The Gaslight Anthem, from New Jersey, offered to ‘shovel’ it themselves next time we had a couple of snowflakes fall down. Things are bigger in America. Joking aside, the end result of the rescheduled gig was that the opening band, Polar Bear Club (funny, you would have thought they would have absolutely loved the snow) were not able to play. This meant that Frank Turner got an extended hour long set. As a Turner fan, this was no bad thing in my book, although I lamented missing Polar Bear Club, a fine young band, just breaking through.

Frank Turner took to the stage, guitar in hand, opening with ‘I Knew Prufrock Before he was Famous’, and proceeding to take a tour through every single record he has released. Early highlights were ‘Substitute’ from Love Ire and Song, the lesser spotted ‘I Don’t Care What You Did On Your Gap Year’, and the much more often spotted ‘Father’s Day’. The latter track was accompanied by the crowd filling in the backing harmony parts, which are often provided by Frank’s band. However, as good as his shows with his supporting cast are, his solo sets feel (perhaps obviously) more intimate and intense.

He aired two new songs, the finest of them ‘Try This at Home’, destined to become a fans favourite, as it was instantly appreciated by this audience. Occasionally, a song would be introduced via the form of a short anecdote, or joke, and a real connection was built up between the crowd and Frank. The feeling of unison is the subject of ‘Try This at Home’, how there are no differences between artist and audience, and people should just pick up a guitar. Along the way, there were covers of (amusingly and poignantly, in order) Half Man Half Biscuit’s ‘Vatican Broadside’ and The Postal Service’s ‘The District Sleeps Alone Tonight’. Finally, he finished on the haunting yet inspirational ‘Ballad of Me and My Friends’, a compulsive listen.

The crowd was (apparently) here to see the Gaslight Anthem, and they put on a musically tight show. However, the atmosphere was very strange. Despite selling out the Wedgwood Rooms, there was a distinct lack of crowd movement and some even didn’t know all of the songs. Considering they have just two albums and one EP, this was surprising. Perhaps the actual fans of the band were diluted by those told to go and watch them by the NME. Either way, it was strange, considering just a couple of months earlier this band had caused a storm at the London Astoria 2. The setlist drew very heavily from the most recent album, ‘The ’59 Sound’, and whilst this is to be expected, due to the fact that this is the disc which propelled them into the media spotlight, the superior ‘Sink or Swim’ was a little underused. Beginning with ‘Great Expectations’ though, the first track from ‘The ’59 Sound’, and driving through big numbers such as ‘The Patient Ferris Wheel’ and ‘Old White Lincoln’, they soon set dozens of toes-a-tapping. Fallon himself was as charming as we have come to expect, warm yet knowing, although the band’s stage presence as a whole left a little to be desired, pure and simple, it’s too static.

There’s nothing negative to say though about the band’s musical output, and they played three quarters of the EP too, highlights being ‘Wherefore Art thou, Elvis?’ and ‘Senor and the Queen’. They finished up the set with ‘Boomboxes and Dictionaries’, and ‘The Backseat’, their usual closer, before encoring with the Sam Cooke referencing ‘Say I Won’t (Recognise)’. All in all, it was a good night, but it could have been so much more. My ‘Great Expectations’ were not fulfilled, but next time around, perhaps they will be.