Videos by American Songwriter
The Hold Steady, Exit/In, Nashville, Tennessee, 9/21
“Heaven is whenever we can get together.”
Displayed on the wall of the Exit/In, not unlike ice cream flavors at Baskin Robbins, are the names of bands who’ve played there: Son Volt. Cracker. Billy Joel. LA Guns. Hank III. The Cult. John Prine. Gwar. It’s a who’s who of used-to-bes and acts that have outgrown the small venue’s 350-capacity confines.
Add to that list the Hold Steady, who represent the Right Here and Now. Too big for the club, too small for the stadium, they somehow ended up here.
It’s tempting to say that the HS make music for people who wear glasses. But they write about the sort of hard-living characters who presumably don’t, as seen through frontman Craig Finn’s keen, bespecatacled gaze.
Despite his dry voice and even drier wit, Finn is possibly the most exuberant frontman in rock and roll. With a joyful expression plastered on his face, he gesticulated wildly with his hands to punctuate his Bukowski-esque lyrics, while his body language and stage presence brought to mind a cross between a happy George Costanza and Peanuts’ Snoopy in full-on dance mode. The rest of the band matched his energy levels with Les Paul riffs and precision playing, but it was Finn who did the most bouncing around, at times singing off mic, lost in his own revelry.
A Hold Steady show is like taking in a bunch of short stories, rather than singles and album cuts. Cool lines like “I was seeing double for three straight days” and “She said always remember never to trust me” are the norm, part of the party. Slinging selections from their latest album, Heaven Is Whenever, they were clearly in their element in the sweaty darkness of the Exit/In.
“We played Nashville one other time with the Drive-By Truckers, at the Ryman Auditorium,” said Finn. “Which was obviously an honor, but I have to say… it’s good to be back in a bar band.” With that, they launched into “Barfruit Blues”: “She said it’s good to see you back in a bar band, baby/ I said it’s great to see you’re still in the bars.”
“There’s a lot of reasons to stay home,” said Finn, a few songs later. “There’s Facebook, there’s Twitter, and fun things like that. Thank you for coming out tonight, to drink beer, and sweat, and rub shoulders with the person next to you, and being part of something real.”
* * *
Photo by Ben Azevedo. Check out more photos from the show here.
2 Comments
Leave a Reply