I’d had the weekend of October 7 marked off on my calendar since last March when The Gaslight Anthem announced that they would be coming out of their self-imposed hiatus and would be touring both Europe, The UK and most importantly (to me at least), the U.S. That U.S. leg of the tour would be coming to a conclusion with a Friday show in Philly and the final show of the tour in Gaslight’s backyard at Holmdel, NJ’s PNC Arts Center (for those of you as old as me, FKA The Garden State Arts Center). Needless to say both dates were etched firmly in my plans. That is however, until an NYC date was finally added to the tour a month or so later. I have to admit that when PNC was announced as the NJ venue, I was not happy. The idea of seeing Gaslight (and Rosenstock) in that cavernous and seated outdoor tin shed didn’t do much for me. So once I knew that I would have the opportunity to see them at the beautiful Pier 17 in Manhattan, PNC was dropped from my plans. Philly, however, I was super stoked for. I’d heard great things about The Met and of course the presence of a GA pit made all the difference in the world.

Jeff Rosenstock hit the stage promptly at 8 PM and when I say “hit” I mean he and his band of John DeDominici on bass, Mike Huguenor on guitar, Kevin Higuchi on drums and Dan Potthast on guitar, sax and keys hit it running! Opening up with “SCRAM!” off their most recent album No Dream (most recent if you don’t count the ska reworking of the same album SKA Dream which came out during pandemic times). I will be the first to admit that I am a huge fan of Rosenstock and while I thought there would be some logical crossover between his and TGA’s fanbases, it didn’t always appear to be that way during Jeff’s set. One place where the set was 100% appreciated however was front and center in the pit where a decently sized circle pit was active throughout “Death Rosenstock’s” rapid fire 10 song set.

As an aside, Jeff did mention midway through his set that shortly before he and the band hit the stage, he discovered that he and a whole bunch of his friends had been laid off from their day jobs. Rosenstock was the musical director for The Cartoon Network’s Craig of The Creek which evidently was uncerimoniously canceled. Nonetheless, this soul-crushing news did nothing to damper Jeff’s energized and exhilarating set. Needless to say, good luck to Jeff & the entire Craig Of The Creek staff; hopefully something pops up soon on the employment front for all of them.

The Gaslight Anthem came on shortly after 9 PM and opened things up with what has become their opener for most of the tour, “Have Mercy” followed by another tour regular in “Old White Lincoln”. It appeared right from the get-go that Brian was in really good spirits, coming off even more chatty than what has become the norm for him. But when I say “chatty” in this instance, I don’t necessarily mean his going off on wild tangents (don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of that throughout the evening) but I mean his literally being very conversational with the crowd, especially those at the rail. His back and forth with the newlywed upfront about their request for some never mentioned song dedicated to his wife who wasn’t there that night but would be in attendance the following evening at PNC was priceless. I wonder if the band added the song to Saturday’s setlist as promised.

Moving forward were a pair of songs which were not part of the set which I’d seen 2 weeks prior in NYC, “Wooderson” and “Biloxi Parish”. Now seems like as good a time as any to mention that one of the major complaints on the various TGA facebook groups which I pay attention to was the lack of variety in the night-to-night setlists. Well I for one came out of the show at Philly feeling none of that. Without actually comparing song-for-song the setlists to the 2 shows which I attended, I definitely left The Met feeling like I’d seen a very different show from the one I’d seen in New York a couple of weeks prior. Well it turns out that my gut feeling was 100% spot on. In doing the research to put this piece together, I found that the Philly show contained a total of eight songs which I had not heard at Pier 17. Out of an average set consisting of 21 songs or so, to me 8 is a pretty good number to define variety.

Along the way, we did hear Brian go off on a number of tangents, only one which could be defined as being a little too long, but personally I enjoyed his monologues quite a bit, particularly the one where he suggested to a couple of out of town fans who were traveling to NJ after the show to go out the next morning and find someplace where they could get an authentic pork roll breakfast sandwich…”it’s pork roll, not Taylor ham! Don’t be calling it Taylor ham.” Now I know quite a few Jerseyites who would argue with this pork roll vs Taylor ham verbiage but hearing Brian explain to a couple of out-of-town newbies, the culinary delights of NJ was absolutely hilarious.

But back to the music, with a mix that encompassed virtually the band’s entire musical catalogue. With songs from ’59 Sound and Handwritten dominating the remainder of the set, we still were treated to a smattering of selections from Get Hurt (“Get Hurt” “Halloween”, and “Stay Vicious”, Sink Or Swim (” We Came To Dance”) as well as American Slang (“The Spirit of Jazz”).

After making sure that the crowd knew that there would be no “lame walking off the stage and coming back for an encore”, the band finished the night off with none other than “59 Sound” to which they brought out Philadelphia’s own Brit Luna from the band Catbite to help on vocals (Catbite just so happens to be one of my favorite new ska bands).

It was a triumphant return to the stage for Brian, the two Alex’s, Benny and Ian. Each and every member of the band seemed to be having fun being back onstage. And sure as hell, they all sounded fantastic. I know Brian had some voice issues earlier in the tour, having to cancel a show in Denver, but his voice sounded fantastic in Philly. Now the only thing that I can hope for is that they don’t take too long to get back out there again, and if there is a delay in touring again in 2023 I hope it’s because they are busy in the studio working on a new album. Welcome back TGA, it’s great having you back.

THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM (2022-10-07)

Jeff Rosenstock (2022-10-07)