The Gaslight Anthem, The '59 Sound anniversary tour, Eventim Apollo, Manchester - review

The standing floor is in perpetual motion and you can tell why: the group gleefully tear through the ramshackle likes of ‘Great Expectations’ in a manner that suggests that they’ve genuinely missed these songs

(Rex)

“The big thing between us was let’s just do what’s fun. So if it’s heavy-handed and not that cool, then let’s not do it.”

Those were Brian Fallon’s words to Rolling Stone back in February, when he was discussing the reasoning behind resurrecting The Gaslight Anthem for a summer tour that would see them revisit their best-loved, breakthrough record The ’59 Sound.

The New Jersey four-piece have been on ice for the past three years, calling an indefinite hiatus after their last full-length, 2014’s muddled and overblown Get Hurt, which chronicled Fallon’s then-recent divorce. There was a sense, at the time, that perhaps The Gaslight Anthem had done all they needed to.

It wasn’t a suggestion that Fallon railed against. “I don’t have anything to say with Gaslight,’ he told The Independent earlier this year. “Those five records, that’s what you got. That’s the piece.”

It makes sense, then, that if there’s no forward trajectory for the band to follow – if those albums really are our lot – that they should revisit The ’59 Sound.

It still stands up, 10 years on. There’s always been a committed Gaslight following in Manchester, and the idea that this airing of their most popular LP might have attracted a fair few casuals is swiftly shot down by the full-throated roar that greets the opening handful of tracks, which includes big-hitting singles (“Handwritten”) and deep cuts (“Old Haunts”, “The Spirit of Jazz”).

There’s further electricity still when they rip into The ’59 Sound’s breakneck opening salvo. The standing floor is in perpetual motion and you can tell why: the group gleefully tear through the ramshackle likes of “Great Expectations”, the title track and “Miles Davis & The Cool” in a manner that suggests that they’ve genuinely missed these songs.

“Meet Me by the River’s Edge”, “Old White Lincoln” and “Film Noir” crackle with that Springsteen-meets-The Clash energy that they never captured quite as well as they did here. Beneath it all, confession, from the sweetly lovesick “Casanova, Baby!” to the epic closer, “The Backseat”, which laments the difficulty of finding your own place in America. It feels timely.

There are no intervals or encores tonight, so once The ’59 Sound is done and dusted, it’s straight into a grab-bag of more recent material. Mixed fortunes ensue. “We Came to Dance”, from their 2007 debut Sink or Swim, is a lovely touch. “45” and “Howl”, both from 2012’s Handwritten, suggest that record’s highs were as close as they’ve come to The ’59 Sound since The ’59 Sound.

The evening’s meandering two tracks from Get Hurt, though – “Halloween” and “Underneath the Ground” – serve as a stinging reminder that Gaslight perhaps called it a day one album too late. “Too Much Blood” and “Biloxi Parish” are both heartland-by-numbers. Even a chaotic to the point of messy closing rendition of “American Slang” ends up feeling a touch anticlimactic.

The ’59 Sound still sparkles, but the dark clouds that were gathering over the band’s future in 2015 have yet to disperse. If nothing else, they still clearly love their catalogue, their fans, and each other. Maybe that’ll be enough.