A half-full venue didn’t deter the Gaslight Anthem at the Black Sheep last week. Photos and text by .
are a study in contrasts: young earnest faces (broken frequently by wide smiles), paired with the tattoo-covered arms of convicts. A rabble-rousing punk urgency that’s heavily influenced by old-fashioned soul and blues. It’s an explosive blend that connected viscerally with a wide variety of folks in the Colorado Springs audience last Thursday night — from meaty guys with tattooed necks to the underage crowd with black Xs on their wildly pumping fists, and everyone in between.
When they took the stage at , there were some familiar faces in the audience. Previous jaunts through Colorado saw this Jersey band sharing billing with Denver groups such as the now-defunct , and several members drove down to the cinderblock club on Platte Avenue to watch their former stage-mates rocking their pure hearts out.
“I love coming to shows here,” said Matty — and we agreed. It felt like our hidden secret. We rocked while the city slept. ( in Denver sold out in a venue twice the size.)
The Gaslight Anthem has come a long way since their last stops in Colorado. Recent weeks have been abuzz with rumors that they’ve been tapped to open a major tour (lips are tight on exactly whose — Green Day? Pearl Jam?) and they’re playing London’s Hyde Park with none other than Bruce Springsteen. But Thursday night in Colorado Springs, the oddly detached music scene was a blessing to those of us who descended on the Black Sheep to find a half-full club. Regardless of tickets sold, these four guys gave it their all in an incendiary set.
There is feeling of the earnest, timeless quality of rock ‘n’ roll that permeates the Gaslight Anthem’s music. I’m often leery of bands rife with so many references to “classic Americana” in their songs (blue jeans, white T-shirts, hi-top sneakers, sailor tattoos), but Gaslight transcends a rote re-telling of past musical generations. Instead, their music feels urgent and important, new but speaking a language we all still very much want to understand and believe in.
The band brings an undeniable energy to the stage, despite years full of touring. It’s that vibrancy that the crowd connects with — and not just from frontman Brian Fallon, with his heart-out singing and furious guitar work. It’s also refracted back in the barely-contained pogoing of guitarist Alex Rosamilia, drummer Benny Horowitz’s emotive grins as he ably electrifies the percussion and the lithe rhythms of bassist Alex Levine. They are, in short, a delight to watch on stage.
During the encore, Fallon led us all in the admonitions to “Let it out, let it out, let it out… you’re doin’ alright.” In those moments of rock ‘n’ roll catharsis, it seemed like all of us felt we were doing better than just alright.
Ohio-bred band opened the night with a set that knocked me off my axis. Singer Erika Wennerstrom can’t be more than five feet tall in her classy alligator-skin heels, but she has the voice of a giant twice that size. It is unbelievable the power in her voice, as if she is summoning it from somewhere beyond the ranges of mere mortals.
She howls and wails over the Bastards’ thick blues rock with a voice in the league of Janis Joplin and Robert Plant. Their impressive 2009 album “The Mountain” is their third on the Mississippi blues label Fat Possum (R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion). The immense weight of this band alone could have carried the evening.
Heather Browne is the Colorado Springs-based editor of the music blog and a regular contributor to Reverb.
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