Live: The Hold Steady at Music Hall Of Williamsburg 6.10 &11.9

Alright kids:

Even I can't spout about the awesomeness of THS for four days straight. Ask me and I'll probably talk your ear off, but suffice too say that the set lists below will eliminate any ambiguity as/re: the awesomeness therein(at). Plus, kids pitting to Springsteen is a little odd. Thursday night also featured my enjoying the mighty aldenbarton beforehand. The gents do so bring it. Might I point out that if you were not there, you missed out in a pronounced fashion.


6/10 SET LIST:

First Night
Stations
Massive Nights
Party Pit
Sequestered
Cutters
Cheyenne (dedicated to Hannah and Ros, because "when British people use American accents they sound like cowboys, and this is a cowboy song")
Chips Ahoy!
Same Kooks
Knuckles
Status
You Can Make Him
Discouraged
Constructive
Hot Soft
Stay Positive
Slapped Actress
Resurrection

Encore:
Citrus
Arms and Hearts
Chillout Tent
Southtown

6/11 Set List

Set List:
Stay Positive
You Gotta Dance
Navy Sheets
Chips Ahoy!
Sequestered
Cheyenne
Yeah Sapphire
Stevie Nix
Multitude
Magazines
Hostile Mass (!!!)
Sweet Payne
Massive Nights
Party Pit
Jamaica
Discouraged
Constructive
Hoodrat
Stations

Encore:
Certain Songs
Southtown
DJs
Slapped Actress

Live: The Hold Steady at Bowery Ballroom 6.9.9

Night Two:

Save for the appearance of 212-MARGARITA, I'd say the boys played it a little safe for their first show back. Props are due for mixing up the set list, but it certainly bode well for a real barnburner this night. Met up with Dru aldenbarton and Eric Johnson for some pre-emptive beverages and sallied forth in high sprits.

Real estate was established, more beers were acquired and Eric was lost shortly afterward.
The gents did not disappoint, playing Seperation Sunday in it's entirety, albeit not in order. Set list is below. Check these apples:

Crucifixion
Resurrection
Constructive
Chips Ahoy
Sequestered
Cattle
The Cutters
Charlemagne
Banging Camp
Explode
Stevie Nix
Multitude
Chicago
Discouraged
Slapped Actress
Hoodrat
Stay Positive
Hornets

ENCORE:

Citrus
Station
Southtown
Killer Parties

Live: The Hold Steady at Valentine's 3.31.9

Night two of the Tour De Steady, and one that was no doubt going to be a little bit more of an endeavor, as it was in my old stomping grounds of Albany, NY. To up the liver scarring ante, it was going to be at Valentine's, where an old dear friend was known to run things. Add the Brothers Johnson, the Unified Scene and Steven and Annie, and shit would be well-described as being on.

There had been a lot of conjecture about the best way to get Albany. As a result, I opted away from the Chinatown Bus option and went Greyhound, a mistake I shant make again. Got picked up by the lovely Lila at the bus station and headed to Lark Tavern for many pints. Ran into Tess and a gang of other old school Albany kids and caught up with L, then headed over to Valentines to pre-game. Mike hooked up the ticket and I posted up barside and caught up with Howard and the usual gang, then headed upstairs.

Valentines upstairs is pretty small. Much smaller than I remembered, but this time I was a lot more drunk.  The room reminds me a lot of the old Wetlands. It didn't seem to be as rowdy a crowd as the night before, but I wasn't as front and center as I usually was for social reasons.

It was a good set, although opening with You Gotta Dance is always going to get points at JS-NYC headquarters. 

The Hold  Steady are no strangers to a deep cut or two. Given that they have only released four full-lengths, they can't afford to be stingy with the b-sides. The gents aren't ones to rest on their laurels either. Hey, if it gets me Milkcrate Mosh in the set, I'm for it. Yeah Sapphire popped up as well, as you might be able to see from the photo to the left (that was stolen from Lowden11 on the HS board, incidentally). I understand there are two more unreleased tunes that will be appearing on the A Positive Rage CD/DVD set that's dropping on Tuesday, but neither of them have popped up in any of the East Coast sets that I'm aware of. I'm intrigued to hear if they are as good as the b-sides from Stay Positive. I'd venture that's it's too late to get in on the pre-order, but pick it up here on Tuesday.

Having already almost lost my bag at Lark Tavern, I succeeded in leaving my regular touring sweatshirt at the Valentine's, one inaugurated in the hard trenches of Chicago around the turn of the century (and one that Kid Congo Powers chatted about at length with me about, for chrissakes, oops did I drop something?). Staggered back to Steven's at an hour I can't remember and got the royal treatment, including car service to the nightmarishly silly Albany bus station at 9am with one of the larger hangovers I've had in recent years. Far better treatment than I deserved, if only as it lulled me into a false sense of relative comfort that only poorly managed bus transport can ruin. 

Shitty bus employees aside, all respect due to Mike for the hookup for the ticket and Steven for the hospitality, Lila for the pick-up and Annie for the drop-off, as well as to the Brothers Johnson for making things their usual good time. Apologies to any old friends I may have missed or slighted in my whirlwind stay. Of course, all kudos to the men and women of The Unified Scene, a crew as good as you're going to get at a rock show. If you're going to have a rock show that doesn't involve Superchunk and/or The Figgs, you can do profoundly worse than The Hold Steady. They are a true force. We are lucky to have them. See you at the shows in June!

