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...