Andy Gapin

Having seen Against Me! something like a dozen times over the last ten years, I’ve grown accustomed to what to expect from their live shows. Little, if any, downtime between songs. Not a lot of talking. Impressive segues from one song into another. Energetic crowd. And a setlist that didn’t ignore the old stuff together, but focused on the newer songs.

Last night, Against Me! brought all of that, but it wasn’t those things that made it a great show this time around. This time, they were intense. Against Me! brought a level of intensity few bands could ever even hope to bring for just a single song. They kept it up for around 45 minutes.

A large part of this new intensity comes from new(ish) drummer Jay Weinberg—yes, son of Max. Jay isn’t just a guy behind a set of drums on the back of the stage, he is a driving piece of the band. He is loud and hard-hitting. I was always a fan of Warren, I even doubted that they could find a solid replacement for him when he left, but Jay brings something entirely new to the band. It’s hard to exactly describe it, it’s a level of intensity, but it goes beyond that. He’s a drummer who isn’t just playing music he loves, he’s playing with his favorite band. He screams along to all of the lyrics. He can’t even stay seated half the time. It’s as if the excitement of the music is too much for him to handle. Against Me! never lacked energy before, but the additional energy that Jay brings is simply unreal.

As much as Jay adds to Against Me!’s live show, the biggest change is Laura Jane Grace. This is Against Me!’s first tour with Laura living and playing as a woman. No one would fault her for appearing uncomfortable on stage or not performing to the standards and expectations she had set for herself when she was still living as a man. Any reasonable and open-minded fan would be more than understanding of what she’s going through, even though they themselves are not truly be able to comprehend what the life of a transgender person is like. But if that was Laura last night, this review probably wouldn’t need to exist. Maybe a simple supportive tweet would have sufficed.

The reality is that Laura walked out on stage proud of who she was and free from having to hold anything back. She owned it. And she looked great.

The crowd at the show was a weird mix being that Against Me! is providing tour support for The Cult, a band with a mostly older fan base that has little overlap with Against Me!’s. As such, this was the first time a lot of the people in the crowd had ever seen Laura and I would be surprised if any of them really even knew that she lived as Tom Gabel up until just recently. I could imagine many of them looking at the stage and thinking “what IS that? Is that a man or a woman?”

That didn’t seem to matter though. If Laura cared, you couldn’t tell. She was a force to be reckoned with. Any fan who has seen Against Me! before should have been able to pick up on the fact that her mannerisms and stage presence weren’t much different than they used to be before she started her transition. She still moved similarly on stage…but more. Looking back, her mannerisms on stage feel like hints of the woman she really is trying to come out, but being held back. There’s no holding back anymore. She’s free and it’s very obvious. To simplify something very complex, she looked comfortable in her own skin. A brand new skin that she loves and is just starting to explore. She looked happy.

It’s difficult to put the effect that Laura’s new comfort had into words because you have to see it to truly understand. This comfort brings Against Me! to an entirely new level that very few artists could ever achieve. The emotion is real. The words are real. The sincerity is unlike anything else.

Against Me!’s setlist stayed true to what they’ve always done, it focused on the newer stuff and didn’t get bogged down trying to play more than a handful of old songs. They opened with two brand new songs, which is something few bands can pull off. Both were great. Through the course of the rest of the set, they squeezed in a couple other new songs as well. Again, both great. Each new song was a reminder that this band has never and will never stop trying to move forward. And when Laura Jane Grace wants to deal with something, she’ll say it. She won’t mince words or hold back.

While some fans may have been disappointed in the band’s last release, White Crosses, Against Me!’s performance last night should serve, not just as a statement, but an exclamation that this band one of the absolute best bands making music today. Their sincerity, energy, and raw emotion may not be equaled by any other artist out there.

I went to see Night Birds last night in Philly. It was a good time. I took some photos.

Alright, so 90s indie-rock band Archers of Loaf is currently in the middle of a reunion tour. These things can really be hit or miss, but I figured that I’d give it a try since I’ve never seen them before. I’m not going to do a full review of the show, but for a bunch of guys in their 40s (?), they had an insane amount of energy. They really brought the show. They played everything I wanted to hear and played it well. They were tight and awesome. I was genuinely surprised and impressed. The only thing I could have done without would have been the two encores. Seriously, society as a whole needs to come together to abolish the concept of planned encores.

