The First time I saw The Gaslight Anthem...

stayhungry wrote:

The first time I saw TGA...

wow idk. it was the most incredible show i've ever been to. i saw it in philly which is like an hour away and i went 6 hours early to ensure my place right in front of the barricade haha... we were 2nd in line.

the opening bands were great (broadway calls, loved ones). then all the techs set up the equipment and the lights went dark and i heard the drum intro to high lonesome and the stage exploded in lights and sound. it was, for lack of a less cheesy word, magical. the crowd was great and there was this really cool feeling of togetherness... it was weird.

they played all of 59 sound cept patient farris wheel, all of senor cept senor (hah), 1930, i'da called you woody joe, and i think maybe we came to dance? they also covered trusty chords by hot water music. it was great.

then to top it all off, i walked out of the venue and around back for a smoke and... brian was there. so i got a pic with him. then i went back to the front and met alex l.

could not have been better. you'll have a GREAT time i know it. they're shows are special

Did you go to night one or two?

At the Trocadero with Good Old War and Heartless Bastards opening. Heartless Bastards are a very samey band, so when they stopped, the twenty minutes or whatever passed, and the lights went dark I just about shat my pants. They went into Great Expectations with a bang and it just never let up. I'll never forget I actually shed one tear (yes, just one) during The Patient Ferris Wheel. It was just unbelievably amazing. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues was another highlight, though I think that's always an absolute joy, especially live.

It was quite amazing. And yet, as fantastic as that one show was, the two that followed it were so special in their own ways. I saw them at the Pony, which was amazing, because it was such a hometown crowd. And then the Wellmont Theatre, which reassured me that these guys will be making great music for a long time to come, albeit with occasionally lame titles like Bring it On

@ colmillionare- first night. i heard they played boomboxes second night and i was SO PISSED cuz that's my favorite song and we barely got anything off of SOS. were you there?

yup went to both of them, can't wait for the american slang tour thats for sure. you'll def see me crowdsurf!

did you go to the wellmont show by any chance?

yup, i was there as well

were you that guy who crowdsurfed like 20 times? haha

haha no, but i know exactly who you are talking about. my friends and i made fun of him the whole time. Everything in moderation I say.

yeah haha he went so many times that he made friends with the security. and hit me in the head getting down like 5 times. it was crazy cuz he even went during slower songs which just seemed so inappropriate to me haha

I remember that guy. I was in 1.5th row and felt bad whenever he would come cause I would push into these girls in front row. I think I even apologized a few times haha.

The first time i saw them i i try to give brian the biggest hug during the end of 1930. Sadly, some big security guard man yanked me away. i hate big men and stages higher than my knee. i digress......

i asked him to make out. he didnt want to.

stephendgaf wrote:

i asked him to make out. he didnt want to.

HAHAHAHA! I love this. But only because I would probably ask the same thing.

Ahh I remember it like it was just yesterday, probably because it's my phone wallpaper and I have a lot of pictures and videos that you can't hear. It was actually October 17, 2009. But it was the best night of my life. Broadway Calls was the first opening band, and they eventually became one of my favorite bands. I've been to a lot of other shows, I've seen Springsteen and My Chemical Romance, and a lot of shows at my local venue which really only hosts metal shows. But something about Gaslight made me jizz that night. I knew the words to every song and I felt better than I ever felt in a church service, hanging out with friends, or sitting at home listening to music. I was so bummed when it was over, I wished it could have lasted forever. I think they had meet and greets too, but me and my cousin had to catch the midnight train or we would have been stuck all night. It was great though. But now, if I'm lucky, I'll get to see them again...twice.
But I have a question...do you think they'll have meet and greets at their shows? Because I'd really love to meet them and tell Brian how much his words and their music has done for me. And also, I love this site. Everyone always bitches at me for being obsessed with Gaslight. Now I have a community who I can talk about my favorite band with. Peace folks!

they kinda had a meet and greet during the last US tour. I remember all of em hanging out after the show and just talking to people

MusicFiend2310 wrote:

But something about Gaslight made me jizz that night.

