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Gaslight Anthem - Live Review

Gaslight Anthem

No frills. No gimmicks. No bollock-constricting jeans and face-covering fringes...

The Gaslight Anthem
Manchester Academy 3
04/12/08

No frills. No gimmicks. No bollock-constricting jeans and face-covering fringes. Hell, there’s not even any intro music. Welcome to The Gaslight Anthem’s party, thrown in the only style they know how: their own.

There’s something refreshing about this band’s absolute refusal to play the game: from the well-worn, out-of-fashion polo shirts that adorn their backs to the way they launch guts-first from one delicious slice of gritty punk ‘n’ roll to the next, everything about the New Jersey troubadours highlights their authenticity. They mean it, man, especially lead singer Brian Fallon whose trademark gravel-infested vocals tower over every punk kid in attendance.

He feels the words that tumble out of his mouth; his slender frame twists and contorts as he bellows his way through the final bars of ‘High Lonesome’, as if possessed by the weight of their meaning. Five minutes later, he laments wistfully into his microphone during a note perfect ‘Here’s Looking At You, Kid’, caressing us all with his own personal brand of bittersweet melancholy.

There’s a playfulness to him too: if he’s not axe-grinding next to bassist Alex Levine, Cheshire cat grin on his face, he’s waxing poetic about Tater Tots or gazing in genuine astonishment at the adoration on display in front of his eyes. As a succession of spring-heeled devotees make their way onto the stage and dive right back into the pit during a monumental ‘I Could’a Been A Contender’, he almost looks like he’s about to cry; but of course, he doesn’t. He just returns to goading guitarist Alex Rosamilia on to playing his solos with his instrument behind his head.

Wonderfully absurd stuff then, and evidence that The Gaslight Anthem are having the time of their lives – on their turf, on their time and on their terms. And when eighty minutes of your Thursday night is this damn fantastic, why deny them?

Writtem By Paul Bowden

  • WRITTEN BY
    LUKE BRANFORD
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