It's a Tuesday evening, Birmingham has just received it's largest snowfall for 18 years and The Gaslight Anthem have chosen this day to hit the city's favourite venue: The Academy. More specifically, the upstairs venue. The smaller, sweatier version of the main room. I have been looking forward to this day for some considerable time, of course, getting to the show was half the challenge and Birmingham looks so much better when buried in 4 inches of the white stuff.
The support bands tonight were The Polar Bear Club, who I missed, sadly, due to the weather, and Frank Turner. The latter's guitar-based singer songwriter stuff was great. I wasn't expecting amazing things but this guy has skill. Just Turner and a guitar took to the stage and blasted out a few numbers for the more than enthusiastic crowd. There were fans here. They sang along to the cheerier songs in the setlist and I observed people hugging, kissing and dancing. He went down a storm and warmed the crowd up nicely for the main act who had, according to Turner, been redirected to SCOTLAND due to the snow and had been on a plane for 8 hours to get to Birmingham.
9:30pm hits and The Gaslight Anthem are ready to blow our minds. They have set up their own equipment, they have brought the case of beer onto the stage and they were ready.
TGA took to the stage with a bang, opening with the opening track of the new album, 'The '59 Sound', a track called 'Great Expectations'. They obviously knew that this crowd had just that after reading so much about this band's live shows, I have to admit, I was one of them. I wasn't to be disappointed. A set of new and old songs ensued. We were treated to mainly new album stuff, songs like 'Even Cowgirls Get The Blues', 'Film Noir', the title track and 'The Backseat' blew me away. This band has the same passion as the man they find themselves compared to: Bruce Springsteen. They punch the air, they rage on stage, they shout along and they SMILE. It's a rarity thesedays, what with it being somewhat uncool to enjoy your own music in 2009.
Lead singer, Brian Fallon, in blue levi jeans and a tight white shirt (showing off his punk rock tattoos) launches into 1930 and sings with so much effort and passion that it is hard not to believe that he himself is being completely honest with this small crowd. His rendition of new single 'Old White Lincoln', backed by that fabulous bassline, was big and exciting. The small break got the crowd going even more. We had a mosh pit, full of punks heavily tattoo'd with mohawks and rugby tackling eachother. We had men of 40 jumping up and down punching the air and we had the smaller, younger types singing at the tops of their lungs.
Everyone was having a blast.
Everyone was smiling.
Including the band.
All the songs were played note for note, perfectly. They were all played with heart (a punk rock heart). And they band joked and laughed on stage with each other and the crowd. It was great to see another band create a unity in the crowd. Lots of smiling and raging. The older stuff leaving the punks breathless and the new stuff impressing the kids new to the band.
A success in every sense of the word. And a helluva lot of fun!
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