One of the trademarks of a truly great
band – you know, the kind who routinely get tagged with qualifiers like quintessential and legendary – is their ability to perfectly straddle the
line between road-tested professionalism and reckless abandon. For The Gaslight
Anthem’s much-anticipated return to Nashville, they effortlessly played the part of the luxury railroad car threatening to jump the tracks at any moment. Blending the bravado of punk, the drama of rock and the velvety cool of soul music, Brian Fallon and the boys had a packed out Marathon Music Works dancing elbow to elbow and singing along to every lyric at the top of their lungs. For a band like The Gaslight Anthem, fans don't just like them, they believe in them and a concert isn't just a show, it's a rock & roll rite of passage. While that all may sound a bit hyperbolic, it's none the less true. While fellow Garden Staters Bon Jovi were playing across town on the very same night, The Gaslight Anthem proved that New Jersey's finest had set up shop here.
Wednesday's night show featured a setlist that was heavy on their smash sophomore release The '59 Sound and their most recent record Handwritten, recorded here in Nashville last year. They opened the show with the explosive "Howl" and the crowd kept in step with every word Brian sang, threatening at many moments to even overpower him. Up for the challenge, the band then launched into a trio of tracks from The '59 Sound, arguably their best loved record to date. After a spirited tromp through the pounding "45," they dipped back into their debut, Sink or Swim, for Brian's love letter to The Clash, "I'da Called You Woody, Joe." The next two songs they played is a great example of their love for throwing the occasional curveball into the mix. "Our Father's Sons" is a song that can only be found on their iTunes Session digital EP and "Blue Dahlia" is a bonus track that's only on the deluxe edition of Handwritten. However, with how the crowd continued to singalong without missing a step, you would've thought these were some of their most successful singles. They continued this successful pattern of album-specific chunks broken up by random beloveds and by the time they launched into "The Backseat," the crowd was not ready to let them call it a night. They came back out for an encore of 4 more fan favorites and as Brian bid the crowd "good night" and charged into "Great Expectations," the crowd erupted like it was the last song they'd ever sing. With the band truly firing on all cylinders and continuing to crank out some of the best music the genre has to offer, thankfully it doesn't appear that'll be happening any time soon.
**Setlist**
“Can’t Hardly Wait” (intro music)
- Howl
- Casanova,
Baby!
- Old White
Lincoln
- Film Noir
- “45”
- I’da
Called You Woody, Joe
- Our
Father’s Sons
- Blue
Dahlia
- Biloxi
Parish
- Mulholland
Drive
- Too Much
Blood
- The Queen
of Lower Chelsea
- Wooderson
- Meet Me By
The River’s Edge
- Here Comes
My Man
- The ’59
Sound
- Here’s
Looking At You, Kid
- The
Backseat
--Encore--
- American
Slang
- The
Patient Ferris Wheel
- Mae
- Great
Expectations