Brian Fallon kicked off his UK tour in style at Concorde 2 with his touring band The Crowes, in a lively and vibrant set comprised of songs both new and old. He has previously said that he initially felt worried at touring away from his regular band, following last year's indefinite hiatus of The Gaslight Anthem – one of the biggest rock bands of the last decade. He told Rolling Stone magazine in March, “it’s all on you (when you’re solo), there’s no shield” but those worries must surely now be behind him following the warm reception to his first solo album Painkillers and a series of sold-out shows around the world.

He recently commented that he had learnt to relax about his performances and his craft generally, and that he was, “fortunate to be doing it a second time, a lot of people only get one chance.” That vibe was evident both onstage and behind the scenes, as you got a real sense of warmth, togetherness and friendship from this band throughout. Even the support act was an old friend and fellow Gaslight Anthem member, guitarist Alex Rosamilia, performing as Dead Swords. On record, Rosamilia’s solo work on the Skeleton EP has a lo-fi Jesus And Mary Chain feel, but the sound when he plays live becomes a different and noisier beast altogether. His voice was drowned out at first by the fuzz of his guitar, taking a few songs to move past that and hear the melodies beneath. When they surface, the JAMC elements swirl with sounds from Pixies, and on one track in particular, Monster-era Peter Buck. The sound that Dead Swords creates and Rosamilia’s low-key stage presence are so different to Fallon, it felt like the audience was in danger of being lost but a sublime last two songs pulled them back and the set ended in triumph.

As the anticipation built for the entrance of one of rock’s most recognisable frontmen, and certainly the owner of one of it’s most distinctive voices, the crowd began to chant Fallon's name and sing favourite Gaslight Anthem songs. As the lights dipped and Fallon and his 5-piece Crowes band joined the stage, the roar was deafening. There is always a fascination when a member of a famous group goes solo as to whether they will rely on the back catalogue of their previous acts’ songs, but the quality of Fallon’s new solo work makes it an irrelevant point. Starting with the title track to Painkillers, he instantly bared his soul to the audience with heartfelt lyrics such as “We want love like it was a drug, all we wanted was a little relief” and “every heart I held in between, they were painkillers to me”. It is this willingness to give himself fully to the audience lyrically that has made him the icon that he is, alongside his irresistible stage presence. Quick to smile both to the crowd and with the band, he also shows a great joy in including everyone in all of the band in-jokes. Blasting through four Painkillers tracks in a row and culminating in the Johnny Cash beat of ‘Red Lights’, the audience were left breathless. While songs from his Gaslight peak are left out, tracks from his 'other' other band The Horrible Crowes played to a rapturous reception.

After The Horrible Crowes anthem ‘Sugar’, a member of the audience yelled out thanks to Fallon. In a characteristic moment, Fallon deflected it by stating that he shouldn’t be thanked, “I do this every day anyway, you guys need thanking for coming along to watch.” Following that with a rant on the state of his home country, the New Jersey resident said that at least now his country was finally pissed off enough to take action, and dedicated the next song ‘Black Betty & The Moon’ to a "traitor of another kind." Whoever that was must feel uneasy at being compared to Donald Trump. It is only on the next song, a third of the way into the set, that the relentless pace of Fallon and the Crowes drops and they play more mellow and acoustic tracks. They include the first Gaslight track of the night, ‘Wherefore Art Thou Elvis?’ from 2007’s independent release Sink Or Swim and a cover of NOFX’s Linoleum, resulting in mass group hugs from many of the men in the audience. It is this understanding of the average working man’s feelings that make Fallon such a powerful frontman and led to all those Bruce Springsteen comparisons. That Fallon can follow a NOFX cover by making his bandmate and guitarist Jared Hart sing an acapella version of a song by The Chainsmokers is something that probably only he can get away, but it is so obvious that there is a real love between all on stage and that they are genuinely enjoying playing together. However, that mood is soured somewhat by a brief pause in the action after an altercation between security personnel and a crowd member, which eventually ends in Hart leaping into the crowd himself to split things up.

A little bit of tension crept in briefly after that, and the setlist was moved around to calm things down – though as Fallon pointed out, you would get far worse than that in the Wild West. ’Crush’ returned the crowd to rapture with its “If you should go there before I do, God’s gonna trouble the water” refrain rolling around the venue. Another emotional moment followed immediately with ’Smoke’ where Fallon sings about a relationship with a partner who “became like smoke that I tried too hard to hold”. After telling tales of trying to work out whether the Queen was at home, and his feelings of guilt for “cheating on Noel” by shopping in Liam Gallagher’s Pretty Green store, Fallon warned the crowd that they don’t bother with encores as they prefer just to keep playing all the way until the end. In another idiosyncratic move, he followed that up by playing a cover of Katy Perry’s ‘Teenage Dream’ before the two final singalongs of ‘Behold The Hurricane’ and ‘A Wonderful Life’. With that, Brian Fallon disappeared into the night. He left behind a crowd in awe that he could deliver a set of that standard without playing any of his biggest hits, boding well for this next stage in his career.

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Photos by jamiemacmillanphotos.com