The Gaslight Anthem, Detroit, MI, 9-1-24

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When do you get to let go of things? When do they finally leave? When do things become neutral, or at least incapable of impact? 

I wondered all of these things walking into the Gaslight Anthem show here in Detroit Sunday night. It was my first time seeing Gaslight outside of the Tri-State area. It was my first time seeing them in probably close to 10 years.

I used to go see TGA as often as I could. This was making up for lost time in the years after seeing Brian Fallon playing solo acoustic at a Jesse Malin show at Bowery Ballroom in the pre-Gaslight years and being less than impressed. My ex finally went to see them at Brooklyn Bowl -- I did not, because I had a really shitty job at the time and could not fucking handle much more than what was required of me at that point -- and he came home and said I had to go next time, that their walk-on music was the Clash’s “Straight to Hell.” Some social media pals I had who were punks of a younger generation kept gently pushing me, “No, no, these guys are for real, you gotta go.” I went. They were right. I kept going.

So Gaslight shows were that thing that you do as a couple and then when you’re not a couple, who gets custody? Or even more pragmatically, how do you separate it from a part of your life that no longer exists? The music is still there, it isn’t going anywhere, nothing about it has changed, it shouldn’t be as hard as it is. My therapist would probably say something about firsts and how once you do something again then it won’t be as difficult the next time. This shouldn’t have been difficult, I argue with myself. It has been a very long time. And yet.

TGA went on hiatus in 2015 and it wasn’t hard to sit out the ‘59 Sound reunion tour (although I panic-bought a ticket for Chicago of all places that I ended up reselling at cost). But I don’t think it was accidental that when the band were here in 2022 that I got sick that day and had to miss the show. This time I was not missing it, even though I realized walking into the theater that I was some kind of weird unexpected East Coast homesick that I had to deal with. But, like, the Jersey Shore is still there. I can get in my car and go there anytime I want to. It has not gone anywhere. I was going there before I met that person, I still kept going there, I will be back at some point. 

The weirdness initially was more of having a very New Jersey thing in Detroit than it was anything else, I realized. Like, you don’t think about how enormously NJ Gaslight are until you are seeing them somewhere else. Or maybe I think that because I know what that means and what it feels like. So you stand there and you sing along because you can’t do anything but what you normally do at a show, and I think was fine until that line in “We Came to Dance” about the central Jersey sky. The sky over New Jersey is just a reference in a Bruce Springsteen song until you’ve driven it, over and over again, radio relay lights and refinery towers glowing in the distance till you pass them and get off to cut across Staten Island, and back to Brooklyn. The lines hit hard because they’re based on something real and true.

This was the last show of the tour before Gaslight go home and play Danny Clinch’s See Hear Now on the beach in Asbury later this week. It’s a well-engineered set that stretches across the band’s entire repertoire, there’s space and balance, there’s humor and intensity. They were always a great live band and now they are a great live band who have years of experience under their belt and it’s not like they’re not trying but they’ve been doing it for so long they don’t have to try as hard. Every element I loved about Gaslight the first time out is advanced, more pronounced, more developed. The accumulated muscle memory gives them a foundation and room to expand. Ian Perkins is still filling in extra guitar and a dude hiding behind the amps playing keys and singing background vocals. 

(I tried hard to not make Boom Gaspar jokes but I am making Boom Gaspar jokes. Just reconfigure the band setup, dudes, we have grown up, we will forgive you for not being a quartet but it’s weird having a dude wearing a hat sitting behind the amps who’s not trying to hide that he’s there and part of the music coming off of the stage. Like, we are all grown up now. People were there with their entire families, they do not need you to be the same thing to them that you were 10 years ago. I do not know that this is why they do that but I have watched bands struggle with expanding lineups over the years so I have some guesses.)

The show was not sold out and so I hovered along the edge of the first step up on the GA floor of the venue that I am not going to call the Fillmore because there is already a Fillmore and it is in San Francisco. Having room to move at a Gaslight show was new to me. Not having to fight crowd surfing bozos was delightful, although there was very little of that during Gaslight’s set, there was more during Joyce Manor’s opening slot. I probably could have gotten closer than I was but I was close enough to watch for my favorite parts, those unexpected Alex Rosamilia harmonies and guitar turns of phrase, watch Bennie Horowitz continue to be underestimated as fuck and rock solid, Alex Levine being the quiet bass player holding it down. And Brian Fallon’s vocals continue to soar. I want to say something like “grow” or “mature” but that feels dismissive, it’s more about an absolute comfort and confidence that makes him a joy to continue to listen to. I’d watched some of Fallon’s solo livestreams during lockdown so that part of the ensemble wasn’t new but hearing it in place next to the rest of Gaslight was. 

we were always waiting, always waiting
waiting for something TO HAPPEN

Ah that moment at a Gaslight show in the tri-state area where you know this part is coming, the tension and the release and the waving hands in the air. It’s the same if you make it the same, or at least it can be what you need it to be. Most of the time, anyway.