For the better part of a decade now, Brian Fallon has played a handful of annual sold-out shows at Crossroads in the small New Jersey hamlet of Garwood. It’s not quite accurate to call them “hometown” shows, as Fallon doesn’t live in Garwood, although I’m fairly convinced that only like twelve people ACTUALLY live in Garwood (seriously, when I tell all my Jersey native but non-punk-scene friends that I travel to Garwood for shows, they unanimously say “there’s a place called Garwood?”) and it’s still north-central Jersey so it’s close enough. The shows sell out in virtually no time and it becomes a bit of an annual thing for people to take in two and three (and sometimes four) shows and it feels a little like catching Springsteen at the Stone Pony only for this generation. And while I’ve been traveling from Massachusetts to the aforementioned Crossroads (my favorite place to see shows) for years and while I’ve been seeing Fallon – both solo and with Gaslight Anthem – for even longer, this was the first time the two halves of that Venn Diagram overlapped in the middle.
Asbury Park trio Dentist kicked off the evening’s festivities in fine form. Dentist are a super fun band whose music is as catchy and enjoyable as it is hard to pin down thematically. It’s not quite power-pop and not quite surf-punk and not quite mainstream indie rock and yet it’s somehow kind of all of those things. Bright, jangly guitar lines and infectious basslines and pounding, ass-shaking drums all laying a foundation for Emily Bornemann’s airy, ethereal vocals. Super great band and I’m super glad I finally saw them.
That brings us to story time with Brian. Though Fallon puts together a different dozen-song playlist for each of the four shows on this “run,” there’s an overwhelming air of spontaneity involved. This night’s set kicked off with “Long Drives” from his 2016 solo debut album, Painkillers. Although, in fairness, it started with probably 7/8 minutes of off-the-cuff chatting about the evening and about his weekend and about whatever else before the music kicked in. But that’s part of a Brian Fallon show, and especially part of a Brian Fallon show in Jersey and ESPECIALLY a Brian Fallon show at Crossroads with Andy Diamond and all other manner of local friends and family in the building. It’s loosely-structured and generally humourous and always makes for an endearing and unique show.
From there, the setlist stayed pretty heavy on Painkillers tracks – 7 of the evening’s twelve songs, to be exact – including the title track and dueling gut punch songs that are “Red Lights” and show-closer “Smoke.” There were of course a few Gaslight staples; “Mae” and “Blue Jeans & White T-Shirts” and “Here’s Looking At You, Kid” – sprinkled in, the latter of which was preceded by a story about catching up years later via social media with “Gail’s” real-life sister. There was also a Horrible Crowes song (“Black Betty And The Moon”) for good measure. There was also a pretty funny retelling of a classic scene from the criminally underrated mockumentary Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.
Check out more pictures from both sets below, and honestly, if you’ve ever been toying with the idea of making the trek down to the Crossroads for one of Fallon’s annual hometown throwdown, just do it. Tell ’em the King of Massachusetts sent ya. You’ll be glad you did.
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