esper
Clever Kid
Posts: 112
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Post by esper on Jul 29, 2013 20:39:12 GMT -5
Awesome show. Great crowd. The rain was actually kinda nice. I left before the Gaslight Anthem came on but someone at the Tribeca Tavern after the show ended told me about Fallon's strange remarks...sounded awkward.
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Post by Fine Malt Lyrics on Jul 29, 2013 21:56:50 GMT -5
One band looked and sounded like they were having fun, the other didn't. Any guesses?
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Post by Rattlesnake Gospel on Jul 29, 2013 23:07:54 GMT -5
I'm admittedly a fan of both bands, and yet still pose the question: why the hell would the hold steady EVER be poised as the opener for gaslight anthem and not the other way around?
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Post by melrosewoody on Jul 30, 2013 6:06:42 GMT -5
Super set as all have mentioned! Was just pure joy start to end. Was on the rail for THS then bailed and went by soundboard for GA so not sure what pissed Fallon off so much, but wasn't pretty. Several of the revelations that came to me during and after the show in no particular order: 1) Standing in the rain is soooo much more enjoyable with a beer in your hand watching the best band in the land crank out the best rock and roll there is. 2) You meet the nicest people on the rail at a THS show. 3) I should always allow plenty of time to line up early enough to be up front with all the other music freaks. 4) There is nothing better in this world than jumping around with your son to Stay Positive or Hoodrat 5) These sing along songs are indeed my scriptures. 6) I now see why Camie had been throwing confetti for all this time, pure joy indeed. Thanks Camie! Hope to see some of you at Shindig
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Post by doctoracula on Jul 30, 2013 7:31:02 GMT -5
I've always thought GA seemed douchey, but this recent quote from Brian Fallon cements it. This is re: cover requests
I'm asking that if anyone would like to come to [our] show, please come because you want to see what we're doing on that night. Don't come to hear a cover, it probably won't happen. Don't come to yell at me when I'm trying to share something with the audience to reach out to them about something I feel is moving me.
For some reason I'm the one with microphone, which may be a mistake entirely. But if you want one and have something to say, please start a band, get in the van, sleep on floors, and work your butt off and maybe one day I'll find your band and I'll come see you play.
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Post by crimenotes on Jul 30, 2013 9:34:40 GMT -5
I just can't sympathize with your rock and roll problems, Brian Fallon.
Also, he invited and triggered this awkwardness when he started scolding people for not digging Lady Gaga. Thought that it was all in good fun and joking around until I read his emo tumblr post.
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Post by hoodrat on Jul 30, 2013 9:54:18 GMT -5
I just can't sympathize with your rock and roll problems, Brian Fallon. +1
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Post by dealwiththedealers on Jul 30, 2013 10:46:18 GMT -5
Fallon should be honored, not whiney and pissed, that his band is compared to Bruce. A horrible comparison IMO, but learn to take a compliment.
When this happened, I couldn't help but think of the huge contrast between Fallon's blog post and this gem that Craig wrote in the midst of the HiW tour:
During our time as The Hold Steady, I've made a lot in interviews and onstage monologues about what little ambition we had when we started this band. We weren't sure if we would play shows or release records. We had seriously managed expectations. But in the end, we did end up playing shows and releasing records, and we are better people for it. We've seen a lot of the world, met a ton of great people, and played a whole bunch of rock and roll music. Our efforts have been rewarded beyond our wildest dreams. It's not exactly a mind-blowing statement when I say that this is the best job I've ever had. That said, there are sacrifices and discomfort that come with this territory: busted relationships, distance from family, physical exhaustion, disconnection from civilian life, ringing ears, interminable waiting around, trying to get through a ninety minute show when you have food poisoning, etc.
Our new record, Heaven is Whenever, is about struggle and reward. It's about accepting suffering as a necessary part of a joyous life. It's about how love can help us rise above these struggles. It's about faith. It's about how bad it hurts to settle for less. It's about not being scared to try. It's about four guys who still believe in the power and glory of rock and roll. Because even after a thousand soundchecks, a thousand load-in and load-outs, fifty missed birthdays, and a few hundred electrical shocks, our reward still vastly outweighs the struggle. In fact, the reward would not exist without the struggle. Thus, this struggle is inherently part of the reward. And in this way, the fantasy of playing rock and roll for a living is a lot like real life.
