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Fun Fun Fun Fest review: The Hold Steady
What to say about a band that may very well be at the peak of its creative and performing potential?
First of all, that being able to say that comes as a relief. Reports from friends taking in Hold Steady shows in Detroit and Dallas over the spring and early summer held that something was missing this time around, that a listlessness hung over songs that used to crackle, and that maybe the acrimonious departure of multi-instrumentalist Franz Nicolai had robbed the Brooklyn-via-Minneapolis rockers of a gear or two.
All of that may be true - I’m not one to cavalierly call my friends liars - but if there were glitches earlier this year as the band started out in support of its newest full length “Heaven Is Whenever,” it sounded and looked like they’d all been addressed by the time lead singer/guitarist Craig Finn excitedly paced out on the orange stage Sunday night.
From the start of set opener “Constructive Summer” all the pieces the band has hammered to knife points over the last half decade were on display; guitarist Tad Kubler surfing from riff to solo to riff, Finn looking and sounding like an English major turned accountant on way too much caffeine and the whole combo charging through giant rock songs at a terrific pace.
Finn especially was a sight on Sunday, stealing seconds between verses to yell who knows what at the crowd assembled in front of him before swigging some Budweiser and returning to telling hopped-up tales of boys and girls who can never get right and the world that doesn’t want them to.
If there has been one curious development as the band has grown - it’s touring as a six piece with three guitarists, one of them seeming to spell Finn’s lapses into crowd engagement - it’s that the Hold Steady is growing pretty comfortable stretching its riffs and overall sound to enormous proportions and then riding them right into the ground, as the one-two paunch of “Southtown Girls” and “Your Little Hoodrat Friends” showed around the half-hour mark.
Of course, that was followed by a lean, revamped run through “Stay Positive” that drew a throughline to Finn’s hardcore punk beginnings inasmuch as his nerdy but endearing testimonial to Fun Fun Fun Fest headliners The Descendents (playing mere yards away immediately afterward) before the song.
After 40 minutes they were off. A little lacking from a clock punching perspective, but when a guy’s that excited to see Milo and company after 20-something years, it’s a forgivable offense.
Photo by Rodolfo Gonzalez AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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