I’ve never been to the Music Hall of Williamsburg before, but it was very nice. We got there early and snagged a couple seats in the balcony and stayed there all night. It was a great spot to watch from, but combined with the ultra-low lighting, it was not a great spot to take photos from.

Here’s what I got.

I’m not going to go too much into depth about last night’s Lawrence Arms show at the North Star Bar in Philly, but it was awesome. As with the other four or five times I’ve seen them, they tore through an awesome set that only left something to be desired because the band has too many great songs to fit into a single night.

As usual, Brendan was solidly drunk and had plenty of banter to go around, but about a third of it was slurred and completely unintelligible. Chris was quiet, kind of looked like he could barely stay awake, and his voice sounded a bit off. I couldn’t see much of Neil, but as a whole, the band was on.

I brought my camera, but the North Star Bar is pretty dark inside and I didn’t really have a good spot to take shots from so I kept the camera in my bag until the last few songs. I fired off a bunch of shots towards the end, but I wasn’t really in the position to get anything too spectacular. That and I was too busy enjoying the show to really worry about it, so here are a few photos that all look the same.

As I’ve mentioned, I’m moving at the end of this month so we’ve been spending a lot of time packing stuff up. I wanted to get an early start so that I can sort through the massive amount of crap I own and get rid of a lot of it. I’ve been selling things and doing a pretty good job, actually. We’ve made enough money selling old crap so far to buy a bunch of new furniture, decorations, and other things for the new place.

Anyway, during this process of really sorting through everything, I found an old accordion folder from back when I used to run shows at the ZEN House. In this folder was a bunch of stuff, but the most interesting was the stack of old flyers. I guess at the time I thought it would be a good idea to save a copy or two of each flyer. I don’t think they’re ALL there, but it seems like most of them are and I’m glad to have them. I ended up getting sidetracked from sorting and packing and spent some time looking at them and remembering each of the shows. It was a lot of fun, there are a ton of great memories from these shows.

I decided to take a few minutes and photograph all the flyers so I could post them here for you. I wish I had a decent scanner to make the process easier, but our scanner would have taken forever and, apparently, doesn’t have Mac drivers so it would have been a serious pain in the ass. I didn’t have a lot of time either so these are just some very quick photos, as you’ll be able to tell.

Most of the flyers, I created, but there are a handful that were made by other people. There are a few shows that have multiple flyers and one show that has two very slightly different versions of the same flyer. Anyway, enjoy!

My review was going to be titled “Fuck Gaslight Anthem,” but alas, it is not. Nor should it be. The last time I saw the band kind of killed them for me for a while, they played well, but they gave off a rockstar vibe that just didn’t sit well with me. Then American Slang came out and it was (is) solid. Very solid. I started to get excited about Gaslight Anthem again. American Slang was the in-your-face indication that this band is still on its way up and is the real deal. After that, the video for “American Slang” was released featuring nothing but New York City imagery. What the hell? It felt like a slap in the face. Moving from NJ isn’t a big deal and writing some songs about NYC, especially when you’re from a state squished between two major cities, isn’t either. That stuff is totally cool with me, but it felt like Gaslight Anthem had turned their backs on New Jersey and no song about Andy Diamond and The Court Tavern was going to be enough to convince me otherwise. New Jersey isn’t just where the Gaslight Anthem is from, it’s who they are and what made them what they are. This was always something they embraced, but I I didn’t feel that way anymore. It wasn’t that they weren’t putting Jersey front and center anymore, it was that they dropped it and replaced it.

Now last night, the band came out to Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” and Fallon was wearing a Yankees shirt–on its own, who cares, if you’re from Central or North Jersey, you’re probably a Yankees or Mets fan–but with everything else…yikes. This immediately felt like a second slap in the face. I felt all the sincerity this band had just disappear. And that’s saying a lot for me because I’ve always felt that their music oozes sincerity more than just about any other band out there.

At this point, I was really thinking about how I was going to say “fuck this band” and that wasn’t helped much when Fallon had someone else play second guitar just so he could hold the mic stand with two hands while singing on a few songs.

