The Gaslight Anthem and Ladyhawk at High Noon Saloon
Lisa Johnson
The Gaslight Anthem
The Gaslight Anthem's set at the High Noon Wednesday night was soaked in an echo. Not the echo of an empty club, but the opposite: The echo of dozens of people belting out just about every lyric along with the New Jersey band's lead singer, Brian Fallon. For anyone who'd just recently picked up on them (Decider included) by way of the bittersweet soul on their recent album The '59 Sound, Fallon and pals blasted out a reminder that they're a punk band first.
Even tunes like '59's "Miles Davis And The Cool" turned louder and harder, building that lonely chorus into a shared, sweaty outburst: "Don't wait too long to come home, I will leave the front light on." As his own words came back at him, Fallon really seemed to take time savoring them. He almost looked as if he were singing to himself in that rusty-resonant voice: Half the action onstage was in his eyebrows, fluttering and crunching up in time with the tunes.
The set began with the new album's first track, "Great Expectations," but spent at least as much time on songs from last year's Sink Or Swim. Between rousing singalongs came tunes like the quiet, tragic "The Navesink Banks," on which drummer Benny Horowitz put aside his drumsticks and rustled his snare drum with bare hands. This being a band from Jersey, Fallon inevitably met one or two other Jersey people in the crowd and chatted with them about places in Jersey that us non-Jersey folks hadn't heard of. Fallon even told a story about how Bruce Springsteen used to live around the corner from his mother and flirtatiously slap her on the ass. Whether it's true or not, Fallon does a hysterical, exaggerated "I'm the Boss!" voice. And yes, that's only between songs: The influence is obvious in Fallon's vocals, but he knows where to draw the line of good taste.
Ladyhawk's opening set wasn't a bad match, but the two bands clearly enjoyed different crowds. The Vancouver group has been through town several times in the past couple of years and has its bunch of Madison devotees, who mostly hung back a few feet from the stage and nodded contentedly to unassuming rockers like "In The Dugout" and "I'll Be Your Ashtray." Ladyhawk's set was noisy and meaty as always, but for once it was their turn to get outdone.