lol poetic

First time was I flew to scottsdale to see them in april or may 09. they played at a bar as the headliners. By the time Gaslight came out and started with "Great Expectations" there was a few hundred of us crammed in an area between the bar and stage . There was no A/C in this place and they just kept the doors open. The show was amazing, the band was sweating just as much as the fans.Hopefully the guys never have to play that dive again

the gaslight anthem have always been kind of the reason my boyfriend and i ended up so close. they basically ignited our love, and they'll continue to reignite it if we ever forget it for a moment or two. the first time i saw them, i'd bought tickets for us for valentines day, and we ended up missing like, 4 days of college to travel and, stayed over in a b&b. we were pretty nervous at first, new city, new people, and we'd never been to the venue before. as we got in, there were like, less than 50 people there, which is one of the smallest gigs i've ever been to, and everyone was sort of chilling around the edges, nobody near the stage. i've been to enough gigs to know that when there's nobody near the stage, you grab some drinks and you get near the frikkin stage. so we did. we were so close to them it was incredible, the show was amazing, and i got one of benny's drumsticks. we waited around for them and caught a glimpse of them, but the b&b we were staying at locked it's doors at a certain time so we couldn't hang around too much. perhaps my favourite part of the night was walking back with my boyfriend, writing 'film noir' lyrics in the snow. thanks tgl

cockypessimist wrote:

First time was I flew to scottsdale to see them in april or may 09. they played at a bar as the headliners. By the time Gaslight came out and started with "Great Expectations" there was a few hundred of us crammed in an area between the bar and stage . There was no A/C in this place and they just kept the doors open. The show was amazing, the band was sweating just as much as the fans.Hopefully the guys never have to play that dive again

april they played @ the clubhouse, that must be the one youre talking about. that was my first time seeing them too! but that was in tempe. unless you mean sept. 09 they played in scottsdale @ martini ranch.

may, 2008 with Tim Barry and the Bouncing Souls in Brooklyn. I had been listening to Sink or Swim for a while after so many people were jocking them on punknews.org. I remember thinking then they were going to be huge. they had the looks, the stage presence, and obviously the musical chops.

I had met Benny once or twice around that time too. my good friend's fiance used to be in a band with him so when we ran into each other, she'd introduce us.

a few months later I went to the knitting factory (when it was still in manhattan) for The 59 Sound record release show. it pretty much summed up my previous thoughts about their popularity.

also saw them in Asbury at a Bouncing Souls holiday show.

Finally saw TGA live on July 17, 2010 in Kansas City. I had planned on going to the St. Louis show, but when a friend mentioned going I changed to KC. I would have made both if I had any extra money. Anyway, I drive 2.5 hours to meet her then we drive another 3 hours to KC. TGA were great live. I loved seeing the intensity and how much fun they had. After the show I convinced my friend we should hang around for a little bit instead of heading back (even if we did have a drive). We met all members of the band except Benny. We talked to them a little and got our picture taken with them too. I would have talked more if I weren't trying to give other fans time and we were in a slight hurry. But all the guys were super nice. Alex R. was a bit aloof though. haha Alex L. was really engaging. Well, Brian was too, but he seemed more shy handling the situation. Though I can totally understand that.

I've been really into them for a couple of years now, but never got the chance to see them. I worked on a towboat until this April, and my schedule had me on the boat for a month at a time, then off at home for a month. It seemed that all of the shows they played that were within a 5-6 hour drive always took place while I was on the boat! I finally got to see them this July in St. Louis, and it was definitely worth the wait!

My wife and I also had tickets to see them last night in Milwaukee, but she went into the hospital on Thursday to have gallbladder surgery and is still here. We had to skip the show, which was a bummer, but we'll get a chance to see them next time I suppose.

Brussels, Botanique, 27 feb 09. Seen them five times since.

With Frank Turner, so that was nice...

cockypessimist wrote:

First time was I flew to scottsdale to see them in april or may 09. they played at a bar as the headliners. By the time Gaslight came out and started with "Great Expectations" there was a few hundred of us crammed in an area between the bar and stage . There was no A/C in this place and they just kept the doors open. The show was amazing, the band was sweating just as much as the fans.Hopefully the guys never have to play that dive again

LOL I live in scottsdale! are you talking about martini ranch?