I stand by most of these feelings, but still I have to say, damn, this band writes some great songs and damn do they know how to play them on a stage. They were absolutely great. They really were. Despite everything else, the sincerity was still there and the passion for the music was as strong as ever.

The set was long, over an hour and a half. My knees were hurting, but I was still enjoying every second. The band ripped through almost everything they have spanning every release under the Gaslight name. It was impressive how much they got through and how much they didn’t neglect Sink or Swim except a few of the songs you would have expected them to play. In fact, just about the only songs they didn’t play from Sink or Swim, besides the acoustic ones, were the expected standards. “Red in the Morning” was even followed up by a comment from Fallon saying how he thought it sounded like it should be a song by The Bronx. This was a comment that about ten people in the crowd actually got. I looked around, no one knew what he was talking about. It was awesome.

Honestly, Gaslight Anthem was seriously solid last night. Seriously.

Now, Frank Turner…well, I would have liked to see more than I did. Thanks to an ever-late friend, we got there in time to only see a few songs, but he sounded awesome. Frank Turner is the kind of opener that I would gladly pay to see headline and I’m hoping that I get the chance soon.

The outdoor stage at the Stone Pony was surprisingly decent as well. There was a nice breeze and the sound, while not great, was good enough. It was a serious set up and I think I enjoyed it more than I would have inside. However, they were charging $20 for parking which is ridiculous. We drove three blocks down the road and parked for free near Asbury Lanes. I would suggest anyone going to other shows this summer there do the same.

And below are a few cellphone pics that all look the same. I tried and failed to get the DSLR in.

PS: A friend mentioned something about Brian being sick of the Springsteen comparisons, but I say that’s a load of crap, if you don’t want to be compared to Springsteen, don’t sound so much like him. Easy solution.

PPS: Contrary to the rumor going around before the show, Springsteen did not come out and play with them.

First of all, getting into the city last night was way too easy. The drive from the office up to Hoboken during rush hour took an unfathomable 50 minutes, which is even less than Google says it should take with no traffic–their with-traffic estimate was 82 minutes, but I wasn’t expecting anything less than 90. I guess a lot of people took off of work for a four-day weekend. No complaints. Then, in Hoboken, there was available parking all over the place, my only mistake was taking the first spot I saw. Finally, there was a PATH train sitting there waiting for us and my MetroCard already had money on it. Wins all around.

Now, She & Him…were alright. Not great, not bad, just alright. I think I would say that the first time I saw them was better. To be fair, it wasn’t entirely their fault. The sound was rather inconsistent, sometimes too much on the high-end,  sometimes way too much on the low-end. Of all the shows I’ve ever attended at Terminal 5, this had the worst sound by far. On top of that, Zooey’s keyboard wasn’t in tune and this seriously frazzled her. On no less than three occasions, the band started to play a song only to stop a few seconds in for Zooey to try to figure out a way to play it with her keyboard.

The set was long, an hour and a half including the encore. Normally, that would be quite a bit more than I would like to see from a band, but it didn’t feel long at all. When M Ward and Zooey left the stage after the regular set, I looked down at my phone expecting it to only be 9:45ish (they went on promptly at 9), but I was surprised to see that it was already ten after ten. Those 90 minutes a pretty solid collection of almost everything the band has to offer across both volumes. 24 songs, to be exact. They included a few covers, as should probably be expected, and even played an M Ward song which was pretty sweet. In the end, there was nothing left that I wanted and didn’t get. (The setlist is at the bottom of this post).

Oddly, Zooey seemed a little out of her element on stage. Maybe it was just that she was thrown off by the keyboard problems, but she seemed to have to keep reminding herself to smile and look like she was having fun. At one point, she seemed somewhat annoyed with the crowd taking pictures and asked everyone to turn their flashes off. Apparently, there was a strict no pictures policy for the night even though when I had called the venue earlier in the afternoon, I was told that point and shoots were okay. Zooey seemed to not care that pictures were being taken and claimed that the flashes ruined the vibe, but also tried to frame it as a helpful advice that the pictures would come out better without a flash (which is true). I don’t know, it did feel a little bitchy which is very disappointing to someone with a crush on her as large as mine (you already know all about that, I’m sure). All around, it just seemed like she was having an off night, though her voice sounded right on throughout the show.