R

Live: The Hold Steady at Irving Plaza 3.30.9

It had been a while since I had seen the mighty Hold Steady. Last November, I guess, if you don't count the horrible episode of Live: From The Artist's Den that finally aired on PBS last week. Not their best show, although it was profoundly hampered by the venue. Bask in the nostalgia here.

This show was the first night of their most recent tour behind Stay Positive, but also one coincident with the release of the new Hold Steady CD/DVD set called A Positive Rage that's dropping on Tuesday. It was also an anniversary show for local radio franchise WRXP. I can't say I have too much of an interest in listening to programming that someone else chooses for me, but it was pointed out to me that city folk like myself don't drive, putting us out of the demographic. WKXP also features Matt Pinfield as part of their on-air staff, giving them at least one DJ with some depth of music knowledge. If people want to listen to this, god bless them, but why I was paying $35 (and .25?) plus fees is still a mystery. I sure hope that a good amount of those dollars found their way toward to pockets of The Hold Steady.

The interwebs tell me that this is set list. I vaguely heard that picked by someone named Jamie. I didn't hear who Jamie was, but it's pretty decent.

Constructive Summer
Multitude of Casualties
The Swish
Magazines
Sequestered in Memphis
Party Pit
Massive Nights
Don't Let Me Explode
Stevie Nix
Barfruit Blues
Yeah Sapphire
Ask Her For Some Adderall
Sweet Payne
Most People Are DJs
Lord I'm Discouraged
Yr Little Hoodrat Friend
Stay Positive
Slapped Actress

Encore:
Stuck Between Stations
Chips Ahoy
Killer Parties

It was sweaty as hell, and a pretty active crowd. Lots of the Unified Scene kids in attendance, both from in and out of town. There are a pretty good number of regular father/son combos at the shows and it was good to see them out as well. The crowd got a little bit old (ironic for it being so young up front) and, as always kids might learn how (or perhaps, more appropriately, when) to dance, but I'd give it probably a seven, on a ten scale. For a first night back, they were as untouchable as usual. Finn displayed a heretofore unknown hockey allegiance to The Rangers in the encore via a personalized jersey, but there were no other real surprises. The four dates the boys announced on Friday sold out completely in about an hour, so punters better be quick on the draw if you want to see them in the small rooms in the future. I will offer an extremely heartfelt FUCK YOU to Ticketmaster for selling off blocks of tickets to brokers pre-sale to the public, though. That's just plain wrong, especially for a band as righteous as The Hold Steady.

R

Live: Hold Steady with The Pretenders @ Sonar, Baltimore 9.19.08

On the heels of the two-pronged rock assault I had undertaken the night before, I was looking forward to a nice tight Hold Steady opening slot and a quiet evening with the sister and brother-in-law. A couple hours before I headed out of town, I learned that the order had been switched and The Pretenders were now going before out heroes The Hold Steady. There are worse eventualities, plus I had a couple days to recover, so soon after touching down in Baltimore, barside we reported.

Sonar isn't so bad of a space, kind of reminiscent of the old Tramps without the ill-placed poles. It was packed cheek to jowl with Baltimore's largest and they were drinking. It was decidedly older crowd, by and large, but I myopically atrributed it to The Hold Steady and their devoted professional audience. I've never met more drunken corporate lawyers at rock shows than at Hold Steady shows. We missed the All MIght Senators, the long-standing Baltimore Fishbone-y funk rockers who are a mainstay of Baltimore opening slots and posted up to see The Pretenders. Chrissie has a new band behind her with Jim Keltner on drums. They rock pretty hard and Ms. Hynde is one sexy fifty-something. I guess it may be on account of the new band, but there were only five songs that I really recognized. I'm not terribly familiar with late-period Pretenders, but I gather that most of the set was from their new Break Up The Concrete record. It sounded like decent enough rock music and the new handsome guitar guy has got chops, but I was there for the hits as much as anyone else was. We got Brass In The Pocket and Back In The Chain Gang as well as a romp through Kid on the encore, but I would have liked to have heard a little bit more of the hits. Chrissie is not known for giving too much of a shit about what other people think about her music and the fact that they are on an indie pretty much asserts the fact that our Ms. Hynde will not be losing any sleep over this asshole's opinion.

We were taking bets on how much of the crowd would be bailing after The Pretenders set. I was figuring maybe 25/30%, but didn't much care. One more beer and it was time to stake out some real estate. After the previous night's acoustical nightmare, I was hoping that we'd be back to full speed and the gents did not disappoint. The set featured most of Stay Positive but one of the great things about The Hold Steady is the fact that they have b-sides that are just as decent as their a-sides and the have no problems with playing them. Cheyenne Sunrise from the new record was the b-side du jour, as has been the norm of late. Judging by the response, Vagrant is going to ship a lot more of the limited digi-pak version. Nothing gold can stay, and so a drunken stage invasion from a Fell's Point Irregular derailed things a bit toward the end of the set, getting our boy Dusty roughed up a bit in the doing. While that was placted, I turned around and was shocked to find that a solid 80% of the crowd had left. Granted, it was after 1am, but I would have thought we would have more die-hards. Oh, well. It was still a great show and Dusty (HS super-roadie) was of the opinion that it was one of the best HS shows ever. Either way, it bodes well for the co-headlining tour with the Drive By Truckers next month. My head hurts already.