The Gaslight Anthem & Heartless Bastards at Bottom Lounge
The Gaslight Anthem: Could they be from anywhere but Jersey?
While consensus dictates that The Hold Steady is indie rock's premier bro-down band, Friday night's show at Bottom Lounge hinted the title could be in jeopardy. At the West Loop club, dudes, bros, and brahs came together over rising indie-punk band The Gaslight Anthem, still touring behind last year's acclaimed album, The '59 Sound. Arms around shoulders, fingers and fists in the air, dudes (and some ladies) sang along with "Here's Looking At You, Kid," "Great Expectations," "The '59 Sound," "High Lonesome," and more.
The Gaslight Anthem made such bonhomie easy—and not just because singer-guitarist Brian Fallon obviously loves Chicago. (He talked about his recurring urges to move here after the first song of the encore, "Blue Jeans & White T-Shirts.") The New Jersey group plays soulful, punky roots-rock that makes its Springsteen influence plain, not unlike The Hold Steady—and like that band's singer-guitarist Craig Finn, Fallon has a knack for storytelling in his lyrics. He doesn't spin the same literate tales of drug- and booze-addled Midwestern ennui, but they're similarly relatable—and perfect for the atmosphere of an intimate rock club like the Bottom Lounge.
While Gaslight mostly focused on The '59 Sound, the album that's shaping up to be its breakthrough, the older fans in the audience reacted especially vocally to tracks from the band's 2007 debut, Sink Or Swim, including "Boomboxes And Dictionaries," "The Navesink Banks," and "I'da Called You Woody, Joe," which closed Gaslight's two-song encore and the show.
Heartless Bastards set the blue-collar vibe of the night before Gaslight, touring in support of their new third album, The Mountain. The band is based around the voice of singer-guitarist Erika Wennerstrom, whose whiskey-and-cigarettes croon seems mismatched for her petite frame. So it wasn't jarring at all that Wennerstrom left her native Ohio for Austin after breaking up with longtime boyfriend (and HB bassist Mike Lamping). In a new city, she wrote a new record and recruited some old Cincinnati friends to round out the rhythm section.
Although The Mountain has elicited critical acclaim, the band's mid-tempo bar-rock tended to blur together, at least during the first half of the set. The new album's title track was a highlight, as was set-closer "Gray," from Heartless Bastards' 2004 debut, Stairs And Elevators.
Still, the crowd was there for Gaslight, who once again justified the buzz. Chicago proved lucky, too; the band postponed its Saturday-night show in Minneapolis due to illness. They'll be back soon enough—and chances are in a venue bigger than the Bottom Lounge.
