Concert Review: The Carousel Tour – Live in Asbury Park

The Stone Pony, Asbury Park, NJ – 06 May 2022

This wasn’t a show, it was an experience

Growing up in Jersey, The Stone Pony has always been spoken about as the place where magic happens. Its the dive bar that launched careers of Bon Jovi and Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. The house (or dive bar) that Springsteen built. My experience has never backed up the mythology. That’s not to say the Pony has ever been a bad venue in my experience, I’ve just never felt the ghosts of musical history descend up the stage, until The Carousel Tour came through.

The prospect of seeing any combination of Laura Jane Grace, Anthony Green or Tim Kasher on stage is enough to get my proverbial juices flowing, but turns out this wasn’t a show, this wasn’t a sharing of a stage… this was a fucking experience and it means the world to have had the opportunity to live in this moment.

The whole thing kicked off strongly when the prolific Jersey fixture Mikey Erg came up to the stage and immediately made our collective hearts flutter. The Garden State mainstay has an unbelievable knack of bringing the energy. It doesn’t matter of you are seeing Mikey front The Ergs, behind the kit with Dirtbike Annie or as was the case Friday night, commanding the room as the only person on stage, you are getting 100%.  From the first moment his voice hits the ears, you feel cuddled in the universality of his lyrics.  

Mikey brought his upbeat pop-punk stylings to the crowd, and the crowd brought themselves to the fore.  Many opening acts, especially in such a well-stocked bar as The Stone Pony, can be drowned by the din of pretentious patrons and their intolerably-monikered IPAs, and that may have been the case to start Mikey’s set, but by the time he dove into the second verse of  “Clueless or Cruel?” or “Bad Decision Monday,” the floor began to fill in and bartenders began to breathe easy, overcoming the early rush, the audience was attentive and bobbing through the entirety of the set.

Erg did a fantastic job of slowing down, speeding up and captivating those of us in the crowd.  Bouncing between his impressive oeuvre with cuts off of his upcoming Love at Leeds record, a cover of Propagandhi’s “Resisting Tyranical Government” or just the tale of his first show at The Stone Pony, hiding near the bathroom while Silverchair performed hits from their Frogstomp record in ‘95, the crowd was all in on Erg.  Erg closed out the set with a pair of tracks that perfectly encapsulate the intelligence and the simplicity of his songwriting.  “Rumble Strip” is hands down the best use of the word apoplectic in a punk track, and he does so multiple times, this was followed up by the crowd-favorite “Comme Si About Me” with its repeated “blah blah blahs.” 

Erg’s excellent performance ended and after a brief intermission Tim Kasher took the stage. The

Cursive/The Good Life frontman is out in support of the recently released solo album, The Middling Age. He was joined to start his set by Cursive’s cellist Megan Siebe (who showed her high level of musicianship playing bass, cello, pianica and guitar throughout the night) and Lemuria‘s Alex Kerns on drums. These two would perform intermittently behind all three headliners, a sign of the merry-go-round feel The Carousel Tour was intended to have. 

Kasher kicked right into a pair of standouts from the new record, “On My Knees,” and “What are We Doing” before asking “Can we get a little quiet,” as if he didn’t already know his talent could take the crowd wherever he wanted. He switched to am acoustic to perform “I Don’t Think About You All The Time” and Cursive’s “Making Friends and Acquaintances” off 2000’s Domestica, followed by “The Willing Cuckold,” a request from the crowd. 

This is where the Carousel part of the tour stated to take shape, as Anthony Green joined the stage to help on guitar during “No Secret.” Hopping off the ride as fast as he hopped on, Green left but Kasher kept the set moving with “Cold Love” from Game of Monogamy before The Good Life’s “Needy,” followed by a return to Monogamy on “Strays.”

