Frank Turner and The Gaslight Anthem

As you may be aware, it's Reading and Leeds Festival weekend! My personal favourite festival, and of course I'm looking forward to tonight's (Sunday) headliners Blink-182 and the likes of Paramore and Weezer won't disappoint me either. However, I want to concentrate on two acts who played yesterday (Saturday), evidently the two acts that take up this posts title.

I'll start with Frank Turner. I have no idea how, but this man hasn't taken the world by storm yet. It's completely baffled me ever since I first discovered him how he hasn't got a billion fans across the world yet, he has such talent, such emotion and so proud of what he does that he deserves to be in the mainstream, tearing up the charts (to steal a lyric from one of his songs "I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous") making riches for what he does. And yet, because he isn't quite as popular as he should be, that's probably what makes me adore him so much. I have talked about Turner before, but he really his one of my very few artists in my music collection that only a handful of people I know have heard of. He has four albums, I own them all (interesting fact, he and The Gaslight Anthem are the only two artists that I have their whole back catalogues (all four Turner albums, all three Gaslight albums)). All of his albums are completely different, with a unique sound to each of them. I love Frank Turner is what I'm trying to say. Even if you haven't heard of Turner before, I recommend you watch his Reading set, you will be converted into the realm of Frank Turner. You won't regret it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/festivals/readingandleeds/2010/artists/frankturner/

A final note on Turner, in his song "Photosynthesis", he has the perfect lyric to summarise me - I won't sit down. I won't shut up. But, most of all, I will not grow up. I'm getting that tattooed onto my back one day. I've decided, I'm going to lose weight and then when I'm respectable, I'll get that tattooed. I promise.

The second artist is, quite simply, one of my favourite bands of all time. My favourite is Green Day, but The Gaslights have shot up to second place in the band list, purely because, like Frank Turner, they've not hit the big time yet, they write all their own songs, not influenced by any big name labels or producers, they stick to what they know, and my God they do it brilliantly. It's not to say they don't have a huge following because they do, every single fan of theirs knows practically every word to every song they've ever written. The '59 Sound is, in my opinion even though I know of one who begs to differ, their best album, but their newest outing American Slang comes mighty close. Their rip roaring anthems of being young in New York City, admittedly, aren't ones I can empathise with. But it's the way they go about it. They tell stories and though none of their albums are concept albums, you can hear a slight narrative woven into the lyrics. Perfect example, in the title track of American Slang, there's a lyric that says you can dance with the queen if you need, and she will always keep your cards close to her heart, and later on there is a track called "The Queen Of Lower Chelsea" (oh yes, another reason to love The Gaslight Anthem for a Chelsea reference! (I am aware that it's referring to the area called Chelsea in NYC, but still!)), and the chorus is as follows: When you're working full-time and spending all of your nights, never dancing like you did, and the gravity hangs on all the selling points you had, should've stayed and been the Queen of Lower Chelsea. Now, you can't deny that they have put a hell of a lot of thought into every song, every lyric, every beat. If you haven't heard of these before either, I recommend you check their Reading set out too, because it's just as brilliant as Frank Turner's, if even better.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/festivals/readingandleeds/2010/artists/gaslightanthem/

These two are two of my favourite music acts. First is Green Day, second is The Gaslight Anthem, third is Biffy Clyro and fourth is Frank Turner. Simply brilliant. And, I'm happy to say, I've seen them both live, and am seeing them again before 2010 is out. Life, at the moment, is absolutely brilliant.