Back to the Granpa Kids upstairs. I grabbed a seat on the balcony to sit and sip and enjoy the show just minutes before their start time.

The band's new album sounds vintage without trying -- click-tracks and modernity were forsaken in the studio for natural sounds and reverb -- in an industry where canned "old" is now Top 10 list fodder.

"Bands aren't supposed to be this good this early," said an old-timer upstairs, not related to the Gorham camp I was sitting with. But if you look at the makeup of the GFC, it makes sense. In 2012, at their age, they are one of the most experienced groups of musicians in town.

Guitarist and banjoist (?) Geoffrey Muller is one of the youngest/oldest musical hands in town, and the same goes for drummer Ryan Chavez, the band's secret sonic weapon. Grandfather Child would sprinkle in some covers into their set, most notable of the bunch was John Lennon's "Jealous Guy" and their usual run-through of Aretha Franklin's "(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman."

The material off the new album translates well live because by now, it has been gestating live for years. The old saying goes that bands spend decades creating their debut, and of the recent albums to come from the current class of Houston music, GFC's is one of the most fully realized, and thankfully hard to pigeonhole.

That's a valuable commodity in 2012. It harkens to a time when tags were tools of boredom, and you could hear Sabbath and Sly Stone on the same outpost on your radio dial.

Grandfather Child closed with "I Would Like To Thank the Universe/Planet Earth," inviting friends, strangers, and everyone else in between to bask in their psychiness and press the flesh. If you didn't get a sweaty hug from Gorham on Friday night after he and the band jumped offstage, you were doing it all wrong.