Gatsbys American Dream played their first NYC show in 13 years (review, setlist)

Gatsbys American Dream played their first New York City area show since 2011 at The Gramercy Theatre on Saturday (4/27) with direct support from local punk acts Something Bitter and MakeWar. And while it may have been years since they’ve regularly played together, the band sounded as bombastic and tight as they did during their initial run in the early aughts.

With a career-spanning setlist that pulled from all four of their LPs, as well as their In the Land of Lost Monsters EP, you could tell that the whole band was having an absolute blast sharing the stage again. Singer Nic Newsham commanded the entire theater for an hour and a half straight, swinging his mic and flailing his body throughout their 26-song set that somehow still felt too short. Bassist Kirk Huffman and drummer Rudy Gajadhar were as locked in as ever, driving through each song’s bouts of intricate time signatures and intermittent dance breaks. Since Gatsbys’ first reunion show last year in Los Angeles, original guitar player Ryan Van Wieringen has played solo in the absence of co-founder Bobby Darling, and while I did miss some of the original riffy interplays only possible with multiple guitars, he more than held it down on his own, ensuring the sound was as big and anthemic as ever.

For a band as consistently playful, inventive, and catchy as they’ve been from their outset, I was always bummed that they didn’t make a bigger splash during their career. They wrote power pop ballads with weird time signatures and more Lord of the Flies, George Orwell, and Lost references than predictable screeds about their broken love lives, and they had a lot of fun doing it. Never was that more apparent than while the whole room full of 30 to 40 year olds played call and response along with them.

It’s never been any secret that Gatsbys American Dream has a beef with the way the music industry operates. While they were often told to ditch their funky song structures in favor of a more marketable verse/chorus/verse/chorus they stayed true to themselves. They regularly lampoon the business with lyrics like, “Where’s the fucking chorus” and “It would be too easy making ten percent off the tours we book for you, so we figure we’ll take as much as we can cause it’s not up to you,” and while the anti-capitalist sentiment still rang true through their performance, you could tell they’ve softened a bit in the years since they’ve been gone. 

They remarked on more than one occasion how special it was that we all came together for the show that night, in a city where we could have been doing a million different things. Especially with tickets that cost well over four times what they would have cost the last time many of us saw them, almost 20 years ago now. And their appreciation for the support was clearly genuine, since they’ve all gone on to hold 9-to-5 jobs that don’t allow them to do this in the way they maybe hoped to be able to do at this point in time, and they understand what it means to choose to spend that kind of money to enjoy something you love.

Though Gatsbys American Dream may not have had the staying power of another eccentric band from the same era like Portugal. The Man (who also coincidentally shares a member in GAD’s ex-keyboardist Kyle O’Quin and just so happened to open for them the last time I saw them in 2006), there’s still hope for more yet. When asked mid-set about the possibility of more music, Newsham sheepishly admitted that they’d been writing together again, and once they’d finished playing, Huffman asked the crowd to “pray to whoever they pray to that they’d be back our way sometime next year.” There’s a chance that dream’s for a 20-year anniversary tour of Volcano, the brilliant third LP that made up much of this weekend’s setlist, but there’s no small part of me that hopes it’ll be in support of something brand new instead.

**

MakeWar provided direct support, and ripped through a killer set of punk and NYC hardcore tunes. They sounded like they’d be right at home on the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, and have a new record called A Paradoxical Theory of Change dropping June 28 via Fat Wreck Chords. Opening for the night was Something Bitter, who played a similarly fun blend of pop punk and hardcore.

Gatsbys American Dream @ Gramercy Theater – 4/27/24 Setlist – The Loosing of the Shadow – Golden Ticket – Epilogue – Work Lies Ex Love Fear Hate Friendship – A Conversation With the Devil – Where the Shadows Lie – Pompeii – My Name is Ozymandias – Apparition – Cut the Strings – Yes, This is About You – The Dragon of Pendor – Snicker at the Swine – The Hunter – Badlands – You Stole My Story – You All Everybody – Recondition Reprogram Reactive – A Mind of Metal and Wheels – Fable – Modern Man – The Guilt Engine – Theatre – The Taming – We’re Not Orphans – Shhhhhh I’m Listening to Reason