Oh, To Be At A Hold Steady Show Forever

Everyone's got an internal editor, right? He stands around and prevents you from saying things that are out of character for you. He's kind of a wet blanket sometimes, but usually you're glad he's there. Everyone's internal editor is different, though, and different people's editors let different stuff through the filter. When we walked into the Crocodile on Saturday night the guy on stage was saying something like "Some people are into shit, some people are into piss, some people are into hanging from the rafters and jacking off." He was in the mold of the aging punk guy who'd long ago slapped his internal editor into submission, obviously. When the second band Sean Na Na was berating the audience for not cheering loud enough for a "make some noise if you think Sean Na Na is fucking awesome" call, we noticed his internal editor asleep on a stool next to him on the stage.

When Craig Finn of the Hold Steady came on stage, he had a little stare-down with his internal editor. Finn's a little guy, balding, with glasses. He wears button down shirts. You're not sure if he's going to rock a bunch of dive bar anthems or politely ask you to go ahead and make some copies because he absolutely looks like a guy who has a real hardass for an internal editor. Then he dropped the guy with a open hand chop to the throat before stomping him into submission and rolling his bloodied carcass off the stage.

The sold-out crowd cheered the beating and then went crazy for the rest of the set (er, Seattle crazy; "If we were in Duluth, people would be enjoying this." Internal editor, dead, remember). Finn spazzed and shouted his way through two albums worth of material, channeling Springsteen, Joe Cocker and David Byrne along the way, but we can't come up with anyone in the music world whose characters and stories presage what the Hold Steady do in their songs. And we can even forgive him for all the Minnesota shout-outs. Actually, we have no problem with the Minnesota shout-outs - We love Minnesota, and we love the hyper-local lyrics of the Hold Steady (unfortunately, no Seattle musician has dropped as many place names as the Hold Steady since Mix-a-lot). It's the Minnesota sports shout-outs that got to us, and, in fact, turned out to be a little prescient.

Seattlest's very own internal editor won't prevent us from giving you some tired line about how this band has a huge sound that transforms a tiny venue like the Crocodile into Key Arena, and since they're making waves right now, it might have been your last opportunity to see them in such a wee little club [Int Ed Note: Oh you're so cool because you saw them at the Croc? Lame.]. Craig Finn never stops singing the whole time he's on stage. No, he sings the songs more or less as they're recorded - He sings his part, the parts of the rest of the band, mysterious other lines. He shouts, calls out, just yells. When he's singing a line he's not supposed to be singing, he takes the mic away from his mouth. His internal editor lives after all.

When the show was over and the Croc kicked us out onto 2nd Ave, we walked past the boisterous Shorty's, Lava Lounge, Rendezvous, and Viceroy and we remember thinking "these places could live in a Hold Steady song - How come no one sings about them?"

Images courtesy of right-on and Drake LeLane.