Date: September 29th 2012
Opening Bands: Larry and His Flask, Jenny Owens Young
Links: frank-turner.com, www.larryandhisflask.com, www.jennyowenyoungs.com
Frank Turner and The Sleeping Souls finished off their tour in NYC for two nights. I was at the Saturday night concert that featured the hat trick lineup of Jenny Owens Young, Larry and His Flask and of course Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls. The same show was on Sunday night as well.
I was filming a quick 15 minute session with Larry and His Flask for BeforeTheConcert.com, and just made it inside to see Jenny Owens Young. The concert was surprisingly early this time, which was a welcome change and the doors opened around 6pm. I didn’t know much about Jenny Owens Young but was impressed with her singing and style. I’ll have to check out her music on Spotify. She later came out to play with Larry and His Flask, which she seemed like she was enjoying herself with that.
During Jenny’s set, I was trying to do a bag check in the club and they told me 8 bucks!? 8 dollars for a fucking bag! Then later on I bought a water for 5 dollars, whereas a shot was 4 dollars. Go figure. Webster Hall seems to be raising their prices lately. Lovely.
Larry and His Flask came on next and played one of my favorite sets all year! If you’ve never seen them before, they play bluegrass punk, mixed in with a little bit of Dixieland. Now just picture that in your head and add ten times more energy and that’s their live show. Bass players jumping all over the place, a drummer that stands up and plays and then ends each set with jumping off the drum riser/amp/whatever is high.
The band just released an awesome new EP called Hobo’s Lament, which they played a few songs from that like the title track, “Closed Doors,” “Big Ride,” and “Swing.” From their full-length album All That We Know, they played several tracks like “Land of the F(r)ee,” “Beggars Will Ride,” “Ebb and Flow,” and one point they slowed it down to play..well “Slow It Down.” Andrew sang “Call It What You Will,” which is one of my favorites off the full-length. The crowd really loved their set and I absolutely enjoyed it as well. I particularly loved when they brought out the horns, because their music has a dixieland feel to it. I think they should have horns in every song, but that might just be the ska fan in me talking haha.
Frank Turner and his backing band The Sleeping Souls came on around 8:50/9pm and played for an hour and half. Frank came out first and began to sing “If I Ever Stray.” Towards the end, the rest of the band came out. Right from the start, the floors of Webster Hall were shaking! It’s always difficult to shoot in Webster Hall, but when the floors bounce like that, it makes it even harder to do that.
Frank Turner’s setlist was filled with songs that I loved and wanted to hear. He played songs like “The Road,” “Peggy Sang the Blues,” “Glory Hallelujah,” and “Reasons Not To Be An Idiot.” All amazingly done might I add! I only saw Frank Turner once before and he was great then, but it was something about this performance that you can tell he’s got the professional swagger and frontman-style that rock stars have. He just knows how to work a crowd! He did play the Olympics and sell out stadiums in the UK so he’s come a long way since playing in a hardcore band.
He was grading the crowd on singing along, clapping and dancing. Of course, he’s probably just blowing smoke up our asses saying we were the best city. Towards the middle of the set, he played a couple of new songs that sounded great! They are working on the new album now that the tour is over. Looking forward to hearing that!
Other songs he played that night that stood out included “Wessex Boy,” “I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous,” “To Take You Home,” “Rivers,” and “I Still Believe.” He came back to play a brilliant cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road,” and then my two favorite songs from him, “Love Ire & Song” and “Photosynthesis.” I really wanted to hear “Photosynthesis” and glad he played it last. My throat is sore from singing so much that night, which should be normal for any Frank Turner fan.
Check out the photos from the gig and be sure to check out BeforeTheConcert.com for the sessions with Larry and His Flask!
Also be sure to see ALL the photos from the show at SkaPunkPhotos.com.
Jenny Owens Young
Larry and His Flask
Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls
