The First time I saw The Gaslight Anthem...

Hey all, what's up?
I just ordered my ticket for my first Gaslight show on 4/23 in Colorado Springs. I'm stoked to finally be able to see them live. I was just wondering what some of your memories of your first TGA show were? I'm hoping to see them again on the next night in Denver but we'll have to see how my funds are. Can't beat a $12 ticket.

My first TGA show was by accident. I went to night one of The Mighty Mighty BossTones "Home Town Throw Down 10" show at The Middle East in Cambridge, MA. TGA opened for them. They were the second band I think and I had never heard of them.....by the second song they had my attention and I really liked them. After the show, I left. As I exited the building I looked behind me and Alex R and Brian were standing next to the door. I walked over to them, shook Brians hand and said they were great. There were some kids handing out postcards for one of the other bands that played. I asked them for a pen and wrote "The Gaslight Anthem" on it so I wouldn't forget their name. This was December of 07. Since then I've seen 15 TGA shows and 2 Brian Fallon acoustic shows. They're very very addicting and easy to love. Be prepared. Get there early and/or stay later after the show and chances are you'll be able to meet them, if you so choose. They're rather fantastic. This was a great question to ask, thanks and have an awesome time at the show! Oh, and, get the ticket for that show in Denver, you'll kick yourself in the butt if you don't.

I know them since November or December 2007 and have not been able to see a show till Feb 22nd and 23rd. It was a very,very long wait but they've been great both times.

I'll maybe see them again at a shitty festival in June. I don't know if paying €50-60 is worth it for seeing them play a 30min set

i saw them at the ULU in London last August. i didn't really know a lot about them cos my boyfriend had got the tickets, about 3/4 songs in i was hooked and having so much fun! it was my first time at the front of a gig too and because there was no security barriers, the front of the crowd was the stage.

the reason i really like TGA (as well as the music obviously!) is the fact that they always look as if they are having the time of their lives on stage and really appreciate everyone coming out to see them. their smiles are infectious!

definately hang around before and after the gig, i did in feb and met them twice (greedy i know!)

enjoy it!

totally true, they are really nice. got to talk to benny and alex r. a bit and got my senor cd signed by the whole band, I asked benny to sign it and he asked me if he should ask the other guys too, I said yes of course and he went backstage and came back a few mins later with the booklet.

My first show was quite an adventure... it all started in Munich Germany at an Against Me! show... I was hanging out with Andrew and I asked him who he was listening to now and he said "The Gaslight Anthem, these guys are going to be huge!" so two months later I saw that TGA was coming to Germany and I could catch them on a friday show; however, that friday the TGA myspace page, punknews.org, livegigs.de all listed different locations for the show! Not wanting to drive 2 hours and be in the wrong city I emailed Andrew asking him if he could get in touch with them and find out where they are playing... 20 minutes later Andrew emailed me back "they are playing in Weimar ...and they are expecting you!"

So my wife (a few months pregnant at the time) and I drove to Weimar to what was literally a hole in the wall bar. There were 17 people at the concert and I think there is a great chance that my wife and I were the only people not connected to a band. I ended up spending most of the night talking with the guys; including telling Brian how much 1930 meant to me only to have him say "that is awesome that it means so much to you, but that is not what the song is about, it is about my grandma with ahlzhiemer"

So all in all, it was an amazing time!

wow, best story ever.

definately cannot top that story but heres mine anyway!

I orginally meant to go see them at the Roadhouse in Manchester in August after reading about them in Kerrang! but the age resrictions at the venue are 17+ so they never let me in.
So I decided to go see them at the Academy 3 in December instead however I ended up with a nasty case of Scarlett Fever (don't even get it it's horrible!) so you can tell that at this point i was preeetty angry.

It turned out to be 3rd time lucky this Febuary though.
I finally got to see them at the Academy 2 and the wait was so worth it!
It's began with a little embarrasment though. I was walking into the bar/merch area in the venue and walked straight into Benny with a loud 'Oh Shit!'.
Once I got over that the night was the best and I spent ages talking to Brian after the gig.
He turned me onto a band called Chamberlian after he asked me my name.
He wrote their album and the song 'Hey Louise' on my ticket for me to listen to, then signed it.
Needless to say I now have it framed.


That was really long winded.
Well done if you got this far!

haha ace! these stories are cool! (apart from the scarlet fever bit!)

I can't find the massive story that i typed up of my first show Scott help me!

Oh the memories. The first time I saw them was the monday after the fest in south florida. There was a good amount of people there, but only 6 or so of us up front. It was awesome. They played all of sink or swim minus red at night. It was amazing.

Quote :

2:16am – My alarm goes off, wake up a bit. Go downstairs, eat, pack, remind Liam (brother) to wake up. Then we leave, just before we pulled up to pick Phil and Rob up, Liam said something 'What the fuck are we doing? It's 3 o'clock in the morning'

I concurred but there was no turning back. So got Phil and Rob, and I drove us all to Stansted Airport listening to The Gaslight Anthem all the way there.

Parked up, got the train to Stansted and checked in. Cleverly, I'd left my car keys in my back pocket walking through the Security metal detector thing, I got lovingly felt up by a good old chap, and then got my Red Bull and Lynx confiscated because apparently terrorists love 'em.



Anywho, so we were all through security and we found some really cool chairs and sat there reading/talking till the gate number for our flight came up, when It was up we had to get another train all the way to gate 1094191 or something, I may be exaggerating.

Ryanair.com somehow gave us priority boarding and we got seats right at the front, muchos leg room After managing to make the stewardess crack up when she was informing everyone how to stay alive in the event that Red Bull and Lynx are mixed together.

The flight went very quickly most of us slept, but it wasn't for more than 10 minutes or so. We got off the plane and we were in Berlin. Hoorah! After some great wikipedia research I blagged my way through getting a family day pass on the S-Bahn (Berlin's Tube). Whilst sitting on the S-Bahn we popped out these Lucozade Carbo Gel things that are supposed to give you energy, they were horrible and I left mine on the side, then Rob decided to just use me as a bed, and when he got off me I was covered in feckin' sticky carbo gel. Great start!

Anyway so we had absolutely no idea where to go. So we saw Alexander Platz was written in bold, so y'know we though that was the place to be. It wasn't. It was dead, hardly anyone around so we thought, lets get some food. Where you ask? Where else, McDonalds. We ate then left again and went to a few more stops before we got to some decent place in Berlin where we saw the Reichstag and some bits of the Berlin Wall that were cool. Nicely whoring their history about my having some guy in a guards uniform stamp your passport for 2euro with a East Berlin stamp.
We then found a rare spot of grass in the sun and we just sat and slept there for the next hour or so. By this time it was about 4 o'clock time so we decided to sit down and have an early dinner. After dinner we text some companions (Carl, Nadine) and managed to get hold of some street names and the likes so we took the S-Bahn to Rosa-Luxemborg Plaza and tried to find the club from there. It didn't work, 1hour 30minutes later, we were back at the same point we started. So we went and has another look at the map to realise it was upside down, and we'd been going in the complete opposite direction. So we turned around and walked another 45minutes and finally made it to the venue. We sat on the steps outside drinking our Budweisers in .5l bottles (hardcore) and then about 4minutes into our rest, who comes and ruins it Brian Fallon and his wife. I introduced us and he said that he'd heard about us and we talked for maybe 5 minutes before he left to go get some Chinese food. We decided to move to a bench rather than clog up the stairs and Brian and Hollie walked by and stopped and chatted to us for longer, then Hollie left and we must have spoke with Brian for nearly an hour now, talking about tonnes of things such as $200 Gaslight Anthem vinyl, Joe Strummer and The Clash, lots of talk about England too. He then went inside to get some coffee and said he'd see us in there. We went down the road to find somewhere to watch the football and then Phil and Rob got themselves a Chinese and then we walked up to the venue. I showed our ticket to the guy on the door and he said ID Card in a scary German accent, I showed him my passport and Liam's passport and Phil's passport. Then he said you have to be 18. Phil was not.

So we got up at 2:16 in the morning to fly all the way over to Berlin to see a band, on no website and on no flyers did it every say anything about being 18+. We pleaded and pleaded then said OK, but you must leave by midnight. Gaslight Anthem take the stage at 00:30. We pleaded some more and in the end they confiscated Phil's driving license and said as soon as TGA finish playing he must pick it up and then leave. So we were in by the skin of our teeth and thankfully because of all the fuss we made about Phil, Rob wasn't ID'd and he is 16. We got in walked around, saw Brian and Hollie again and explained what went down and he said he was under the impression it was an all ages show, but alls well that ends well!

We got some beers, not Phil and Rob though! And watched the support band Miyagi. Miyagi, who listed in The Guardian: The Guide. Played in Edinburgh the other day for £26 a ticket! So we watched them and they were average. They weren't bad, but they were all a bit samey and every song has the same breakdown and they must have played for almost an hour!

So the dancefloor emptied and we walked to the front and we waited, not long, for TGA to take the stage.

Over £100, no proper sleep in over 48 hours, hours of walking in circles, all for this next 60 minutes. They kicked off with 'Drive' and I immediately noticed two things.

-->This is going to be epic

-->I'm surrounded by people from England, there were at least 10-12 of us and it felt like home!

