Sean Tobin Captures the Energy with New Live Album; Covers Springsteen, Frank Turner, Gaslight Anthem
Energy doesn’t fade, it just goes dormant when seasons change. Thankfully, when the wind whips and bites, artists like Sean Tobin arrive to stoke the fire inside with Live at Kim Marie's.
In 1842, a German physician and chemist named Julius Robert Mayer discovered the Law of Conservation of Energy, which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed…the amount of energy simply remains constant, though it may change forms.
Those who call the Jersey Shore home - like Tennessee-by-way-of-Asbury Park songwriter Sean Tobin - know that when the days grow short, the warmth of the summer fades into gray, and frigid winds blanket the boardwalk in ice, spirits will roam the planks in search of the endless summer that was promised.
In Season 10 of American Horror Story, blood-thirsty ghouls use the cold-weather months as hunting season to feast on the living. It’s not quite that dire or cannibalistic in the Garden State, but we do understand the chase; the pursuit of an energy that goes underground when the leaves begin to change. It’s what makes collections like Tobin’s Live at Kim Marie’s so vital.
On Jan. 19 Tobin gave his new live album a wide digital release.
The 23-track collection was recorded in Kim Marie’s, an Irish pub and restaurant on Kingsley Street in Asbury Park, NJ. The local watering hole is situated in the shadow of the Berkeley Oceanfront Hotel, a preserved and haunted (quite literally) piece of hospitality architecture previously owned and occupied by The Man in Black himself, Mr. Johnny Cash. Tobin referenced the late, great lodger as the inspiration for the title of “This Morning, With Her,” a highlight off his 2020 full-length release East Coast Artifacts. “It’s titled after a Johnny Cash quote,” Tobin explains of the musical meditation, in which the narrator contemplates the reality and simplicity of the dream life he has achieved. “Johnny said ‘Paradise is this morning with her having coffee.’” The scene Tobin builds is one of bliss and uncertainty; tension between joy and penetrating self-doubt; paradise situated beneath a shoe that could drop at any moment. Does he deserve this life, and if so, can it be maintained?
The midpoint of Tobin’s set features a suite of songs lifted from his excellent 2023 LP Hands Like Mine. Purposefully or otherwise, the structure of these selections creates a story arc in which an individual wanders through the mist of some blissful recollection about young love (“Old Magnolia”). The hazy memories fade in the low light of a seaside dive, splintering with each new crash of a vacated shot glass on a soggy bar top. Our protagonist’s present situation isn’t necessarily bleak, but there is no time for a sailor to settle down when the dependency to pursue a dream consumes them (“Never Coming Down”). A sailor with no vessel can only navigate so far by the light of the stars before they resign themselves to a front porch. Man’s best friend is a lump of affection on the planks. A radio broadcast apes the pops, hisses, and crackles of a nearby wood-burning stove. The signal drops but this one-man band comes alive one last time to welcome the day of reckoning. By fire, ice, or AI overlords, how our end comes is as uncertain as it is inevitable…but soundtrack is superb (“Song for the End of the World”).
Tobin rounds out his set by weaving together a series of covers that speak to his New Jersey roots and the Punk-Rock heart powering his raconteur tendencies. Amongst the anthemic charcuterie was Bruce Springsteen’s “No Surrender” leading into “Great Expectations” by The Gaslight Anthem; a fine, sweet red wine, paired appropriately with the tantalizing sharpness of an aged gruyere.
Tobin rounded out his set with a nod to The Bouncing Souls (“True Believers”), a dive into “Damnit” by Blink-182, and one final ode to those he holds dear. “This is a song by a man named Frank Turner,” Tobin said, before winding up the chords to “The Ballad of me and my Friends,” a cut from the English troubadour’s debut EP Campfire Punkrock. “He wrote it about his friends, so I’m singing it about mine.”
The energy doesn’t fade, it just goes dormant when seasons change. Thankfully, when the wind whips and bites, artists like Tobin arrive to stoke the fire inside.
Stream Live at Kim Marie’s on Sean Tobin’s Bandcamp, and learn more about the songwriter by streaming Episode 4 of Under the Boardwalk below.