Do you have one of those bands that you love to go see? Those bands that if they’re touring, you’re going? Those bands that without them knowing, have become a sound track to the important moments of your life? Well, we do. it’s The Gaslight Anthem.
Let me take you back to late 2008, it’s evening, I’m driving home from work or somewhere, in my Polo, and this song, old White Lincoln comes on the radio. And I love it. But I had no idea who it was by, and because it’s 2008 and it’s a VW Polo, it’s not a DAB radio, and then they didn’t say who it was, just went onto something else. So it was one of those moments where you have to remember the lyrics until you get home, or to a traffic light, and google it because you need to know what it is.
Fast forward a few months and Jim and I have started dating, but you know, casually because I’m being stand-offish and dumb. And I’m listening to the GLA album, The 59 Sound a lot. And as a surprise Jim books tickets to go see them in Manchester. It was kind of our first big, on the road together, date. And even though it was just to Manchester, the first gig with someone is something you don’t forget.
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| (Photo from NME – we weren’t that close and my camera of choice at the time was a holga!) |
Then, later that year, they played Glastonbury, and excitedly we stood there in the John Peel tent and watched Bruce Springsteen come on stage with them. And the year after we saw them on the pyramid stage too.
There have been gigs just the two of us, gigs with groups of friends, gigs where we don’t remember going home afterwards. There have been surprise trips to London to see their last show as a band gigs. There have been gigs in Vancouver that just happened to fall when we were there. There have been trips to Brian Fallon solo shows on his UK tours, and another when we were in Boston. We’ve streamed new albums on drives across America, and sung loudly to old songs in small venues.
There have now been 2 gigs with a heavily pregnant Jane. She is yet to announce the name of the second child, but when he is born, I imagine he will be called Brian.
There have also been two gigs at the start of different cancer treatments for me. November 2016 saw us seeing Brian Fallon in Leeds 2 days before my first chemotherapy. This month has seen us going to his new tour, as I am about to start another slog of cancer treatment. And there most certainly wasn’t a moment, during the slow jams at the end where I shed a few tears at the ridiculously crapness of facing it all again.
And on this year’s none negotiable to miss because of cancer list, The 10 years tour of The 59 Sound. Because if any band has been there for the last 10 years of our lives as much as this one, I can’t think of them, and I’m not missing out on seeing them perform as a band again for something as shit as cancer!