OMG. The Revival Tour was amazeface. I love Alkaline Trio and the Gaslight Anthem, and I saw Chuck Ragan when he was supporting Gaslight Anthem last year so I HAD to go. HAD TO. I think looking back at the gigs I’ve been to so far this year and the ones that are yet to come… the Revival Tour was the best gig of the year. For reals.

Over on tumblr I sad that it was like an epic bromance folkpunk musical, and I think Brian Fallon mentioned it on the night too. Throughout the performance I really got a sense that these guys hang out together and are real proper friends (as opposed to just acquaintances or ships passing in the night or something). It was lovely. Rather shamefully when I don’t know who it was played a cover of a song by Tom Gabel, my immediate reaction was “Oh, he’s the husband of Heather who designed a lot of Alkaline Trio’s artwork and stuff” rather than um, the frontman of Against Me!. Oops. I did see Against Me! when I figured that I should get over to the stage that Alkaline Trio were playing at last years Slamdunk festival and definitely enjoyed what I managed to catch of their set and it seems that they’re supporting Frank Turner later in the year. So I’ll try to see about sitting down one day and actually listening. I know my friend Shaun <3ed them before.

But back to the Revival Tour. The guys did a few songs together, then Dave Hause did his thing (with various folks wandering in and out for songs), then Helen Chambers and Sam Russo and this other guy who sadly, I can’t remember the name of did a song each, then Chuck Ragan was his adorable self, and Dan Andriano (who when Brian came on stage to do Crawl with him, ad-libbed a fun little ditty about the guy somewhere over to my right who kept shouting “I LOVE YOU BRIAN”) did a few numbers and then Brian Fallon did some songs annnnd then they all came back on stage for the epic finale.

I think the highlight of the evening for me was when Brian was rambling for a bit (as he does, it’s nice) and then went down to the front row and pulled this girl out and got her up on stage to sing. She was a little out of her mind with omgomgomgomg but she was totally ace. The guy behind me said that she’d come with her friend all the way from Germany for the gig.

I maintain that Dave Grohl has a serious contender for his nicest man in rock crown. But they’d probably be so nice about it to each other that they’d just both be the nicest men in rock together or something.

Youtube playlist of some of the video from the night