers,” the kind of musicians who don’t just care about their own band but about the shape of the scene around them. They used The Path as a way to pull younger kids into punk, telling them to start bands, pushing them toward the front instead of the back. After Covid, when a lot of places struggled to rebuild their show-going crowd, Vermont saw a surge of new youth turning up. Nick credits The Path directly: “The Path was the welcome sign into Vermont’s underground music scene.”
For Get a Grip, being invited into the final show feels meaningful rather than nostalgic. Nick wrote, “I’m very honored that they asked Get A Grip to be apart of their last show.” The three tracks he’s releasing now were recorded in the fall of 2017 and left untouched ever since. “These three tracks are raw and unmastered but I feel they still stand strong all these years later. These songs have not been released before and I’m happy to put them out into the world for people to hear.”
Get a Grip haven’t been an active band for years, and they don’t play unless the reason is strong. This one qualifies. Nick put the invite plainly: “I would love to see as many people as possible this Saturday November 22 at Higher Ground to celebrate the greatness that was The Path.”