It's hard to pinpoint when we started making this record, but I think the genesis was when Tad was doing a score for a film in early 2009. He started laying down some song ideas in the studio and sharing them with us. I started writing lyrics and at one point we even set up a makeshift studio in the back of our tour bus to record demo vocals. We spent our down time in the Summer of 2009 making demos in our rehearsal space. Songs started to pile up, and it was time to hit a proper studio and start making an album.
We tapped Dean Baltulonis to produce the record. Dean had produced our record Separation Sunday and is an old friend. We headed upstate to Dreamland Studios in West Hurley, NY. Isolated and surrounded by amazing Autumn beauty, we spent two weeks living on site, playing music, drinking beer, and standing around the grill. We hit a few things that we had already demoed, but also jammed on a lot of new stuff. One memorable night is captured on the last song on the album "A Slight Discomfort". Tad did a few guitar tracks out on the front lawn that night, and you can hear the chorus of crickets chirping from the surrounding trees as the record draws to a close. We also talked our friend John Reis into coming out from San Diego and jamming with us for a few days. He played a bit of guitar on the record and helped write the song "Rock Problems".
After we left Dreamland we hit the road for a little bit, which gave us the opportunity to try out new songs in front of an audience. When we returned to Brooklyn, we hit our rehearsal space with a vengeance. We reworked some of the new stuff and wrote even more. We soon repaired to Wild Arctic Studios in Queens. We've done a lot of work at Wild Arctic in the past and it's a very comfortable place for us. We did a number of shorter sessions at Wild Arctic throughout the Fall and Winter of 2009. The record was starting to come together.
We broke for Xmas and wrapped up recording in January 2010. We began mixing and faced the usual heartbreaking decisions about which songs would and would not make the record. We mixed and remixed. We sequenced and resequenced. Finally, we turned it in, about six months after we started. It felt good to be done, but it also felt good to know that our time and perseverance had paid great dividends. I think we made something that is both different than our previous releases, yet unmistakably a creation of The Hold Steady.
Heaven is Whenever is our fifth full length release. This is both cool and a cause to stop and think, as there are some inherent truths in any fifth record. For one, the band has to stay together long enough to last through the first four. Secondly, an audience has to be interested enough to encourage the band to make album number five. And third, the band still has to have something to say that it feels that it hasn't said before.
I just went through my record collection to see how many bands I love never made it to a fifth record. I realized that most of the bands that mean the most to me had indeed made it through five and sometimes beyond: Led Zeppelin, The Clash, Thin Lizzy, REM, Creedence, etc. In some ways, album five implies a commitment and dedication and a realization that the band's success is not a fluke, and that it's not going anywhere. Albums like Physical Graffiti, Combat Rock, Fighting, Document, and Cosmo's Factory are all fifth records that show their creators confident and brimming with new ideas. In many cases, peaking. While I am not going to compare our record to any of these masterpieces by my rock and roll deities, I am proud to unveil Heaven is Whenever and add it to our body of work. Five records in seven years. Not bad.
The title of this record comes from a lyric in the song "We Can Get Together", which states "Heaven is whenever/We can get together." In the end, that might say it best. The most amazing part of this life is the opportunity to share music with a supportive audience. It is not lost on us that people make sacrifices of their own to see us perform. They spend money on tickets and travel, they get baby sitters, they take time off work. It's an honor for us to be a recipient of this kind of dedication. So when we say Heaven is Whenever, we mean that the greatest of rewards is our privilege of being able to tour and share our music and our lives with yours.
