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CONCERT REVIEW: Brian Fallon and Ryan Bingham at Stage AE
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
PITTSBURGH
Brian Fallon recorded his excellent new solo album, “Painkillers,” in Nashville, and the city’s musical influence shows on several songs.
The Nashville flavor is also serving Fallon well on his current co-headlining tour with Ryan Bingham.
Fallon came through the region twice already this year: at Altar Bar in January, and Cleveland’s Beachland Ballroom in June.
On this leg, he is teaming up with Bingham, presumably to mix things up a bit. The tour played Stage AE Wednesday evening.
With Fallon giving a lot of space to the introspective songs on “Painkillers” — letting them breath, if you will — what could have been a jarring pairing of acts with different musical styles seemed to work, at least well enough.
While Fallon’s main band, the harder-edged Gaslight Anthem, is on indefinite hiatus, the New Jersey rocker is touring with his “other” band, the Horrible Crowes (plus some others).
His band mates Wednesday included Gaslight guitarist Alex Rosamilia, and Horrible Crowes cohort Ian Perkins. Fallon & Co. went on before Bingham’s excellent Americana-Western band, which features fiddler extraordinaire Richard Bowden.
Creating the opening bookend to the evening was Texas singer-songwriter Paul Cauthen, who had a powerful voice that was somewhere between Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings.
The Music City flair on “Painkillers” includes some slide guitar on “Long Drives,” which Perkins recreated.
“Painkillers” is one of the best albums of the year; I expect to see it on a lot of Album of the Year lists come December. It’s full of lyrics about lost love (perhaps mirroring Fallon’s own life), but manages to be musically uplifting, with just a touch of melancholy.
It was a more confident Fallon playing Wednesday at Stage AE. He appeared more relaxed than he was on the Gaslight Anthem’s “Get Hurt” tour of 2014-15.
The diminutive and raspy voiced singer offered a lot of silly-mood banter during his 14-song set, which included nine of his new album’s 12 songs, plus “Georgia,” his Record Store Day exclusive release, and a few covers.
The song “Wonderful Life,” in which Fallon yearns for fulfillment and not just survival, was an exuberant highlight. But the chugging, acoustic treatment of “Smoke” lost something in the translation.
Rosamilia recreated the Jersey shore sound of “Honey Magnolia” with tinkling piano keys as Fallon expanded the song with burgeoning acoustic rhythm.
There seemed to be a lot of respect between Fallon and Bingham — two great songwriters who must have grown from the same musical tree .
Bingham joined Fallon on stage for his first song, a cover of Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down.”
Later, Fallon would join the cowboy-hat wearing Bingham on his first song, a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Atlantic City.”