This storied venue may have a new name, but it remains a boxy, metallic space sucking the air out of songs which, in another setting, would have drawn us in with their nimble musicianship and unforgettable turns of phrase.Īfter just over 90 minutes of mixed results, the title track of The '59 Sound, always worth waiting for, roars into life like a classic 1950s auto, only to falter towards the end when a lengthy bridge and solo strands its traditional singalong with nowhere to go. By far the largest venue they’re playing on this UK run, Wembley appears to be a shade over half-full – a situation doubtless not helped by tonight’s rail strike – and while the band’s attempts to flesh out their sound to fill the stage and the space with some new ideas are laudable, the honky tonk piano extending the intro to The Diamond Church Street Choir is the only one that really lands. There are other factors which dilute the impact of what should be a triumphant return from Fallon's band.
“It’s all over me now,” Fallon reflects, a neat physical metaphor suggesting that the music that he’s made, which has touched so many, still leaves its mark. Finally, we learn that if you hold up a fan's glittered-covered request to play Old White Lincoln, one of the many anthems contained on the band’s 2008 breakout album The ’59 Sound, you will end up with fingers flecked with gold sparkle.
It also suggests that he’s long-since put to bed his frustrations at his band constantly being referenced in the shadow of one of their biggest influences, Bruce Springsteen, whose patronage of his New Jersey brethren played a key role in breaking TGA beyond the punk community. The most obvious is that The Gaslight Anthem’s sabbatical has done nothing to dull Fallon’s playful, and at times sharp-edged, sense of humour.
THE GASLIGHT FULL
“The Boss gets a sign! Make a sign!” Fallon cries with mock indignation, knowing full well that a glittering sheet of poster paper is about to be carefully handed over the heads of the front few rows to him, front and centre on stage at the OVO Arena Wembley.
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