-- Craig Finn
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Camie
Midnight Hauler
Posts: 1,093
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Post by Camie on Jul 30, 2013 18:03:59 GMT -5
I am a fan of Gaslight Anthem too... but,
The problem with how Fallon handled what was going on was incredibly simple. First he bashes the crowd for not knowing Lady Gaga - which in all seriousness, your crowd is a bunch of Hold Steady and Gaslight Anthem fans... not the best Lady Gaga group (I like her, I knew the lyrics, but I am also a woman who teaches and coaches teenage girls... I would be disowned if I didn't know Gaga lyrics)
So you now have fans thinking WTF so what I don't know Gaga... then he does Vanilla Ice... which if you are not old enough... no one is going to know as well (the younger part of that crowd had no fucking idea what was going on here). Then he starts talking about Bon Jovi.... this is when the crowd started yelling for Bruce.... which is perfectly reasonable. Brian Fallon - your band, The Gaslight Anthem has been compared to Bruce Springsteen for years. You are a band from NJ... you're going to be compared to Springsteen. You never seemed to complain before about being compared to Springsteen when it WAS IN YOUR BEST INTEREST. That comparison is one of the reasons you and your band got to where they are today. No one on Sunday was expecting Bruce to be there... You were talking about SING ALONG SONGS... The crowd that was there KNOWS Springsteen songs... you would have had an AWESOME sing along. Instead, you get BUTT HURT because people were making a valid comparison/request and it wasn't what you wanted to hear. Yes, you are the man with the microphone.. SO FUCKING USE IT. Don't let the crowd overpower your mic.. because with how high they were turned up at that show, we would have heard what you wanted to say.
Be the man in this situation. Tell people to shut up for a second, and finish your statement/thought whatever. It's seriously not that big of a deal. I didn't show up to see you cover anyone... in fact, you were the one who BROUGHT COVERS UP. I was content with you playing GASLIGHT ANTHEM songs, since you know.. I PAID ~ $50 to see the Hold Steady open for THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM.
Wow.. that was a pretty bad rant... Brian Fallon... take a lesson from Craig Finn - Go up on stage to HAVE FUN. Because it seriously resonates to the crowd when you are up on stage having fun, rather than getting upset because 2% of the crowd asks for something you don't want to do. Say no and move on.
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nowah
Sniffling Indie Kid
Posts: 226
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Post by nowah on Jul 30, 2013 21:54:09 GMT -5
The first time I ever bothered to listen to the Gaslight Anthem was when the Internet all gathered to rejoice them covering Hot Water Music's Trusty Chords in the Hold Steady's native Minneapolis circa 2009. Didn't like it then, still don't like it. Camie hit the nail on the head - Fallon has always loved being compared to Bruce and loves playing cover songs when it's going to get the band some exposure. They probably just didn't have anything memorized that they could toss off and top Stickles singing Cattle and the Creeping Things.
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Post by doctoracula on Jul 30, 2013 22:44:42 GMT -5
the horribly condescending tone of the last line of Fallon's post is the worst. "oh, go work really hard and maybe i'll come see your band someday." who the fuck does he think he is? he rode a tired shtick to semi-stardom and now wants to complain. boo fucking hoo.
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Post by dealwiththedealers on Jul 30, 2013 23:15:16 GMT -5
+1 to all. Writing what Fallon wrote after you've just played to thousands of enthusiastic hometown fans means you've really lost perspective. And it doesn't help that your band is overrated as fuck, too.
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Post by mikeflynn on Jul 30, 2013 23:44:12 GMT -5
I love Gaslight but have really noticed a change in Brian's attitude as well over the past couple years. He gets irritated way too easily at people yelling from the crowd. In Seattle last summer someone yelled "You rock!" and he thought they said "You suck!" and wasted a ton of time ranting about it. It was really cringe-worthy.
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Post by Rattlesnake Gospel on Jul 31, 2013 10:34:22 GMT -5
Is Gaslight even worth seeing? I enjoy their records but I've seen videos online from different venues and tours and they don't seem like a band whose sound translates well live. Don't know what it is, just always sounds thin or something, but it's always kept me from seeing them.
seconding what nowah said, i remember when the band posted live cover videos on their own website. i specifically remember "the weight" and "left of the dial" and fallon himself doing some kelly clarkson song. if you don't want people to ask for covers you probably shouldn't make it known that your band enjoys playing them.
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Post by dealwiththedealers on Jul 31, 2013 11:18:07 GMT -5
Here's a video of the incident that shows how much of a prick Fallon was being. If you want to see only the Bruce stuff, start around 1:42 (and especially 2:52), but watching the whole thing helps give the incident more context. This is one of the most immature, arrogant, contradictory things I've ever seen a frontman do to a HOMETOWN audience that just stood in the rain for 4 hours and was singing along passionately to every song in the set before this occurred.
