Mostly Semantics

When I moved to DC at the beginning of last year I was pretty immediately shocked at the frequency with which live music I wanted to see came through town. One of the things that really impressed me was that I was going to see the Hold Steady like one month after I moved there - at the time, they weren’t really coming through the midwest (or not within like 800 miles of me, anyway.) I loved the first two albums and had scarcely ever been more excited for a show. So of course imagine my disappointment when the dude at the front door informed me that they had played the night before.

Actually, I’m amazed that’s the only time that’s happened to me. Regardless, that anticipation has basically maintained itself since then, even though I don’t really listen to them much anymore and, more threateningly, I didn’t *love* the album they released in the meantime. When I saw that they were going to be playing with Art Brut, I made the (unusual for me) move unilaterally and bought tix for MS, TM and myself (No CV to lean on for this review.) Before the review proper though, in honor of CV, the d-bag of the concert:

I remember now why I always stand way back in the back corner of the balcony. I am tall as hell, I can see from wherever, but I can’t stand being all crowded like it is in the front. The worst is when people come in - especially mid-set - and squeeze in front of you. It’s one thing if you’re trying to get back to your friends, you have their drinks, whatever. I still think it’s kinda shitty, but I am a bit forgiving about it. Bald, aging, smelly leather-clad d-bag who squeezed himself right in fucking front of me during the hold steady when there was no room to maneuver at all? Just standing by himself? Unconscionable, sir. I made sure I clapped right in his ear for inappropriate lengths of time - I really wanted to start a fight with the guy. This makes me a bad person, right? Listen, I’d been getting all bumped and scooched and touched for a good hour at that point and it was like two songs into the set already. Fighting with this guy was probably the most justifiable of my violent daydreams at that point. Eventually the dude did leave, at least.

Glad I got that covered. So the show itself - we went early (8) because I’d heard good things about 1990s (the website reiterates: no ‘the’ and no apostrophe). I actually really enjoyed the set, even if I’m the only one. I mean, maybe they do sound a lot like franz ferdinand, though even kinda poppier. TM and MS pooh-pooh the nonsense choruses, but uh… ramalamadingdong to that, namean? Ba-bada-ba-baaaa-bada-bada just sounds right there, to me. Also lead singer Jackie McKeown has some Joey Ramone/Ric Ocasek huge gangly freak about him, and I’ve already expressed my preference for ugly bands, or at least lead singers. Also they seem to like weed a lot. I’m pretty sure I heard them singing about Vondelpark, though cursory research has yet to verify that.

Another sort of ugly, albeit in a slightly more hulking way, lead singer is Eddie Argos. Very fun show. He does the cheesy vegas microphone swing all the time. He makes the sort of faces you’d expect from possibly the most arch band ever. I’ll even go so far as to promote calling Art Brut ‘archcore’. You have to love the sort of self-reflexive rock and roll posturing over-the-topness to really be into Art Brut, but of course I do. The backing band is tight and energetic, and who knew there was a chick bassist? Not I.

And now don’t get me wrong. I get why NME put this show together. Art Brut and the Hold Steady form a very solid top of a concert lineup, and DC definitely responded - it was sold out and raucous. They’re both hyperliterate bands that play pretty mainstream pop rock. That said, I think there’s a pretty huge difference between the two - basically, Art Brut are having fun in a really wry detached way, despite all the girlfriend songs. The Hold Steady… they mean every word of it.

I like that about them, pretty much. They mean their songs, but they’re mostly about getting high and drinking. And hoodrats. And Charlemagne. Well not actually about the Charlemagne, in any meaningful sense… so far as I can tell. Like I said, my expectations were pretty high, so there was kind of an inevitable letdown - TM had the same thing happen to him with the Metric show. Having gone in with more attainable (no) expectations, MS and TM both said that though they had a lot of fun with Art Brut, the Hold Steady are overwhemlingly the better band, and that’s true, BUT, I have criticisms.

1) The aforementioned d-bag, who helped distract me through the first four songs or so.
2) The fact that Craig Finn is happy. Like really happy, through the whole show. And energetic. I don’t know why, but I had this image in my head of Craig as being this completely drunk poet guy in the corner, who does this almost without thinking. If you listen to his lyrics, especially the first two albums, I think you’ll see what I’m saying - I mean they’re sorta precise, but like someone who is telling story fragments in an artful but forgetful way. It’s almost homeric, or how I imagine poetry used to be - I know that killer parties almost killed you, Craig, and it’s cool with me if you keep repeating it, it has a pomo koan charm to it. So basically I wanted Craig to be a blind guy in a toga, pissing-himself drunk and rambling into a microphone. Instead he’s an affably geeky guy who dances probably worse than I do. But man, he does love what he’s doing. I don’t blame him.
3) Speaking of things people do worse than me… I decided tonight that I’m better off being the dumpiest, lamest looking dude in the whole crowd than being the coolest. Or even in the top half. This happened to me at the Kings of Leon show, too - seeing non-hipsters actually makes me feel worse about being there. How shallow and awful and hypocritical, I know. But it’s true - if I’m some place like (off the top of my head) the BYOP show where 90% (and ok it was halloween but still) of the people are all stylish and hip and hot, I know I must be someplace cool, right? Or at least that’s the way it translates in my head. If there are d-bags from the suburbs who look like they might still live in the frathouse, then wtf am I doing there? I think it’s just a weird self-reflection thing, you see your own self projected in the crowd you’re in. Surely.
4) They nearly lost me after the first song of the encore. They had sparked my ire already by closing with (IIRC) ’southtown girls’, one of the tracks that helped spoil the latest album for me with its slow boring crappiness, and one of the two songs that makes me think I’ve stumbled into a Michelob commercial. So they came back to start the encore with the second, of course, ‘first night’, which makes me think both of a beer commercial and a horrible Richard Gere movie.

But they won me back. Things working in their favor:
1) Lead guitarist Tad Kubler. First of all dude looks like Wash, which is a pretty good association to have. Like Wash if Wash had played in bar bands his whole life. Also a bit like Curt Schilling. Also, I should note, he kind of shreds. And he climbed up on the amp at the end.
2) Franz Nicolay on keys. With a name like that, of course you’re eccentric and fantastic. he does not disappoint. Yes that’s a curly moustache.
3) They did not play ‘Chillout Tent.’ I seriously thought about heckling if this would have happened. How could you do that, Dave Pirner? Wait, how could you do that the Hold Steady? Fuck I hate that song. Youtube it yourself if you really want that pain, masochists.
4) Pretty much all the other songs are good enough that you can overlook the rest of it. They’re an incredible band, equal parts skill and energy, and they cohere brilliantly. Craig’s a genius lyricist, even if his whole routine is almost cloying in person. As soon as they put out a new album that goes back in a more rocking direction I will be excited to see them again.

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website