The Gaslight Anthem at the Midland (9/23) and the Fillmore (9/24)

Tour Dates

Gaslight Anthem at The Midland, Kansas City MO (09/23/2022)

Scranton, PA alt rockers Tigers Jaw have been opening on this leg, with a forty-five-minute set, with cuts drawn from their six full-length albums, the most recent being last year’s I Won’t Care How You’ll Remember Me (on Hopeless Records) with a new EP, Old Clothes, due out October 28^th, with the title track serving as the lead single.  

The group benefits from having co-lead singers in guitarist Ben Walsh (who sang most of the set’s first-half songs) and keyboardist Brianna Collins who stepped away from her stack to sing most of the later set songs, notably on 2017’s “June” and last year’s “Commit” with Collins singing, “An eclipse only shines from a distance, you can't make sense of a world you're not in.”

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Fans had been left wondering, and checking social media all day, as New Jersey’s The Gaslight Anthem were scheduled to play The Midland in Kansas City as part of their reunion tour, their first since a 2015 hiatus (and not counting some brief 2018 dates), but singer-songwriter Brian Fallon had lost his voice at their Salt Lake City show, forcing a cancellation in Denver, and three subsequent days of rest for this, their potential first show back.  

The good news was that Fallon’s voice (though still raspy on the edges) had returned, and helped propel their ninety-minute set, with the band leader as verbose and talkative as always, despite the setback.  The set would start gently, with an almost whispered first verse of 2014’s “Get Hurt”, but quickly ramp up from there.  

“Last time you were pissed at me, now it’s Denver!” Fallon emoted after a couple songs in, saying he felt he got maybe too much rest mostly sleeping for the last three days, so seemed to be making up for it, by engaging audience members in conversation and espousing whatever was on his mind.

Other Fallon-speak topics covered included The Walking Dead/ Norman Reedus hair, Aaron Judge / NY Yankees, The Strokes, the NFL, Brooklyn/Jay-Z, The National, KC BBQ, Freebird, diabetes, and many others.  

“Get Hurt” was even dedicated to Fallon’s time in Colorado, referring to his bed rest and the show cancellation.  2008’s “High Lonesome” cribs a Counting Crows lyric and it was with 2007’s “Wooderson”, that Fallon called an audible and the band began to start veering from the printed setlist.  “The Patient Ferris Wheel” was played via a fan request, and another fan had made an elaborate, lighted sign to request the song, “Halloween” which Fallon noticed right before the band was to play it anyway.

The encore-less set would end with the one-two punch of 2012’s “45” whose “see you on the flipside” lyrics Fallon dedicated to openers Tigers Jaw, who are on the last dates of this leg, and an extended version of the band’s biggest radio hit “The ‘59 Sound” with Fallon asking in verse, “Did you hear your favorite song, one last time?”  From the crowd’s loud reaction all night, it’s safe to say they did.  

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Gaslight Anthem at The Fillmore, Minneapolis, MN (09/24/2022)

By the start of the third song the lead singer of The Gaslight Anthem, Brian Fallon, had a perplexed look as he gazed down to the set list at his feet.  Fallon has a nimble, fluid-thinking mind and he thought out loud why he would have picked the third song as the third song.  He blamed it on his throat which was at 30% and felt like it was dragged to hell by the devil, himself.  He then went onto an extemporaneous jag that touched on not smoking pot, watching the Walking Dead in his hotel room, props to the crowd and venue, shout-outs to The Replacements and the underrated Soul Asylum and how it is agreed upon that everyone in the venue hates Tom Brady.  At least that’s what I caught.  Oh yeah, also no refunds for the rasp in his voice.

Tigers Jaw opened up the evening with two lead vocals: Ben Walsh also playing the rhythm guitar and Brianna Collins playing the keyboard.  Based in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the band is fronting the first half of the tour and it was nice to see co-lead vocals, especially Collins airy voice and keyboard accents lofting above the guitar-driven chords of the rest of the band

Tigers Jaw played “Old Clothes” a new EP to be released October 28^th, then followed with “Plane vs Tank vs Submarine” from their debut album from 2008 which gathered big applause from the sold out crowd that showed up early.  “Hum” had a nice distortion transition into “I Won’t Care How You Remember Me.” They finished strong with “Commit”, “Guardian” and “Anniversary” with lyrics which seem fitting for the ailing lead singer of the next band: