It’s not often that I find myself in a church. If I’m not there for a wedding then I’m probably there for a gig. I’ve been to Union Chapel, a fully functioning church and music venue in Islington, a couple of times for acoustic shows. The sound is incredible and the stained glass window backdrop is also pretty impressive – in my entirely atheist opinion. Gigs there are unlike anywhere else and so when Brian Fallon – frontman of my favourite band of all time, The Gaslight Anthem, and solo artist in his own right – announced that he would be doing an acoustic tour in the UK (and Europe) titled Songs From The Hymnal, I was quite keen. My parents, who I introduced to TGA years ago and are keen gig-goers themselves, were also keen so it was to be a lovely Prew family outing.
Union Chapel is a seated venue with a first-come-first-served system for its church pews. Mum insisted on queuing up outside half an hour or so before the doors opened to ensure we got a good spot. I’m not really used to queuing for shows anymore – you don’t have to at the NXI after all – but it wasn’t too cold and proved worthwhile when we got inside and claimed out seats. Another slightly different but lovely thing about gigs at Union Chapel is that they offer hot drinks. It felt like quite the novelty to have a mug (mug, not disposable cup!) of hot chocolate whilst waiting for the music to begin. I wouldn’t exchange my punk gigs in pubs for this sort of thing all the time but it was really nice as a one-off.
Joining Brian for all of the dates on the Songs From The Hymnal tour would be Craig Finn, most famously known as being the frontman and lyrical mastermind of American indie rock band The Hold Steady. The Hold Steady have always been a band that I’ve liked when I’ve listened to them but I’ve never properly got fully into any of their albums or developed the same love for them that I know many people, CPRW’s Richard included, have. That didn’t matter a great deal for Craig’s performance at Union Chapel since he mostly played songs from his solo releases anyway with just one Hold Steady track, Certain Songs. To succinctly describe Craig Finn’s music and performance style I would call him a ‘storyteller’ in the most literal sense. The opening song of his set, God In Chicago, was more of a spoken-word piece with some gentle guitar backing than your typical song. It was perhaps a little odd if you weren’t expecting it – and I wasn’t – but it certainly held my attention. I preferred the songs that had a bit more melody behind them but the storytelling element was definitely a great feature of his performance. I actually heard someone behind me say ‘They were just stories, not songs’ in a negative manner after Craig’s set, which I found quite amusing and ironic since they’d come to see Brian Fallon – king of storytelling both in his songs and live performance ramblings.
Obviously, I’ve probably said it a hundred times on this blog, I absolutely adore The Gaslight Anthem and owe them a hell of a lot for getting me into the music I am into today. Because of this, TGA songs will always be my favourite Brian Fallon output but, that said, I have really enjoyed his solo offerings since the band ceased to be as well. I was looking forward to hearing a mixture of all things Fallon played in such an intimate and special setting and I was certainly not disappointed, nor was anyone else! Just walking onto the stage, it was clear how loved this man was by the audience’s rapturous applause. It was a particularly loud reaction for the church setting but thankfully people went quiet when Brian picked up his acoustic guitar and opened with his first song, Long Drives from his first solo album Painkillers. There’s nothing worse than people talking during an acoustic act! As I expected, the setlist consisted of a combination of Brian’s more recent solo material and a handful of Gaslight songs. It was great to hear Wherefore Art Thou, Elvis?, from the 2008 EP Señor & The Queen, get a rare outing as well as an old fan-favourite solo tune, The Blues, Mary. Brian told us how he often gets requests to play the latter live and the only reason he hadn’t until then was because he’d forgotten about it. I hadn’t – I’ve got it in my iTunes library from ten years ago! This being Brian Fallon, there was of course stories a’plenty in between songs, often ending without a conclusion because he forgot where he was going with a particular anecdote – it added some unintentional comedy to the evening. At TGA shows, I would sometimes find Brian’s rambling a little annoying but in this setting it added to the whole experience. Perhaps because it was just Brian and his guitar, it felt more natural. Actually it wasn’t just Brian and his guitar because for a couple of songs – I don’t recall which specifically – he swapped his guitar for an electric piano, as if things weren’t magical enough already. Hearing songs such as Smoke, Among Other Foolish Things and A Wonderful Life live again reminded me how good an album Painkillers was, while Etta James and See You On The Other Side prompt me that I really should listen to last year’s follow-up Sleepwalkers some more. My love for Brian Fallon never went away – I saw The Gaslight Anthem play The ’59 Sound (the best album of all time) in full less than a year ago – but after watching him at Union Chapel I have a new level of appreciation for everything that he does and has done for those that love his music, me included.
I love Brian Fallon and everything he does.
This gig review was written by Emma Prew.
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