At this point, if an Against Me! show happens, it happens. It will be amazing, and I am sure it will start at a major festival like Riot Fest or The Fest, but in all honesty, you don\u2019t have to wait for that reunion. Laura Jane Grace is still out there playing those songs along with her solo songs, and the member lineup for her spring tour may be the best representation of those Against Me! songs that I\u2019ve seen since Against Me! played them.<\/p>\n
For this spring tour, the two openers on each date are Black Guy Fawkes and Lung. Black Guy Fawkes has been releasing music for a decade now, mainly as acoustic, but his latest album, The Misery Suite, showcases his songs with a full band. I\u2019ve heard about Black Guy Fawkes through other musicians mentioning him, like Dave Hause and Frank Turner, and seeing him live makes sense why he is talked about. Black Guy Fawkes performs with so much heart and emotion that I haven\u2019t seen in a long time at a show. Definitely make it to the show early to catch his set because you won\u2019t be disappointed in what you hear.<\/p>\n
Following Black Guy Fawkes were a newer band for me called Lung. Lung are a two-member band with a classically trained opera singer on cello, Kate Wakefield, and Daisy Caplan on drums, who played bass in Foxy Shazam. Together, they make a unique blend of hard rock that blends a little bit of metal, classical, avant-garde, and everything in between. It is hard to describe their sound, but they are definitely one of a kind. Going in without knowing what they sounded like enabled me to be blown away by their performance, which will be talked about for months.<\/p>\n
For this tour, Laura Jane Grace\u2019s backing band featured some of the best musicians, and they played Against Me! songs better than ever. On drums is Ara Babajian, mostly known by The Slackers, and his drumming technique shone during the set. Mike Abbate of Screaming Females is on bass, and you can hear the walking bass lines he added throughout the night. Lastly, on the second guitar, is Liliana Jones, who added some great guitar solos and noodling to the songs. I\u2019ve seen Against Me! and Laura Jane Grace many times with different members, and this lineup is up there as the best one so far.<\/p>\n
The first half of the set was Against Me! songs, from \u201cWhite Crosses\u201d to \u201cTransgender Dysphoria Blues;\u201d the energy of those songs in a small room is unmatched. During the set, Laura and her band played a handful of her solo material, including \u201cThe Swimming Pool Song\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m Not A Cop,\u201d played with a full band and not just acoustic. Then, for the remainder of the show, Laura and the band finished the night off with more Against Me! songs. There weren\u2019t any deep cuts played, but to hear these songs with her current band would\u2019ve made any fan love every minute.<\/p>\n
As for the encore, it too featured Against Me! songs. Instead of two guitars, Liliana Jones played the pedal steel guitar, and for a song like \u201cPints Of Guinness Make You Strong\u201d to feature that but still have the punk energy was something to behold. The encore was unique, but the choice of the pedal steel guitar added a new flavor to those old songs. This tour goes until mid-May, and Laura picked some of the best musicians to join her, and they did her body of work justice.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Laura Jane Grace<\/p>\n
Lung<\/p>\n
Black Guy Fawkes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At this point, if an Against Me! show happens, it happens. It will be amazing, and I am…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120],"class_list":["post-184023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}