Springsteen Gave Gaslight Anthem 'Three Minutes Warning'

Posted on Sep 21st 2009 12:08PM by Stephen Dowling
Comments

Gaslight Anthem didn't have much warning that Bruce Springsteen wanted to lend a helping hand at Glastonbury this summer – about three minutes, in fact.

The band's drummer Benny Horowitz tells Spinner how Springsteen told them he wanted to come onstage to help them out on 'The '59 Sound' just minutes before they were due to take to the John Peel stage.

"We knew he was poking around the camp a little bit. His son is a fan of the band and I'm pretty sure that's how he came to hear about us," Horowitz says.

"The whole performance was a total surprise. It came about three minutes before we came on the stage. And he asked if we had an extra guitar. We went and got our guitar tech and he had to set up an extra guitar and an amp really quickly. Three songs in and Bruce Springsteen is on stage."

The footage of Springsteen sharing vocals with the band's frontman Brian Fallon was one of the highlights of the weekend. But was Horowitz able to enjoy the moment? "Man, my head was in Don't F--- Up Land. I was just thinking 'hold it down, hold it down.'"

It's clearly a good thing the Gaslight Anthem are a band who pride themselves on being as loose and intuitive. "We try to do stuff like that live, a lot of our sets are unplanned. We've only been a band for four years, so imagine what being together for 30 years is going to do.

Springsteen's cameo helped make the band's set go down in Glastonbury legend. Not bad for a band who had only toured the UK for the first time less than a year before.

Horowitz says the band, who recently played sets at the Reading and Leeds festivals, have hardly had the time to revel in their Glastonbury moment. After second album 'The '59 Sound' was released last year, word-of-mouth and slow-build acclaim has meant a busy year gigging to ever-bigger crowds.

They did, however, manage to enjoy a rare two weeks off. "I even managed to move into a new place and get settled," Horowitz says.

But the rest of 2009 sees them back on the road. "We're back home for four or five days, and then we head out in the Fall to the US and Canada for two months. And then we'll be going home to prepare work on the songs for the next record."

* The Gaslight Anthem released their latest single 'The Backseat' on Monday in the UK.

Watch the Gaslight Anthem on the Interface