An acoustic guitar, Tim Kasher and and a haunting rendition of Cursive’s “Art is Hard” were next… And here is the turning point of the evening. The moment things went from “this is delightful” to “Holy shit, I am so lucky to be able to experience this.” I may have peed myself in a bout of spasmodic glee, this was definitely not the “same old shit”. Everything could have ended here and I’d left with a grin from ear to ear, but lucky for us, the show kept going. As Anthony Green took stage left with a composition book and keyboard while Laura Jane Grace held center stage with a tambourine for “Forever of the Living Dead” to close out the set.

Next to stage was Laura Jane Grace. This was the first time I’d seen Grace since she fronted “Gegen Mich,” the surprise Against Me! set at the 2010 Bamboozle Festival, and I gotta say, I don’t remember her being this tall or this commanding of the stage. Immediately, she had the crowd at full blast with her energetic performance and storytelling. Kicking things off with “Electro-Static Sweep” and “Harsh Realms” before creating a frenzy in the crowd with a raucous performance of AM!’s “Baby, I’m An Anarchist.” Mikey Erg returned on drums for what Grace called Ergainst Me and powered through “Unconditional Love.” After absolutely tearing the roof off with crowd favorite “Pints of Guiness Make You Strong,” Grace revisited some of the ghosts of the legendary venue, recalling her first visit to The Stone Pony on an off day from Warped Tour to watch Joan Jett.

It was this night, when Jett covered The Replacements that Grace decided she would add the Westerberg classic “Androgynous” to her setlists and performed the anthem with a bite and kick that put every other version to shame. I think with all that Grace represents in the community, her charisma is too often overlooked. I don’t think anyone has as much fun on stage as LJG. A quick “costume change” as Grace donned the titular “Dysmorphia Hoodie” and sang of her life as a “True Trans Soul Rebel” before Anthony Green (along with a watermelon) entered the scene to join in on “Lolo 13.” Watching these two on stage together it is impossible not to feel the pulpability of their love and respect for each other. It was a beautiful scene and was only the beginning. A short while later, Kasher joined Green and Grace for the closer, “Black Me Out.” The word powerful is thrown around in music far too often, but it’s never been more fitting than in this moment. 

Anthony Green got his chance to lead the stage and wasted no time in making it real fucking loud in there with his cherry red ax and Springsteen-esque white T. I have to admit my own shortcomings here… I have a lot of respect for Green, his voice, his songwriting, all of it, but I just never dove into any of his work. I’ve joked with a buddy who is way more receptive that listening to Anthony Green plays on my own feelings of inadequacy. I know that much of what he does is brilliant, fantastic and all around amazing, I just always feel void of comprehension. Rather than coming off like Josh Baskin in the Big business meeting petulantly repeating “I don’t get it,” I stopped trying. I now regret that decision immensely. Green, on stage, is not only is he the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, he is also among the most compelling humans behind a mic.  I wish I could have been more of a participant than a spectator. 

Green was immersed in the crowd, and all in on his music  As he announced mindset, and I could never say better, “I am lost in the shit of it, and it’s a pretty great place to be.” A surprisingly beautiful moment came when Megan Siebe shared the microphone for a cover of the Peggy Lee standard, “Tonight You Belong to Me.” Green, once more, brought a watermelon into the fold as he shared a slice with Siebe and Kerns and as they joined the fray also passed the fruit to Lasher and Grace for a small indulgence. Green’s set closed out with Grace and Kasher performing “Dear Child (I’ve Been Dying To Reach You).” A short intermission followed before the 3 once again returned to the stage to mount a beautiful cover of The Lemonheads‘ “My Drug Buddy.”

I wish I was a better writer, because no words in my mind can come together to form a fair description of how special this whole thing was. This is the sort of life-changing event college essays are supppsed to be based on. While my love of live music has never fully waned, this show, this night with these performers breathed new life into a jaded old man. My cynicism evaporated as the ghosts of the Stone Pony and the greatest minds of our scene came together for a perfect storm. This style of tour is what the world needed after the last few years and these are, undoubtedly. the ideal combination to bring it to the masses.