Live Review | Gaslight Anthem & The Scandals | O2 Academy Glasgow

Glasgow’s O2 Academy became a little slice of New Jersey, USA recently when the Gaslight Anthem’s tour rolled into town.

Accompanying them was punk rock band The Scandals, who also hail from the small Northeastern state.

The Scandals have close ties with the headliners; guitarist Anthony Iarossi used to play in a band with Gaslight frontman Brian Fallon and Fallon has produced the band’s forthcoming EP. The two also worked on a digital EP in 2014, which was released via Red Bull Sounds Select.

The four-piece have been taking their punk rock show on the road since 2004 and the time they’ve spent honing their craft certainly showed in their solid performance. The audience was appreciative of their emotive, spirited sound from the off, but the real fun started when the band pulled out some of their punkier, more aggressive tracks, kicking the energy in the venue up a notch.

By the end of the short set, the audience were most definitely on side and a quick scroll through the band’s Twitter mentions over the course of the tour reveals many new fans.

The O2 Academy has played host to the Gaslight Anthem on a number of occasions now and the Glasgow crowd were in fine voice as usual.

Powering through a 28 song set list partially chosen by fans via Twitter and heavily weighted in favour of albums ‘The ’59 Sound’ and ‘Handwritten’, the band was on great form despite Brian Fallon’s late night before.

A triple whammy of ‘The ’59 Sound‘, ‘American Slang‘ and ‘The Backseat’ brought the set to what appeared to be the close before the band launched into old favourite ‘We’re Getting a Divorce, You Keep the Diner‘, bringing The Scandals singer Jared Hart out to take over the vocals which he did brilliantly, before ending up in somewhere in the audience with the microphone.




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