First saw Gaslight Anthem at the 'Øya' festival back in August. Short but sweet set, playing for around an hour or so, I found it to be a little too short, although given the horrible weather, it was pouring down, it was long enough LOL.

Swore i'd see them again if they came back, and faith was rewarded at Sentrum Scene in Oslo almost a month ago!

For anyone interested, here's a review I wrote at a Springsteen forum about the Sentrum Scene gig:


Just back from Oslo, had a great time last night, an absolute fantastic show. Given that a certain artist isn't touring this year, this was the best show I've seen this year.

Sharks started playing around 20:30, the doors opened at 20:00. Sharks was mostly noisy, probably a talented band, but too loud. The drums dominated the sound, and drowned the vocals. Sharks played for about 30 minutes before Chuck Ragan came on. He played a little longer and did a good job on getting the crowd up on it's feet. Chuck, who celebrated his birthday btw. played a little longer and left the stage around 21:40. Then some 30 minutes later the lights went out and a familiar skull came down behind the stage.

Gaslight came out around 22:15 and played 'till about midnight, about an hour and 45 minutes. Given that they had been playing four nights in a row before the show I was a litte worried they would be tired, which would have been understandable, but luckily this was not the case. The band, and especially Brian, played with an enormous energy from the very first song. For those lucky enough to have seen this band live, it's very obvious that Brian enjoy being on stage, and he managed to pass that happiness and energy on to the crowd as well. Having seen a few shows now (some in smaller venues like this, but also Bruce and U2), I've somethimes caught myself walking out of a gig embarresed over the norwegian audience, but not last night. We got to the venue early and got a front row seat on the balcony, and had an excellent view over both the stage and the crowd. What happend on stage was fantastic, and so was the crowd, especially the people in the front. They were jumping up and down troughout the show and even Brian took notice and joked about it a couple of times. 'Hey, you guys should have told us you were cool, we would have come here a long time ago'.
He also made a comment about the beautiful norwegians. 'Here's to you beautiful girls in the front row! A good thing I stayed on the balcony in the dark I guess.

Personal highlights of the show for me were Cowgirls, '59 sound, Blue Jeans & White T-Shirts, Wherefore Art Thou, Elvis?, Woody Joe and the Patient Ferris and Great Expectations back to back to close out the mainset. For the encores, the drummer of Sharks came out to sit in on a song, and Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand and we heard a southern accent on the radio. Here's Looking at you, kid was the second last song, and just as beautiful as Blue Jeans... I am obvioulsy weak for those ballads. Blue Jeans also had the lyrics slightly adjusted for Norway with Brian calling from a norwegian payphone, rather than the usual fourth-street payphone. The part about sleeing on the beach didn't appeal too much on a cold October-night in Norway, but still, it took very little away from the beautiful song that Blue Jeans and White T-shirts is.

Complete setlist:

Spirit of Jazz
Boxer
Bring it On
(speech about cool norwegians)
The Diamond Church Street Choir (w/Brian singing the first verse of Brown Eyed Girl as intro)
Old White Lincoln (w/Brian playing harmonica and an extra guitar-player on stage)
Even Cowgirls get the Blues (also with that extra guitar-player)
The '59 Sound
1930
We Came to Dance
Blue Jeans and White T-shirts
The Queen of lower Chelsea
Orphans
Señor & the Queen
Wherefore Art Thou, Elvis?
Stand By Me (one verse) \ I'da called you woody, Joe
Angry Johnny and the radio
Miles Davies and the Cool
Film Noir
The Patient Ferris Wheel
Great Expectations

Encore:
High and Lonesome (with the drummer from Sharks)
She Loves You (Brian again on harmonica)
American Slang
Here's Looking At You, Kid
Backseats (great choice to close the show with)

WOW, did I just write all that...
Short version: FANTASTIC show, and of course, now I need another one....

Figured I'd post it here as a show that is almost a month old probably don't need an own thread.

Gotta admit I've been snooping around this forum since a week or two prior to this show, wanting to come prepared to my first real Gaslight show. Picked up a couple of bootlegs over at DimeADozen, but the audioo section here has also been a good hunting-ground so to speak. So there's my introduction right there I guess.