There’s something intangible about The Hold
Steady that makes you grin. Maybe
it’s Craig Finn’s froggy warble and anthemic lyrics about the thrills of youth,
or maybe it’s the power pop guitar hooks, or maybe it’s just their impeccably
dressed and mustached keyboardist Franz Nicolay. Regardless, the band brought their charm to The Tralf
Tuesday night for a solid show that spanned their five-year career.
Opening was a stellar Philadelphia band called
the War on Drugs. My friend and I
had been into them for a while, and were ecstatic to finally catch them live,
even in such an abbreviated capacity.
Lead singer Adam Granduciel’s voice, which sounds vaguely like a young
Dylan’s, creaked over heavily distorted acoustic chords alongside drum and
bass. It was a shame they could
only play five songs before they finished, but maybe that was a good
thing. Even with such a short set,
my ears were ringing from the noisy clamor of guitar.
The Hold Steady took the stage shortly after,
to the thrill of what looked like a packed house. Finn seemed to have a permanent smile etched on his face,
throwing bad dance moves in between cheesy rock clichés, and I loved every
minute of it. If there’s something
to be said about the band, they have no qualms about having a blast while
playing, making their live show that much more intoxicating. They opened with “Hornets” off of their
second album, Separation Sunday, but mostly played songs off of 2006’s Boys
and Girls in America and last year’s Stay Positive. While everything off “Boys and Girls”
whipped the crowd into a frenzy, a few of the tunes off Stay Positive didn’t seem to catch
the interest of the audience. “One
for the Cutters” fell flat, and “Lord, I’m Discouraged,” while intriguing,
didn’t really match up with most of their other songs from the night. In fact, it seems that both attempts to
slow down the pace of their set were the ones that came out sounding the
worst.
Either way, songs like “Stay Positive” and
“Stuck Between Stations,” which went down as the best song of the night by my
call, brought the fire as guitarist Tad Kubler ripped razor solos and provided
excellent counterpoint to Finn’s simple chords. The latter’s excellent piano solo, with Franz Nicolay
slipping across the keys into hard guitar stabs and Finn’s words “We drink,
then we dry up, and then we crumble in the dust,” absolutely killed.
The Hold Steady often play on the atmosphere
of Kerouac’s “On The Road,” calling to mind youth running wild in the throes of
passion and booze. Songs about
running into old hookups, massive parties, drugs, sex and booze take the
traditional rock n’ roll stereotypes and turn them on their ear with a poetic
bent. If anything can really be
said about this band, they love a good time, and last night they clearly
enjoyed showing us one too.