Gaslight Anthem and Dave Hause at U Street Music Hall, July 20, 2012

Gaslight Anthem, U Street Music Hall, 7-20-12

Brian, his wife Julia, my husband Eric and a few of our friends all went together to the Gaslight Anthem in July. It was a "gift to fans" sort of concert - a tiny venue that holds no more than 500, when they could easily sell out a 2000 person venue.

The opener, Dave Hause, used a ton of profanity for no clear reason, and had an earnest, downtrodden working-stiff vibe to his music. It made sense as an opener, but I didn't love him.

The crowd was crazy about Gaslight Anthem. I heard one 20-something man gushing as he geeked out with a fellow fan about how they changed his life. The music was fun - I danced to a lot of it, but I was again disappointed by the sound quality at U Street. The music was played well, but I really couldn't make out the lyrics over the instruments. (Brian called it "tight, but not right.") And whenever the lead singer got chatty, it sounded mumbled. Eric thinks it was where I was standing - off to the side near the entrance bar. He was in the middle near the mosh pit (or at least the extremely enthusiastic dancing men), and he claims he had no problem understanding the conversational parts. I bailed  from that location as soon as large men started slamming into each other. Brian commented that he was expecting more Springstein-channeling and was pleasantly surprised when they seemed Social Distortion-esque for many songs. He's absolutely right that they seemed harder-edged live than I ever would have guessed. Good, though.

I was actually surprised by their lack of concern with their appearance. They did not look rock-star to me. They looked lazy slob, getting fat on too much pizza and beer. I have them plugged into a "rock star" category in my mind, which was sort of wrong.

Verdict:
Not interested in seeing them again.