Sorry for the crappy picture above, it was the best I could get with my iPhone 4 from where I was. Even with the improved camera, there’s only so much you can do from halfway back at a venue the size of Terminal 5 with dim lighting throughout the entire set.

1. Change Is Hard
2. I Thought I Saw Your Face Today
3. I Was Made For You
4. Black Hole
5. Thieves
6. Lingering Still
7. Me and You
8. Take It Back
9. Home
10. Riding In My Car
11. Over It Over Again
12. You Really Got a Hold on Me
13. Brand New Shoes
14. You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio (Joni Mitchell cover)
15. Sentimental Heart
16. Rave On! (Buddy Holly cover)
17. Gonna Get Along Without You Now
18. In the Sun
19. Don’t Look Back
20. This Is Not a Test
21. Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?

Encore:

22. Magic Trick (M. Ward cover)
23. Fools Rush In (Ricky Nelson cover)
24. I Put a Spell on You (Nina Simone cover)

When a band says that they’re going to do a tour for an album and play the whole thing, it’s something that can go either way. When the Pixies decided to do this for Doolittle, I was skeptical. Jimmy Eat World did an alright job with Clarity while Alkaline Trio played entirely too long after finishing up with Goddamnit. However, the Pixies did it right. Oh so very right.

The Pixies didn’t walk right out on stage and throw Debaser at us, they started off with an abridged version of the French film Un Chien Andalou–which Frank Black credits as being very influential to him–played on an LED backdrop netting-like screen that was also used all set long to play various videos behind them. They walked out at the end of the video and started with a couple of b-sides before getting into Doolittle, which was accompanied by a couple jokes from Kim between songs. When they were done with Doolittle, they followed up with two encores. The first was a couple more b-sides including a second version of “Wave Of Mutilation” (making for a double dose), but the second treated us to a few non-Doolittle tracks including “Where Is My Mind?” and “Gigantic.” It was everything I could have asked for.

Even though the band took an obnoxiously long time to come out for the second encore, they kept the set to a very reasonable length. The point of the tour was Doolittle and they kept it that way. That is something I can respect. They also chose to give us a much heavier dose of Joey’s guitar to strip some of the polish away from the songs. The end result was loud, raw, and awesome.

The setlist and a few pictures that I snapped from my phone are below and you can also check out reviews from BrooklynVegan and Deaf Left Ear.

Main set
Dancing The Manta Ray
Weird At My School
Bailey’s Walk
Manta Ray
Debaser
Tame
Wave of Mutilation
I Bleed
Here Comes Your Man
Dead
Monkey Gone to Heaven
Mr. Grieves
Crackity Jones
La La Love You
No. 13 Baby
There Goes My Gun
Hey
Silver
Gouge Away

Encore 1
Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)
Into the White

Encore 2
Isla De Encanta
some of Vamos
Nimrod’s Son
Where is My Mind?
Gigantic

I went to see The Gaslight Anthem, Murder By Death, and The Loved Ones in Philly last night at the Trocadero. It was an all around great show.

The Loved Ones played what was probably the best set I’ve ever seen them play. I can’t really describe why it was so great, but they just felt really on and didn’t talk too much compared to other times that I’ve seen them. Their set list was well chosen and leaning way more to the Keep Your Heart side of things than Build & Burn, which works out great for me since I think Keep Your Heart is a much better record.

Murder By Death was slightly worse than the last time I saw them, but that was also about five years ago. They played well and sounded good, but I think I miss them being a five piece. Having a dedicated keyboardist made them able to keep more of their recorded sound when playing live. Sarah did a great job switching between cello and keyboards, but it wasn’t quite the same. The last time I saw them was before their last two albums came out so they had fewer songs to play. This gave them time to rock out and jam a little more. I’m not into jam bands, but I love when bands that I like just jam out for a little bit during some of the instrumental parts of songs. It adds something extra to the live set that you don’t get from a record. This is something that they seemed to do a lot in the past and it was one of my favorite things about seeing them, but now with all the extra songs that they have, there is a lot less time to do it. Still, they sounded great and picked a good selection of songs to play. I think they covered everything that I wanted to hear.