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Post by dealwiththedealers on Jul 31, 2013 11:26:35 GMT -5
The best part of this is that TGA closed their set with Baba O'Riley... LOL!
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iterate
Sniffling Indie Kid
Don't know all the lyrics, but I hit the key words.
Posts: 189
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Post by iterate on Jul 31, 2013 12:59:40 GMT -5
Goddamn. It turned around at like 1:50.
The short version: "What do you want to hear?" "Bruce." "No. Fuck you."
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iterate
Sniffling Indie Kid
Don't know all the lyrics, but I hit the key words.
Posts: 189
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Post by iterate on Jul 31, 2013 13:08:34 GMT -5
thegaslightanthem.tumblr.com/post/56760955507/7-28-13-tonight-you-have-broken-my-heartThis is probably the most painful thing I've ever read. Not only are its contents whiny and entitled and atrocious, but it's actually just -poorly written.- There are SIGNIFICANT GRAMMATICAL ERRORS. I don't know how he can make his living writing songs (songs that garner comparison to Bruce and to Craig) and still actually release such a ramshackle pile of spiteful bile. "To the spiteful reviewers… just remember no one’s singing for you." WOW. God I don't like this guy. This is ridiculous.
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Post by delboydrums on Jul 31, 2013 18:50:38 GMT -5
Wow.
Just watched the clip and read Fallon's post.
What a tool this man has turned into.
I loved the first TGA album (the next two - less so) for what it was - hugely Bruce influenced. In fact, so Bruce influenced / themed that I was initially unsure if it was a parody, homage or just an unsubtle rip off.
After seeing and reading about some clearly mutual admiration between Fallon and Bruce (esp. at Glastonbury), I was happy that this was a heartfelt tribute and also just good fun energetic rock n roll (even if TGA lacked the lyrical genius of Bruce or CF).
For me, it was reading in the likes of Q Magazine "if you like Springsteen, try these" that led me to both TGA and THS - I suspect many others came to Fallon's music in a similar way.
For a man whose band, in their first album, were happy to reference "Sandy" "Johnny" "Mary" "Bobby Jean" "No Surrender" (the last two in the same line!), Ferris wheels, boardwalks and "at night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet", Mr. Fallon's got a damn cheek.
He could learn a lot from the joy, humility and sheer stagecraft of CF.
Brian Fallon really needs to remember who's coat-tails he rode to get this far.
Rant over.
I'm off to not wear my TGA T-shirt.
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nowah
Sniffling Indie Kid
Posts: 226
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Post by nowah on Jul 31, 2013 19:16:27 GMT -5
seeing and reading about some clearly mutual admiration between Fallon and Bruce (esp. at Glastonbury) +1 My jaw seriously dropped listening to Fallon talk about how that was "[his] awesome thing, not yours," bragging that Bruce has played guitar with TGA (when the cries of "Bruce!" were plainly NOT the crowd still referencing when the Boss slummed with them at Glastonbury, what, five years ago?).
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iterate
Sniffling Indie Kid
Don't know all the lyrics, but I hit the key words.
Posts: 189
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Post by iterate on Jul 31, 2013 23:15:16 GMT -5
He could learn a lot from the joy, humility and sheer stagecraft of CF. Yeah let's all take a moment to appreciate the fact that our heroes aren't assholes (at least not publicly;I can't speak to their depths).
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Admin
Midnight Hauler
Posts: 2,434
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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2013 0:16:18 GMT -5
Not really down with Gaslight. Had a decent second album, and I haven't really liked (or can remember) anything after that.
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Admin
Midnight Hauler
Posts: 2,434
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Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2013 0:18:23 GMT -5
Is Gaslight even worth seeing? No.
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Post by hoodrat on Aug 1, 2013 8:21:55 GMT -5
Is Gaslight even worth seeing? No. eh, i've been to see them a couple of times and thought it was fun, but not mindblowing. if you liked the albums, you would probably like the shows. at least if brian wasn't wallowing in his own awkward douchiness that night.
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Post by dealwiththedealers on Aug 1, 2013 11:09:11 GMT -5
I declare July 28 "Craig Finn Appreciation Day" in honor of this debacle.
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