A Massive Night: the HOLD STEADY à la Maroquinerie

There are nights I think Sal Paradise was right…

Despite being pretty sick and despite the rain and hour-long metro ride to the most random place to have a concert venue, I was very excited to check out La Maroquinerie to see the Hold Steady for the first time. They have since been catapulted to the front of my list… well, at least, nearer to it. Awesome show, and awesome venue! We finally stumbled upon the place, a little hole in the wall, with seemingly no one around, a little past eight and checked out the inside and got some drinks before we found a spot to watch the rest of the opening act. Not that it was hard to find a spot, at all – it was rather strange, there was a very small standing area, vacant, bordered by a small set of steps on three sides, which everyone was sitting on. No one was standing. The opening act was pretty mellow, though, so I guess it’s understandable – though all four of us (myself, Yotam and Niko, and another American we’d been talking to, a really nice guy) kind of looked at each other and back at the stage, and then back at each other again – when the Hold Steady came on stage and no one flinched or moved a muscle. (“Ummmm…..”) Thankfully, a few people got up and and stood at the front, and by the time they finished tuning their instruments, enough people had followed suit, and we joined them. We moved to the front after a few minutes too, as the crowd was so spaced out and scattered that there was plenty of room to move, and no one was standing on the right side in the front. It definitely wasn’t the packed, smashed, smoking, sweaty, jumping, flailing crowd that I’d imagined, but that’s got it’s good and bad points. It was intimate and awesome, and they sounded great. I didn’t get to hear First Night, but heard Stuck Between Stations, You Can Make Him Like You, Stevie Nix, Multitude of Casualties and Southtown Girls, so I was happy as a clam. I really liked every song they played.

Here are some shots of the band and Craig that I think pretty much capture the feel of the music and the night – the Hold Steady is a band you feel drunk just listening to, and indeed that’s a fitting sentiment, given the lyrics Craig Finn spewed and spitted out, while lurching over the microphone, teetering on the stand. If that thing had fallen I think he’d have gone down too. He stumbled around on stage, dropping his glasses, chucking his near-empty Heineken bottles on the floor of the stage, repeating lyrics without the microphone for emphasis (“High as hell!”) (“Positive!”), spitting while he shouted.

How’m I s’posed to know if you’re high if you won’t even dance?

If you get tired of your boyfriend’s friends, there’s always other boys, there’s always other boyfriends

Craig also enjoyed a little dancing (read: flailing) during the harmonica solo

If this shot doesn't capture the night, I don't know what does

Southtown Girls won’t blow you away… but you know that they’ll stay

And here’s the set list he accidentally kicked off the stage halfway through the show (but that I tastefully waited until after the set to pick up):

The lead guitarist Tad (I think) and I. We talked with him at the bar after the show for a bit – about how different the crowds are in Paris, for one thing (and how early shows start and end). It was only eleven at that point. He was very nice and down-to-earth, and asked about us and what we were doing in Paris. He told us their last show on the tour is going to be at the Templar in Dublin, and that it’s going to be great – oh man, I can only imagine.

We said hi to the keyboardist on the way out, who Yotam and I agreed was our favorite (and would have been Ween’s too, I imagine ;) . Craig was, as you can imagine, “passed out somewhere.”

And finally, me and my little hoodrat friends (L-R, Niko and Yotam.)

Great night!