And then there was Gaslight Anthem. They sounded amazing and were tight as hell with a great stage presence. It may have been the tightest that I’ve ever seen them play out of the six or seven times that I’ve seen them. But the selection of songs that they played was a bit disappointing. The ’59 Sound is a really great record, one of the best to come out in 2008. However, it lost a lot over the last year for me. Most of my interest in it waned. Sink Or Swim has stuck with me though. That’s what I wanted to hear. I didn’t expect a lot, but the entire first half of their set was from The ’59 Sound. By the end, we only got a couple Sink Or Swim songs in total. I guess normally it would be expected to hear only a few songs from a band’s first album…if they have more than two, but with only two of them, it’d be nice it at least a third of the set was from the first album. Oh well. At least everything they played sounded great.

Even accepting the fact that I’ll never get to hear them play much from Sink Or Swim again, I don’t know that I’ll ever want to see them live again. I’m not sure how to describe it, but they felt very rock starry last night. It was a little too much. They stopped feeling like this band from New Brunswick that used to play basement shows and the Court Tavern to small crowds and more like a band that has their eyes set on stages set in front of thousands and thousands of people. It wasn’t to the point where it was terribly upsetting and bothersome and a lot of it was subtle, but it was enough that I feel as though my love for them will start to decline if I keep on seeing them.

Last night was also the first time that I’ve been to the Troc in about seven years. I’ve generally avoided it as I was never a fan of the place and I was reminded 100% of this last night. The sound is terrible. It might be the worst sounding venue I’ve ever been to. Ugh.

Last night, Harvey Danger played their last show ever in NYC at The Bell House in Brooklyn as part of their farewell tour. I’m really sad to see the band go, but at the same time, I’m not surprised either. The band had never really been profitable, nor do they really fit in anywhere.

I had never been to The Bell House before and no one I talked to about it had ever heard of it before. It turned out to be a really nice venue. There’s a swanky-ish bar when you first walk in that has a decent beer and wine selection for a venue. The room that the bands play in is big enough to hold maybe 400 people, but still maintains the ability to be relatively intimate at the same time. My only real gripe was that the sound was a little louder than it needed to be. Outside, there was a sweet stenciled sign that said “Beware of ‘dog.’”

I didn’t really watch the first opener much, but Jukebox The Ghost was pretty awesome. They’re from Philly, though I’d never heard of them before. They have a pretty sweet indie sound with a piano and make enough funny faces while playing that even if they had sucked, it would have been entertaining to watch.

Harvey Danger somehow–I’m really not sure of the back story for this one–got John Hodgeman to introduce them. It was hilarious, watch…

Once they came out on stage, they were incredible. They played for about 2 hours and 40 minutes, longer than I’ve ever seen any band play for before in my life. By the end, there wasn’t really too much left that they hadn’t played. It was really awesome and didn’t get boring at all…even if we were all insanely tired by almost 2AM when we finally walked out.

For the encore, they came out and did a lot of Q&A and took requests. A bunch of them.

They sounded really on all night too, even towards the end of the set, they were still playing well and having a great time on stage. Here’s a video of them playing Cream And Bastards Rise…

If you didn’t make this show, you messed up, big time. Below is the full set list so that you can kick yourself for missing the show…

Humility On Parade
Wine, Women & Song
Moral Centralia
Meetings With Remarkable Men (Show Me The Hero)
Cream & Bastards Rise
Problems & Bigger Ones
Sad Sweetheart Of The Rodeo
Little Round Mirrors
War Buddies
Jack The Lion
Defrocked
The Show Must Not Go On (new song)
Flagpole Sitta
The Ballad Of The Tragic Hero (Pity & Fear)
Authentic
(Theme From) Carjack Fever

Encore 1:
Pike Street/Park Slope
*Loyalty Bldg.
*Underground
*Happiness Writes White
*Sometimes You Have To Work On Christmas (Sometimes)
*Wrecking Ball
*Why I’m Lonely
*Private Helicopter
*Carlotta Valdez
*Terminal Annex
Radio Silence

Encore 2:
The Same As Being In Love