What's your favorite moment from a live show?

After going to my first Gaslight show in Boston on 11/26, and it was one of the best moments of my life. I'll never forget when the band broke out in the opening chords of '45', and when they debuted a new song.
What was your favorite moment from a Gaslight show?

So many moments. It's all about the first show, man. Mine was 3/28/09. I was hoping against hope they'd play 1930 and they did and it was absolutely incredible. The whole show was an unbelievable release of energy. Made me feel very alive. It was great, man, unforgettable.

My only Gaslight show at Wolverhampton November 2010.

These two songs:


The talking before the songs annoys the hell out of me for some reason,but the performances of the songs are fantastic. They start at 1:20.

Not Gaslight, but the Alexisonfire show in Hamilton the other night, there last show ever, had a pretty dramatic finale if you're a fan of the band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oOslK1azW4

December 9th 2011- Springsteen comes out to play american slang at convention hall at my first concert.

November28th 2012- fight breaks out during Blue Dahlia, band stops, Brian says “I have all the time in the world to wait for you to grow up". then the band picks up right around when this video i found starts. to go from quiet to that in a snap was awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOVFWQqmPeQ

It's hard to narrow it down to one. For me it's a tie between:

7/24/12 NYC - Opening the show with Mae with twinkly blue lights in the background. Total awe.

and

9/30/12 in Oakland, CA - When they played Handwritten. It's possibly my favorite song by them and I had been thoroughly disappointed in their live performances of it up till that point. It never had the power that the recording had. This time I was blown away by it. I nearly jumped the barrier (by accident) during this song out of sheer excitement.

That's a very good question but extremely hard to answer. Except for a handful of gigs there was a special moment at every Gaslight show I've been to so far. They all stick out for different reasons but having Brian playing Red At Night in my hometown Vienna during the 2010 tour was surely one of them. The crowd singing "oh shalala" in Birmingham another. And then there were gigs that were as a whole just perfect, like both Hamburg shows in 2011, the Christmas gig in Asbury, the circustent show in Ulm and the shows in Vienna and Munich during the Handwritten tour.

As you can see I really can't pick a favourite but what makes all of these memories really special are the people I'm sharing them with. I have been very lucky to meet many wonderful people on tour, some of them being not only gigbuds but true friends now.

There's definitely a few...

Bruce coming out at the Asbury show was incredible. But another great split second moment of that show was during "We Came to Dance" when Brian sang the middle 8..."And if they end it all by the end of tonight,
If the big bomb drops down over this quiet Edison sky, We'll blow one last kiss to all the beautiful nights like this, Under the central Jersey sky.." He couldn't hold back this massive smile as he looked up during the last line and just kind of shook his head. If you were at that show you understand why.

Opening with Mae at the album debut show was another amazing moment. The blue lights in the background and the way the entire audience, which would be on fire the whole night, was dead quiet as the opening chords started.

May 2, 2009 at the State Theater in St Petersburg, FL the guys played all four songs on the Senor & The Queen EP in order. Lost my damn mind when they said they were gonna do it, gave my friend my camera to record it so I could dance and sing-a-long like a fool. Of course later when I got home and checked the video he had accidentally covered the mic for 3 outta the 4 songs. I was too happy to be pissed at him.

Glastonbury 2011, (Sat June 25 th) would have to be mine. I'd seen them before (and since) quite a few times, but the mid afternoon pyramid stage slot was epic. It was a few days after the 'big man' had died and they came on to Jungleland, Brian seemed really humbled at being on the main stage at the best festival in the world and during backseats (which included lyrics from U2's I still Haven't Found What I am looking For) seemed super emotional.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qhtt69QIfw

Weird lol, I was at both of those shows and was going to say both of these memories.

'49mercury wrote:

December 9th 2011- Springsteen comes out to play american slang at convention hall at my first concert.

November28th 2012- fight breaks out during Blue Dahlia, band stops, Brian says “I have all the time in the world to wait for you to grow up". then the band picks up right around when this video i found starts. to go from quiet to that in a snap was awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOVFWQqmPeQ

NYYFAN523 wrote:

Weird lol, I was at both of those shows and was going to say both of these memories.

'49mercury wrote:

December 9th 2011- Springsteen comes out to play american slang at convention hall at my first concert.

November28th 2012- fight breaks out during Blue Dahlia, band stops, Brian says “I have all the time in the world to wait for you to grow up". then the band picks up right around when this video i found starts. to go from quiet to that in a snap was awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOVFWQqmPeQ

That's awesome. you live in hazlet? i live in matawan lol.

