I know I don’t have the history behind me, the years of fandom. I wasn’t in on the ground floor of this band.
But that doesn’t mean that Stay Positive didn’t warm my heart like Stephen King when he finally decided to finish the Dark Tower series (translation: a lot – and a reference to another ode to be written at a later time).
“Constructive Summer” sold this album within the first 30 seconds. Lines like “Here’s a toast to Saint Joe Strummer / I think he might have been our only decent teacher” make me want to hug Craig Finn, and every single piano lick and chant of “This summer!” gives me shivers.
This album is the Hold Steady through and through, but their aging isn’t inconspicuous. In these tracks Finn is looking back through the years. I felt like a vet as I pulled lyrics and allusions from the past albums, though the first album still isn’t quite under my belt and I know I’m missing out.
Shout outs like “When the chaperone crowned us the king and the queen” and “It’s one thing to start it with a positive jam” make me jump with excitement. There’s Holly, still sneaking out to party with the townies. There are the boys, cruising through town, doing drugs and getting jumped.
Ballads like “Lord, I’m Discouraged,” and “Both Crosses” are slower, more reflective Hold Steady, with a somber twang I didn’t notice before. Here are the girl’s precognitive tendencies and what she saw when she was running with those boys. Here’s Finn snagging a Billy Joel line (“You Catholic girls start much too late”) as the foreshadowing to bodies being tossed into the backs of trunks. In the beginning of “Stay Positive” Finn sings about the people who validate what he says and what he learned growing up.
Now let’s talk about “Stay Positive” for a minute. Let’s talk about those gang chanting lyrics and those woahs and how, no matter what you are doing, from being lost on the turnpike to writing a paper to fueling up for a blow-out with the spouse, this track can instantaneously catapult you staying, well, you know.
There are certain songs in my life that can do that, but they are few and far between. “Stay Positive” takes the cake. My friend Nate worries that this is the Hold Steady winding down. But when the album hits this jam, it’s hard to be worried.
Finn has all the usuals here: The attention-deprived girls who are oh-so-easy to sleep with, the parties, the changing scenes, the crucified boys and the drugs, drugs, drugs. “Slapped Actress” is the confession that yeah, the gang went down to Ybor city again, and it almost killed. Here again is that sense of coming to a close, that aged taste that creeps up on you when you least expect it in this album.
The running three tracks at the end, “Ask Her For Some Adderall / Cheyenne Sunrise / Two Handed Handshake” kick back to the fervor of the beginning of the CD. The distant sense of lamentation is there, especially the middle song, but it’s pretty much trodden on between the other two. Charlemagne’s lost his edge, the band is feeling old, and Finn offers some sage advice for new youths on the scene in typical, compelling Finn fashion.
I can’t wait to see what’s coming next.
This is a review I wrote for the Hold Steady/ Drive By Truckers show in Philly on 11/8/08 (I cut out the Drive By Truckers part for the sake of space, but hear you me, they were effing amazing too) :
And on Saturday, Craig Finn and company came to Electric Factory in all their biblical rock glory, bringing the renowned southern rock group Drive By Truckers to accompany them as co-headliners in their Rock and Roll Means Well Tour.
The only downfall of the night was my party’s inability to navigate to the venue from the Broad Street subway. The delay caused us to miss a couple of my favorite Hold Steady jams, but any fleeting sense of disappointment vanished as we entered the building to the prom night tale of “Massive Nights.” Yes.
As “Ask Her for Adderall” keyed up, I headed toward the stage. I weaved my way through a disquieting number of docile listeners, who stood with arms folded or drinks in their hands, nodding softly along with Finn’s voice, and planted myself at the front left in the midst of the more vibrant fans. And what fans they were. They danced, they shouted to the strangers next to them, they threw glitter in the air as a tribute the Boys and Girls in America album cover, and they grinned. They grinned their heads off.
Finn’s guitar hung forgotten at his waist as he awkwardly danced around the stage, clapping in double-time and singing even when he wasn’t anywhere near a microphone. Recounts of horse races and nights in Chicago flew by in a blur of sweaty faces and keyboard riffs.
Drive By Truckers frontman Patterson Hood came out to join Finn during the chorus of “Little Hoodrat Friend,” and the dormant people in the back half of the venue finally perked up and cheered.
Handlebar moustached Franz Nicolay kicked his legs out into the air and danced that strange, predominantly lower body dance that only keyboardists seemed to have mastered over the years. Occasionally he gave up the keyboard in favor of an accordion to the delight of the audience.
By the time the guys hit “Party Pit,” I found that Finn was drawing me in like a magnet. I was so caught up in the set that I left my group behind without noticing. Getting this captivated by a story is nothing new for me. But it was the first time that a singer elicited the level of rapt attention I usually reserve I usually reserve for a handful of my most beloved fiction writers.
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Finn sang about Holly never making it far enough west to see Los Angeles and the gang going down to Ybor City again in a haze of drugs and near disaster, and of Holly’s eventual, almost biblical resurrection. Finn has sung about these same high-school dropouts and druggie youths searching for salvation for over four years now and, like any good narrator, makes a listener feel like she is coming home to visit an old friend with every story he sings.
As each song thundered to its respective halt, I couldn’t help but wonder if shows would ever be the same after this scene.
“Hold Steady, don’t every stop playing!” someone behind me shouted. I had to agree.
Just when I thought the music had peaked, the band broke into “You Can Make Him Like You.” Friends jumped in the air and hugged each other. 20-year-old girls and 35-year-old guys shouted themselves hoarse along with Craig as he chanted “There’s always other boys/And you can make them like you.” My heart swelled.
The band finished with “Slapped Actress,” the closer on Stay Positive. The crowd raised their arms and dutifully sang the woahing outro, and for those two minutes, all was right in the world.
That’s all for now, but be on the lookout for the finale: Holding Steady Part III: Liz finally gets the first Hold Steady album. Get stoked.
-Liz
