The Mythical World of The Gaslight Anthem

The Gaslight Anthem – Brixton Academy 17/10/12

My watch showed a quarter past nine when the lights finally went out. The sound waves from Blood Red Shoes, the earlier support, had long since dissipated, forgotten almost as quickly as they arrived. The screams from the crowd were as enthusiastic as they were inevitable as the band we’d come to see entered through the dark of the wings, emerging like mythical heroes from wisps of stage smoke.

The drums began to pound out their rhythm as the four guitars hummed briefly before sauntering to life, the refrain from ‘Mae‘ sounding out through the Academy. Prior to tonight, the song had never stuck out for me; never had the same obvious excitement as their more popular tracks. It was a daring choice for an opening song, but in every way the right one. Their performance brought life and dynamism that I’d previously missed: as the guitar’s melody echoed from amp to ear I imagined I was in a film, often the mark of what I judge to be a good song. It’s just before the end credits, somewhere outside in the rain, and the cameras stay tight on our faces, neon lights reflecting in the raindrops on our cheeks. I knew then that this would be a great gig.

So important to The Gaslight Anthem is the concept of mythology. Buy into it, and you’ll be transported to a world full of American cars, transistor radios and heartbroken youth. Some of their detractors have airily dismissed them as Springsteen Lite, trading in on nostalgia that isn’t theirs. But that’s the way the system works. In cinema, film genres require established symbols. Detective stories, for example, employ certain markers that place the viewer in a specific location, not simply geographically but in terms of familiarity, expectation and tone. Such symbols include trilby hats, trench coats and cigarettes. The same goes for Gaslight’s brand of music. They evoke the same world as Springsteen (and even Kerouac before him): that of a sad and nostalgic America, aged but timeless. So Brian Fallon sings of old radios, of blue jeans and white t-shirts, as it builds on an established set of themes from which he is able to tell his own stories.

Believe it or not, all this passed through my mind as I stood behind a thousand other people, and I fully accepted the conceit. ‘Mae’ ends to a chorus of cheering, a big banner unfurls at the back of the stage, and the band launch into ‘The ’59 Sound‘, a song whose title alone epitomises what I’d just been thinking. Fallon may not be the greatest singer in the world, but he has what has become a rare commodity: truthfulness. Watching him furrow his brow or grin charmingly, I believe everything he sings. Introducing one song, he finishes with a gleeful “true story” – though it hardly needed clarification.

This being their second night at Brixton, they tell us the set list will differ from the first, a proposition that filled me with a little worry – what if they played one of my favourites the night before but not tonight? My fears were soon allayed, though, as they drew from their increasingly large repertoire and played a slew of brilliant songs. In particular, ‘Howl‘ and ‘45‘ stood out from their latest album, but they also picked songs from American Slang, The ’59 Sound, and Sink or Swim. ‘The Patient Ferris Wheel‘ had verve and vigour, and ‘Here’s Looking At You Kid‘ was a rare low key moment, concluded beautifully with 5,000 singing the final line in perfect unison.

Towards the end of the night Fallon’s voice was tiring a little, something that must come with the territory of singing with the growl and the guts that he does. But even so, he continued as if it was the last time he’d play each song, all the way through an encore that included a cover of Dylan’s ‘Changing of the Guards‘ and finished with a thundering version of ‘The Backseat‘, the closing track on The ’59 Sound.

As the crowd shuffled home and I stepped out into the cold London night, leather jacket slung over my shoulder, my girl at my side and the sounds of the Gaslight still ringing merrily in my ear, I almost mistook myself for a character in one of their songs.