The Hold Steady @ Canes 6-1-07

If you didn't go to Friday night's Hold Steady concert, you probably missed the last chance to see them before the frat boys get wise to them. Actually, it's surprising they haven't already.

Something certainly seemed to be changing Friday night. A Hold Steady crowd is always rowdy, but this one quickly turned into a full-on mosh pit, with people pushing each other as far and as hard as they could and even a couple of short-lived attempts at crowd surfing.

A mosh pit almost a decade after Limp Bizkit died for our sins. Absurd.

The band itself was far from absurd, performing a nearly flawless mix of songs from all three of their albums. They played the mainstays off their latest album, "Boys and Girls in America," bangers like "Hornets! Hornets!" and "Barfruit Blues," and ballads like "Citrus" and "Killer Parties."


They also piled on praise for the city, giving a shoutout to Swami Records and declaring that the cool people move to San Diego, not L.A. or San Fran. It wasn't just "it's great to be in [city name here]" lip service, as the band has randomly mentioned in interviews with papers in other cities how much they dig the San Diego crowd.

"You've played San Diego, like, three times..."

"Three? More like six!" keyboardist Franz Nicolay said, cutting me off before I could say "...on this record alone" while we were talking outside after the show. I told him that, considering how many bands skip San Diego or barely make it here, it meant a lot that they had come so often. His eyes lit up with genuine appreciation.

He also did one of the best Heisman poses yet, giving the stiff-arm to a member of opening band Illinois.



For more, better photos from the show than mine, check out Natalie's blog "It's Too Sunny Out Here." It's not strictly a music blog, but she writes about music a lot, and she takes great concert photos, like these here...

Hold Steady concert preview 1: Why are these guys such a big deal?

I was not an immediate convert to the church of The Hold Steady.

And it is a church. The texts are full of people we've never met and places we've never seen, but we know all about them nonetheless. Alcohol also plays an intricate, symbolic part.

The faithful, most of them evangelical, would try to convert me, suggesting psalms and trying to get me to come to a service. I tried but just didn't feel it. The actual music was good but, in part because I am a Springsteen fan, I bristled at the Boss comparisons. Sure, Bruce packed a lot of words into his lyrics, but they fit the beat. Craig Finn's lyrics were Bruce-worthy, but at times he spewed his words as though there was no beat at all.


Then came "Boys and Girls in America" last year. The music got even better, as did Finn's lyrics, which he even started fitting to the music. Not only did the album soar, it unlocked their two previous, messier records. All the parts came together, and, as the song goes, "then I got born again." I was a convert.

The Hold Steady — Stuck Between Stations (MP3)
The Hold Steady — Stevie Nix (MP3)

Now here I am, preaching to the unconverted, saying that I was once like you, but The Hold Steady really are that good.

Tonight's show at Canes got me thinking about what exactly makes The Hold Steady so exciting. Sure, there's big guitar riffs, and the songs are about drinking, girls and regret, but not in that Bon Jovi kind of way. That's a sure hit for my 20-something-guy set, plus plenty of others. But right now you're probably thinking of another of your favorite bands that fit the description.

The difference is that a Hold Steady concert makes us feel the way we did at our first concert.


And while many of us might be embarrassed to name that band, there's no embarrassment with these guys. Jump up and down, sing or yell along with the words, raise your tall boy can of beer in the air. It's all good. The band is having just as much fun on stage. That's what they mean when they talk about making their concerts a big party. It's all-inclusive and all-accepting, the kind of mantra so many other religions preach but rarely follow.

Amen.

Hold Steady concert preview 2: For the fans, a drinking game

Fans of the Hold Steady know that it's pretty hard not to have a beer during their shows. So why not a drinking game? It looks like the Philly City Paper devised one, but it was back in 2005, before their most-recent album, and it was pretty basic. Drink each time the Mississippi River or an allusion to being resurrected is mentioned. Stuff like that.

I'm sure other people have done one, but here's the Baby Heisman Hold Steady Drinking Game. I tried to pick some less-obvious, more-concert-oriented options. I'm leaving this post photo-free so you can easily print it out and take it with you in case you forget a couple of rules after the first couple of beers.

Take a drink when:

* Craig Finn sticks his arms out to each side, like he's spreading his wings, to punctuate a line

* There's a keyboard solo

* A lyric mentions Ybor City or Massachusetts

* Craig steps away from the mic toward to the crowd and repeats the lyrics

* Craig takes a drink

Enjoy your tall boys, kids. And for god sake's, just take a cab. Here, click here and get the number of one NOW.

How to buy Hold Steady tickets online

While you can't buy tickets for the Hold Steady show June 1 at Canes on the venue's Web page, and it's not listed on Ticketmaster or on the Hold Steady's site, there is a way to get them without going down to Mission Beach to get them.

Go to the band Web page and click on "shows." Scroll down to the Phoenix show and click "buy tickets." It will take you to the Hold Steady's own ticket service, which has the San Diego show. it looks like the same software the Casbah uses for buying tix online.

If you're not into treasure hunts, you can just click this link to go right to the page.

The Hold Steady — The Cattle and the Creeping Things (Live and acoustic) (MP3)