I agree that its all about the first show. Brian asked everybody in the front row to not break the monitors or else he would have to pay for them. That and they were playing Power Rangers clips in the background. Still remains my favorite show/favorite time I saw Gaslight.

StitchesOnTheRadio wrote:

7/24/12 NYC - Opening the show with Mae with twinkly blue lights in the background. Total awe.

That performance of Mae beat all others. It was so pretty, and such a surprise (to me anyway) that they'd open with that.


My favorite moment is of course Bruce coming out at the Convention Hall show. Not just cus it was Bruce, but it was nice to be there for that moment with the band too. And of course the fact it was in Asbury Park made it even more special. Plus, on a personal note, I got to shoot 5 songs that night when normally the rules are 2 or 3 songs for photographers in the pit.

Other than that one, my favorite show overall was probably the Stone Pony show in August 2010. Such a beautiful night, on the beach, Frank Turner opening, front row, first time seeing Boomboxes... it was all so wonderful. Sigh.

My first and only show so far! All singing along to "Here comes my man" before the encore, goosebumps a plenty, Bring on Bristol

I don't really have one I guess. "45" at Koko was great, then all the American Slang ones were awesome at my first show. Backseats was pretty special at the 2010 Apollo date too.

And every time HLAYK gets played it's pretty special.

NeverTrustAJunkie wrote:

My favorite moment is of course Bruce coming out at the Convention Hall show. Not just cus it was Bruce, but it was nice to be there for that moment with the band too. And of course the fact it was in Asbury Park made it even more special. Plus, on a personal note, I got to shoot 5 songs that night when normally the rules are 2 or 3 songs for photographers in the pit.

you were there too? Why on earth didn't we meet? Such a pity!!

Yes! I have a picture of you. Not on purpose (I wasn't stalking!). I sent it right?

I think I had kinda just started posting here regularly back then.

NeverTrustAJunkie wrote:

Yes! I have a picture of you. Not on purpose (I wasn't stalking!). I sent it right?
I think I had kinda just started posting here regularly back then.

yeah, got it. And as usual I look awful but that is not your fault
So next time I'm going to NYC for a gig we meet - deal? OR you could come to Europe

BossTime wrote:

There's definitely a few...

Bruce coming out at the Asbury show was incredible. But another great split second moment of that show was during "We Came to Dance" when Brian sang the middle 8..."And if they end it all by the end of tonight,
If the big bomb drops down over this quiet Edison sky, We'll blow one last kiss to all the beautiful nights like this, Under the central Jersey sky.." He couldn't hold back this massive smile as he looked up during the last line and just kind of shook his head. If you were at that show you understand why.

These two were definitely amazing. Brian always grins like crazy during that line, but never like that night. The show will not be topped.

Also, Trusty Chords in Philly in 2009 was awesome.

The first time I saw them play Angry Johnny and the Radio ('09, I think?), Brian started singing "If I Had a Boat" by Lyle Lovett. I knew he threw other songs into the breakdown, but I never expected my favorite punk band to sample my favorite country song. I totally geeked out.

Manchester Apollo 18/10/12 Brian gave a speech about how over-welming it was for people to come to watch TGA perform. He explained about a game he played at school called "T-Ball" which is basically Baseball for those with less Athletic ability. After that the band then performed 'She Loves You' great moment!

WeCameToDance wrote:

Manchester Apollo 18/10/12 Brian gave a speech about how over-welming it was for people to come to watch TGA perform. He explained about a game he played at school called "T-Ball" which is basically Baseball for those with less Athletic ability. After that the band then performed 'She Loves You' great moment!

Haha he was all ready to play short stop for his imaginary musician baseball team and yet he never got past t-ball? (which no one plays after like age 9). T-ball is more like "intro to baseball" not baseball for the non-athletic. Sounds like a great moment though!

From the Glasgow O2 in October last year - when Brian asked if anyone knew sign language because he couldn't understand the Scots and i said that i did... i didn't, We chatted for a sec and i feel bad that i lied about knowing sign language but it gave me a minute with my hero so i'm happy

Ok this is cheating a bit, but Brian on the pyramid stage with Bruce at Glasto 2009 singing No Surrender. Poor guy was so nervous. Did well though in front of 100,000 people. He then talked about this in 2011 on the same stage with Gaslight, before dedicating it to Clarence who had died a few weeks before. Epic!