A couple of songs into the set, I see a guy I recognised from AM! Forum and quickly introduced myself to Scott between songs, he was American but I made him an honourary Englishmen for the show. They played amazingly, nearly every song they have including a promising new one called Backseat, 'For Scott!' said Brian before playing it.. Finished the main set on We're Getting a Divorce, You Keep The Dinner' and then Brian came out on his own and played Red at Night which was a great performance. The band then joined him for the final song which was Say I Won't (Recognise) and it was perfect end.

Scott then invited me backstage so I said Yes, and told Liam I'd 'be right back'. Which wasn't really true. Albeit I was only gone for 15 minutes, it didn't help my phone had died and then Phil was worrying about his drivers license. But anyway Scott got me in backstage, where no-one was, and then we headed to the after party bit and he bought me a Beck's and then TGA started loading the van and Scott introduced me to each of them and they were all really appreciative of the effort we made to get there and we all really interested in playing in England. I announced that I had to leave and then Scott organised the guys to get a photo with me in the van which I haven't seen yet, but I'm sure it's awesome. I thanked each of the guys for the show and Scott for the beer and then left to go meet the others. We got our stuff from the cloakroom and headed to try and find a taxi. Got one, 35euro to the Airport, pretty sure he rinsed us silly but we were too tired to care. We found some corridor and 4 of us just slept on the floor in our sweaty clothes.





The show was incredible, the guys were incredible, I wasn't sure what to expect when I rushingly booked the flights but I was amazed at what we got. Was it worth it? Every day of the week.





Setlist (roughly)



Drive

Wooderson

Boomboxes

We Came To Dance

I'da Called You Woody, Joe

Angry Johnny and the Radio

Senor and Queen

Where For Art Thou, Elvis

1930

Navesink Banks

I Coulda Been A Contender

Blue Jeans and White T-Shirts

Backseat

We're Getting A Divorce You Keep The Dinner

Red at Night

Say I Won't (Recognise)

ktp wrote:

haha ace! these stories are cool! (apart from the scarlet fever bit!)

it was horrible.
Lay there thinking 'TGA are 15 minutes away from me, melting people's faces off with their amazing music and I'm not there.'
But I now plan to go see them every chance I get.

I wanna read more stories. They are fun!

And also about 1930 being about Brian's grandmother with Ahlzhiemers.. I really though it was about something like that, when someone can't remember your face or how old you are.
It reminds me of my nanna who is loosing her memory from smoking so much. I had a moment of realisation about the song after being round at her house over christmas.
The lyrics go 'Mary you look just like it was 1930 that night' and 'I love you more than the stars in the sky but you name just escapes me tonight' and it was those going around in my head that made me realise.

You know.. someone who is stuck in a certian time mentally because of an illness?
I know my nanna thinks its the year 1997.

stalls-standing ...........WOW! that kept me entertained at work! how about making it into a book?! hehe

First time I saw them was a little unexpected.

I bought tickets for Reading last year, not knowing they were there,
I read about them in Kerrang in June of last year whilst doing a
shift at...the co-op (yes, if it wasn;t for that shitty job I might
still not know who they are )

Anyway, at this point I was still unaware that they were playing Reading until I checked the line-up again 2 weeks before the festival only to spot a name I vaguely recognised on the Saturday lock-up stage...it was only TGA!

So it got to the saturday, Random Hand and Hi-Fi Handgrenades went by and there they were, Brian Fallon front stage in only TGA's 2nd ever UK gig. Incredible.

Immediatly after I spent the majority of my remaining budget from the weekend on a Gaslight Anthem T-shirt at the merchendise stalls.

That day I dragged all 6/7 of my mates with me to see them, they had no idea who they were and were surprised by them.

3 of thise came back with me when they came to Bristol in february.

After that Reading festival i've been addicted to them, saw them at the Astoria 2 ind december which meant getting up at 5am, travelling to London for 8, spending the entire day in London and going to the gig in the evening...did I care about the tonsilitis I was suffering, you bet I didn't, great night.

Then finally saw them for a 3rd time last month here in Bristol, met Brian after the gig and got the ticket signed.

All in all some very good experiences.

I missed out on going to Reading as I had work experience that week, so I was pretty sad to see that I'd have to miss Gaslight (and a whole bunch of other bands). It wasn't too bad though, as we got tickets to see the guys at ULU the monday after.

But imagine my excitement when I checked their tour page randomly that week to find a new show had been added on the friday before Reading/ Leeds. The guys were now playing their first UK show as an instore at Rough Trade East, which was 20mins away from work. Talk about lucky. We also got to speak to Brian for a bit after and got some posters signed.

That and the ULU show the monday after made for an amazing weekend. Been hooked on seeing them ever since!

