The Hold Steady 6-27-08

Ram's Head Live · Baltimore, MD

BY ERIC SCHUMACHER-RASMUSSEN

The Hold Steady’s new one, Stay Positive is so good it hurts, the kind of album that listening to it precludes doing anything else except devoting your full attention, whether by rawking out to “Sequestered in Memphis” and the title track or getting sucked into the ballads, all the while riveted to the stories spun by singer and songwriter Craig Finn, rock’s greatest hard-luck romantic. The band’s first three records were good—very good—but this one’s got greatness written all over it. The riffs are timeless yet fresh, the arrangements are terrific, and both the band’s playing and Finn’s vocals are better than ever.

But experiencing the Hold Steady live is a whole ‘nother thing, and although the band’s gotta be tired of the Springsteen comparisons, all I could keep thinking during their show at Ram’s Head Live in Baltimore was “This is like ‘Rosalita’ for 90 minutes,” with Finn looking exactly as giddily ecstatic as he does in the YouTube clip of him singing that very song with the Boss at a Carnegie Hall tribute from last year.

I suppose that’s not quite right. The new tracks “One for the Cutters”—with its dark and swirling harpsichord line and tragic tale of a desperate college girl slumming with equally desperate townies—and “Lord I’m Discouraged”—a lament for a friend lost to “excuses and half-truths and fortified wine” that sounds like it was recorded in a cathedral—well, those were the show’s “Jungleland” and “Backstreets” moments, without which the joyous release of the rest of the show wouldn’t have been nearly so thrilling.

The band played nearly all of Stay Positive, rounding out the rest of the show with five tracks from Boys and Girls in America and a couple songs from each of their first two albums, although they skipped such previous stalwarts as “Massive Nights” in favor of lesser-played fare “Hot Fries” from the extended Australian version of their debut, Almost Killed Me. Still, the new stuff got the strongest response from the crowd; no surprise, really, since the album, slated for physical availability on July 15, ended up seeing early digital release on iTunes after it was leaked. (In an unofficial “interview” after the show—that’s how good it was, people; in 20-some years covering shows, this was the first time I just had to hang out until the band came out the venue door to tell ‘em how freakin’ great it was—Finn seemed mildly annoyed about the necessity of the iTunes release, but chalked it up to life in the digital age.)

And while most of the show’s visceral impact came from the Hold Steady’s seeming endless well of killer riffs and singalong melodies and Finn’s frenetic presence (nearly matched by jumping, twirling keyboardist Franz Nicolay), the setlist was responsible for most of its drama. From the opening rush of “Constructive Summer” to “Joke About Jamaica,” with its thrilling two-act guitar solo, at midpoint and the theatrical “Slapped Actress” and its Hold Steady-trademark choral “whoah-oh” finish at the close of the main set, the setlist was as well-constructed as any I’ve heard in twenty years. (And I guess the band doesn’t mind the Springsteen comparisons too much, considering how much the verses of “Slapped Actress” sound like the live version of “Atlantic City.”)

All of which—and the fact that Finn was guzzling water and not something stronger the whole night—points to the fact that, for all of its reputation as a boozy bar band, the Hold Steady is much, much more than that, a band with artistic ambitions every bit as big as the dreams of the characters Finn writes about. But while those dreams more often than not wind up the victims of self-sabotage, the Hold Steady’s music is all about celebrating those lives and the little victories that make it worth going on even when the dreams are dead.

There’s that great Pete Townshend quote about Springsteen, that when he sings, “that’s not about ‘fun,’ that’s fucking triumph.” Right now, the Hold Steady are the most triumphant band we’ve got.

Setlist:

Constructive Summer

You Can Make Him Like You

Your Little Hoodrat Friend

Chips Ahoy!

Navy Sheets

Banging Camp

Hot Soft Light

Joke About Jamaica

Same Kooks

Lord, I'm Discouraged

Stay Positive