At the Bowery Ballroom last night star turner Craig Finn and opening leader J Ray Watson got on stage and sold you their songs and if you didn’t like it, that’s okay because they did everything they could to bring em to you.
And if you didn’t like em you were absolutely on your own.
J Ray leads the Business, a late 70s early 80s style hard rock combo like a cool Black Crowes raised on new wave instead of Southern boogie and they rip through a set of high buzzy, big bang boom which kept the audience in the palm of their hands from start to finish.
J Ray sings the way you imagine yourself singing if you lead a hot bar band in the 21st century. He wants you to hear the words and he slows himself down to emphasize them. The Business are all business as they stomp through their closest thing to a hit “Used To Did” before revelling in a keyboard based stomper “I Don’t Wanna Die” with guitarist billy c gordon shaking his head like he has just walked outta a Status Quo shoot.
J. Roddy’s first album last album, 2007’s Hail Mega Boys, doesn’t really do em justice but they have just signed to the Hold Steady’s home Vagrant Records, and kids, after this relentless barrelhouse, rock and roll set, they are just waiting to break out.
Speaking of relentless, the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn can’t stop talking. During instrumental breaks Finn steps away from the mic and shouts “What?”, shrugging his shoulder, or continues the story though you don’t know what he is selling. Finn just keeps on talking, shimmying, acting out the story lyric, calling out his words like if he doesn’t things are gonna start slipping away. He has so many words to impart he doesn’t speak much between songs and he doesn’t have to!
Not true of every band but axiomatic when it comes to Hold Steady, you can’t understand what they are doing till you can watch how Finn reaches out and hands you his story. One part role player, one part nerd, all points rocker, on stage all comparisons are redundant, he is a unique rocker as Chekovian observer of a certain strata of Americans raised in bars and Meatloaf concerts.
On stage, Craig doesn’t stand still: he declaims on his song speaks, pushes his audience on, dances like crazy, reaches out with his arm, moves from side of the stage as he switches from narrator to participant. Convincing us these stories are important. The Hold Steady are a real popular rock band but in the tiny confines of the Bowery Ballroom , Finn goes out of his way to connect with us and his reward is an audience willing to follow him.
My knowledge of the Hold Steady boils down to ten songs in my jukebox brain catalogue (the last two albums to a lesser or greater degree and a song here and there) so I didn’t recognize the opening number though since it mentions the bands name and a shout out to “Stay Positive” (it might be “Slapped Actress”) I’d guess it is an old time fave From there through the next hour and a bit Finn sang verse after verse about fucked up girls and bar band boys going nowhere in America and choruses that raised the kids out of their solitary loss and let them share the stories with him.
Four songs in Finn rolls out “Magazines” and the new twin guitarists earn their keep, later still “Sequestered In Memphis” off Stay Positive has everybody singing along to “Subpeoned in Texas, sequestered in Memphis”. Song after song, Finn leads us to the chorus and song after song we follow him: from “Southown Girls” to ” Stay Positive” , “Stuck Between Stations” -all those songs I kinda liked but thought were a little samey shine through in a live setting. The children of Springsteen’s The River are brought to life. “happy you’re still playing in a bar band” one girl says to Finn. “Happy you’re still in a bar, he replies.
Any complaints? Around an hour in my attention began to wonder but while part of the reason is a lack of shading on the Hold Steady’s part, the rest is I don’t know the catalogue as well as I might. “A Slight Discomfort” off their new album starts as an arty change up but is back to business by the end.
Still, by the time we reach “Massive Nights” with Finn reaching his mic into the crowd while we sing “wooooh, woooh woooh” any complaints seem mean spirited.
Finn thanked us and went rushing off to another concert at the Hall At Williamsburgh. A triumphant return, I’ll say, which stops me in all my half hearted responses to Hold Steady and makes me a completely sold fan. Me, and 500 other people.
ps: if anybody knows what the song near the end that where the chorus went “walk on by” please tell me in comments (see comments: a reader came through).