At first, it sounded like Brian Fallon was just giving a Springsteen-style rah-rah speech early in the Gaslight Anthem's very sold-out set Wednesday night at the Fine Line. "It still matters to us that you guys come out to see us play," the singer told the crowd. He and the band proved it all night, but Fallon especially gave proof of how much the gig meant to them when he revealed that their bus had broken down in North Dakota the day before.
"We got up at 5:30 in the morning and got on the first plane we could to get here," he said. Knowing what last-minute airfare cost nowadays, and how affordable tickets were to Wednesday's show relative to the demand ($17), it's very likely that the Jersey boys actually paid more to make the gig than the gig paid them.
The effort certainly paid off. It was an enthralling show almost from start to finish 100 minutes later, much better than Gaslight's 2010 gig at First Ave -- and that's despite the band operating on little sleep, and the club operating with very little in the way of proper air ventilation (my proposal for the next big local benefit gig: "Fans for Fans at the Fine Line"). Fallon and Co. hit the ground running with three of their best-known songs – and best, period -- as openers: "Great Expectations," the new single "45" and then "American Slang."
Along with "45," the quintet previewed a few other songs from the new Brendan O'Brien-produced album, "Handwritten" (out July 24). One of the highlights was "Biloxi Parish," a slower but stormy and hard-stomping tune played midway through the set, when they also slipped in the crowd favorites "Film Noir" and "The Diamond Street Church Choir." The encore included a very impressive, rocked-up version of Bob Dylan's "Changing of the Guards" and then ended with "The '59 Sound."
Dylan wasn't the only props Gaslight paid to Minnesota musicians. Fallon also marveled over the fact that Tommy Stinson had written something on the wall in the Fine Line's green room – "The Replacements were like Bob Dylan to me when I was 14" – and then gushed even harder over Hüsker Dü. He pointed out their recent tour partner Dave Grohl's affinity for the Hüskers, too, and said, "If you don't know them or are too young to remember, leave now and go to a record store."
Pretty amazing, considering that Fallon should've instead been driving fans to his band's own merch table in attempt to simply break even on the show.