First time I saw them was last August at the Rough Trade In-Store in London. First live performance in the UK, so I felt quite privilaged to be there!
Turned up with my friend about 5 hours early, and ended up chatting with the band for a lot of that time. I had all my music mags on me (long train journey to London, I needed them) so showed the band all the press they'd been getting in the UK. They seemed pretty weirded out by it all, especially Brain whose picture in Kerrang was opposite James Hetfield's from Metallica!
I think they played for about 45 minutes, but packed at least 10 songs in! Not sure about the setlist (my friend has it somewhere).
After that, I followed them to London, Manchester and Nottingham for their gigs the following week! They must've got sick of seeing me in the front row of every show.

I dont have an exciting story really.

After picking up and listening to them constantly in Australia about a year today. I had my Reading ticket and they got announced for the lock up stage my absolute favourite stage of any festival I have been to. So was dead excited. Only a small group at the front really knew anything about them so where shouting along and jumping around was a great fun getting to see for the first time one of my favourite bands at my fave festival. What was interesting was they filled the tent with people who came along to watch out of interest this new band that people where starting to hear whispers about. Got a set list from Brian at the end and learned they where gonna tour a few months latter and had a quick chat about how they should come to plymouth. Like that will ever happen.

Then I travelled straight to london the day the festival ended still covered in blood, mud, piss and many other fluids I would rather know nothing about. Basically I was a state but I witnessed one of the best punk shows I have seen. Got up on stage for Divorce and shouted along with the best of them.

Saw them on my birthday last year, in Cambridge at the Middle East on August 17th last year(the recording of that show that is posted here is the one I made). Went straight to the show after seeing my beloved Red Sox play a game at Fenway earlier in the day and seeing my favorite player, Dustin Pedroia, hit a homer in that game.

Hard to top that, for me.

First time I saw 'em was on Warped Tour this past summer. Here's the story I wrote about it the day after:

When The Gaslight Anthem took the stage, my first thought was 'am I at the right stage?' Like most, I recently fell in love with their debut album of punk-influenced folk-tinged rock'n'roll tunes that would make Bruce Springsteen proud. With lyrics that could easily be the most mature and poetic of the current punk rock scene, I was more than a little shocked to discover how young these guys were, as well as how laid-back they appeared onstage. Having heard all the hype of these guys being hailed as the next big thing, I was pleasantly surprised to find how down to earth they were, with the singer matter-of-factly announcing "I have to pee" before laughing to himself and proclaiming "Sorry, this is us, this is what you get. If anyone wants a CD, see that guy. He'll punch your dog. You know those little dogs people carry around in purses? Yeah, he'll punch it. He'll punch your baby too." Fucking awesome. The band continued to amuse themselves and each other, appearing to be having a sincerely good time as they played an unfortunately short set consisting of tunes like "The '59 Sound", "Ida Called You Woody, Joe", and "I Coulda Been a Contender" before leaving us with the advice "The Bouncing Souls are up next! If you don't go see them, you're fucking retarded!" Well-said.

My first gaslight show that I've been to was actually last night. I spent the last week trying to get someone in Portland to stop by Berbati's Pan and pick up a ticket for me so I don't have to pay the online fee. So after trying to get someone to get one the entire week, someone stopped by on sunday night only to find that they where sold out. So after being pissed for a couple of hours, I decided to put a listing on Craigslist. Then I tried to go to bed. That took a while.

So the next day I tried to convince my dad to drive me to portland so I could scalp a ticket. That didn't work so well, so I went to my old school to talk to Scotts ride and see if I could get him to take me. That didn't work either. So... I went home and saw a reply on Craigslist. Since Scott just left, I tried to convince my dad one last time. Long story short, he caved. So we left at 5 and made it to the show at 830. I wouldn't have tried so hard if I could go to sasquatch, but my cousins wedding is on the same day.

I wasn't too pumped while the stage techs were setting up, but they came on stage and I got pumped! They played such a solid set! One thing that supprised me about them is that even thought they have toured all over, they are just as excited and humble as a generally unknown band. Brian Is so funny during the set! He started talking about a bowling alley back in New Jersey that had shows and they sold tater tots! haha He said if you don't like tater tots, youre a communist. haha

It was SO good and they seemed to love the crowd. It's so much fun having everyone sing along to every song.

But anyways, that's all I got.

I do love me some tater tots. Om nom nom.
Also: glad you had a good time at the show.

haha, yeah that bowling alley is called Asbury Lanes...it's Bowling Alley that a bunch of local bands play at. That's pretty hilarious about the tater tots and so true. Brian always has the best stories between songs, he should write a book

Their first sold out show at the Lanes last May was the first time I saw them. It was fun and insane

Isn't there a video of Angry Johnny from that show on Youtube? I seem to remember Brian saying something about that right before or after the song. I can't wait til the Pony show...that's going to be insane.