(This article appeared in SPIN)
For years now, few live events have given me as much joy as Hold Steady shows. It’s a total niche band, the type that only has die-hard fans. No one casually likes them, thinks they’re fine. What makes that fun, though, is the community that takes gets together for each of the concerts.
There’s a fun line from an early song of theirs, “Hornets! Hornets!”: “I like the crowds at the really big shows / people touching people that they don’t even know, yo.” Maybe not the best advice for a series of concerts taking place in the midst of a global pandemic, but your mileage may vary. Anyhow, it’s a mostly perfect assessment of a Hold Steady concert. It’s physical, it’s sweaty, it’s touchy. The only slight untruth: it always feels like most people there know each other.
A few years back, it looked for a bit like the band had kind of broken up. The pianist left, they brought in a second guitarist, and they were putting out music that was just OK, but not as fun as it had been (of course, everyone says that every band’s new stuff just isn’t the same; whatever.). The guys were getting into their mid-40s, they had families, they had solo gigs. And after getting invited to do four straight nights at a Toronto club, the guys realized how much better that was for them than getting on a bus and doing a standard tour. What if, instead of playing a mid-week show in Des Moines, they limited themselves to major cities on weekends, doing multi-night runs that would allow fans to turn the trips into vacations? Instead of being on the road all year, they’d get to perform a bunch of times with less mess and craziness.
When SPIN agreed to buy this story, I was really excited, then surprised and disappointed when the band said they’d rather not do a full interview about it because “It doesn’t feel very rock and roll to talk about this stuff.” But I’m actually happy with how it turned out, just talking to fans and getting their take. I spend a lot of time with Panama Phil, because he’s incredible (and I love his son!), but I really enjoyed the chance to talk with so many different people, including this awesome guy from Denmark. In the end, I feel like I got enough of Craig Finn’s thoughts from the stage; the fans really made the story work.
Hope you’ll read and enjoy!