Andy Gapin

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

These are a week and a half old, but I’m finally getting around to posting these photos from Shellac’s show at Union Transfer in Philly. The show was awesome, the venue is brand new and pretty cool.

Alright, so it’s been a little while since I’ve blogged. Oops. It’s probably going to be slow for the next month as well while final wedding stuff is coming together. Sorry about that, but I haven’t abandoned this thing, I promise!

Last weekend, I took a trip down to Baltimore for Insubordination Fest. This was my third time at the fest and it was probably the most fun year I’ve attended. There were no venue issues like last year. In fact, the venue, The Ottobar, couldn’t have been better for the weekend. I couldn’t come up with a complaint if I tried.

One of the highlights of the weekend was actually a joke band that was put together solely for the sake of the fest. And amazingly, the songs that were recorded a few days before the fest are actually better than most real bands’ stuff. Their set was a ton of fun.

But, that being said, the hands down best set of the weekend was from The Copyrights. So damn good. If you’re not already listening to this band, you should be.

I got myself into a little trouble with continuous mode on my camera though. I came home with almost 1400 photos from less 36 hours. Insane. I narrowed down to about 200 to edit and I narrowed down further to about 70 to post.

Enjoy.

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.

Last Friday, I took a ride up to Brooklyn for the first night of the Don Giovanni Records showcase at Death By Audio. The lineup was The Steinways, The Measure [SA], Black Wine, Full of Fancy, and Big Eyes and except for the disaster that was The Steinways’ set, the show was awesome.

I was able to photograph three of the bands, but of course the lighting was awful and I didn’t bring my flash. I had to bump the ISO all the way up to 3200 to get non-blurry shots, but they turned out to be pretty damn noisy. But since I knew this would be the case going in, I didn’t worry about it too much and just had fun with it.

I ended up having to convert most of the photos to black and white to deal with the different colored lights, but I did decide to keep the color for a few to see what I could salvage.

Honestly, I kind of enjoyed some of the results.

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