The Hold Steady / Wintersleep

While many couples take this evening to crush themselves into restaurants to please a certain commercialised date on the calendar, the sensible amongst us go to watch The Hold Steady. The bar room rockers and frankly one of the best live bands around are back in Leeds to showcase some new songs and a new band member.



I am not normally that blown away by support acts… they have to be something really special to keep me interested. Tonight's band easily fill this quota. Wintersleep from Canada are an indie rock band who play layered and complicated rock. Singer Paul Murphy's voice has more than a passing resemblance to Don Maclean but the real star of the show is drummer Loel Campbell's highly accentuated facial expressions; it's like every drum has a face contortion to go with it. Hell, if it helps him play drums as well as this who am I to say… Songs like 'Trace Decay' and 'Encyclopaedia' from latest album 'New Inheritors' fit in with 'Weighty Ghost', 'Laser Beams' and 'Drunk on Aluminium' from 'Welcome To The Night Sky' (there are no tracks from the first two albums, 'Wintersleep' and 'Untitled'). With beautiful, layered rock tracks, I can't wait to see these guys headline their own show.

The Hold Steady take to the stage not long after Wintersleep's set. Although this show is not sold out (though not far off) there are a nice amount of people here, we aren't getting crushed and there's room to dance. Although there's only a few really going for it in the pit, the rest of us are happy to soak it all in around the venue.



I have been a bit slack with The Hold Steady's albums recently. I bought 'Stay Positive' and didn't really listen to it, even though I love the first three albums, and I didn't even know about 'Heaven is Whenever'. I feel ashamed to have nearly forgotten about this band, as they are an amazing live band to watch.

Craig Finn as always is chatting the lyrics at you in his American drawl, miming the words (or something like them) off the microphone when not singing. I believe this band like the crowd to be closer to them; small venues and no pit, that's the best way. Then the crowd at the front can feel more involved and be covered in Finn's constant spit spray (like the poor security guard at the front). With his over gestured mannerisms and vocal delivery Finn really is an engaging front man to watch. Putting him and Campbell in the same band would be a real eye feast!



There's no gimmicks with this band, no fancy stage set up and lighting, not stupid boring conversations between songs and no urging us to sing a long (we can manage that on our own), just pure bar room blues. The band are missing Franz Nicolay, who left (under good terms) to pursue other things. His cheeky smile under that curled moustache, great vocal harmonies and excellent organ skills are sorely missed here, but replacement Steve Selvidge (from Lucero) does an excellent job of riff duelling with the astounding guitar skills from Tad Kubler. Add to these two the steady bass riff foundations and drumming from Galen Polivka and Bobby Drake and you have The Hold Steady; one hell of a band.

The setlist is a full mixture of tunes from across the board, with oldie 'Positive Jam' starting it all off. New tracks like 'The Sweet Part of the City', 'Hurricane J' and 'Rock Problems' fit in seamlessly with other tracks like 'Magazines' and 'Sequestered in Memphis' from 'Stay Positive' and older tracks from 'Separation Sunday' ('Your Little Hoodrat Friend') and 'Almost Killed Me' ('Barfruit Blues' and 'Killer Parties'). For me and many others though it's the tracks from the album that brought the band over here, 'Boys And Girls In America', that are responded to the most. 'Stuck Between Stations', 'You Can Make Him Like You', 'Chips Ahoy!' and 'Massive Nights' (helped along by the latter two and their huge "Woah" choruses) really stir up the crowd. It certainly was a Massive Night, better than a meal for two at the The Fat Duck anyday...

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.