It’s always nice to discover new bands. I stumbled upon The Gaslight Anthem while scanning through AB‘s event calender. Although apparently they already played at one of Belgium’s biggest music festivals Rock Werchter this summer, they were totally new to me. After a quick listen on Myspace I bought a ticket for their concert and got all their music. A month or two later I went to Brussels and worked myself through the crowds of a completely sold out AB.

I only arrived just before The Gaslight Anthem was going to play and so I could forget finding a nice spot in the front. Even trying to get a bit closer to the centre was pretty much impossible so I decided to check out the balcony. At higher-energy-shows you just have to be in the pit so I never been up there before, but the view is actually pretty nice.

A minute or two later the show started. And they open with a little talk! Not run on stage and start their first song, no they calmly came on, grabbed their stuff and then said hi first. It was surprising, but kicked things of in a very nice way. It also struck me how well they play. I’m used to see bands getting a bit sloppy when playing live, but these guys know their stuff. Along with that the crowd was great as well. The great thing about club concerts is that every single head in the crowd comes out just to see these one or two bands which creates an amazing atmosphere. People sing along, the applause is huge after every song and you can feel the band enjoys it a lot too. Another great and rather surprising thing was that, a song or two from the end of their set, lead singer Brian Fallon made a deal with the crowd to not do the encore stuff. So in stead of wasting time on going of stage and then coming back on for another song they wanted to just play as much songs as they could before they would get shut down because of the curfew. Everyone loved it!

I really enjoyed seeing them live and as usual recommend you to check them out as well. They come from New Brunswick, New Jersey and play some nice old meets new (punk)rock. Have a listen on Myspace, check out their website and they even have a page on Wikipedia if you like to learn more.