The Gaslight Anthem
Brixton Academy, London
26 June 2010
Twin Atlantic hit the stage and get a more than decent response from a crowd who, let”s be honest, are here for one band and one band only. With more than a few fans in the filling venue, the Scottish quartet deliver a set of hard guitar-driven rock with more than the odd nod to bands like At The Drive-In. Forty minutes later and the band depart having won over a new set of fans but with the sound of anticipation for the main act ringing around the venue.
Just over 24 hours earlier, New Jersey punks The Gaslight Anthem were sharing a bill with grunge icons Pearl Jam in Hyde Park. Tonight though, this relatively intimate gig (in comparison to the previous show), is all about their show and, being their biggest UK headline show to date, the Brixton Academy is unsurprisingly rammed to the rafters.
With their new album, American Slang, still warming up CD shelves across the UK, the band opened up with the title track with the rest of the set featuring a good chunk of the recently released hit album. Now, the thing about watching The Gaslight Anthem as they plunder through their set is how humbled by the whole thing they appear to be. Looking genuinely moved by the reaction they receive to the likes of Bring It On, this is a band who you genuinely believe couldn’t give a toss if they were playing to fifty or fifty thousand people so long as they’re playing the music they love. As they rattle through The ’59 Sound, it’s easy to see why so many people genuinely love this band, as the sing-a-long chorus has every single person up on their feet providing backing vocals for a truly spine-tingling moment.
Ending the main set with a cover of The Who’s Baba O’Reilly, The Gaslight Anthem show that they’re not averse to the odd surprise or two but, on the whole, you go to see these guys for good music, good friends and a good sing-a-long. Tonight, the quartet provided all three in abundance and made you realise why fell in love with rock n’ roll in the first place.
Review by Graham Finney
