The Hold Steady @ Prospect Park, plus August Reading

The rain held off just enough last Thursday night to allow me to schlep my unfortunately and accidentally hungover self out to Park Slope to see the Hold Steady in Prospect Park. Having taken Boys and Girls in America and Separation Sunday out of regular rotation since packing up my CDs in San Jose in February, my enthusiasm for the Hold Steady has waned slightly. Nevertheless, I still think Craig Finn is one of the most ambitious lyricists working in rock and roll these days, and a couple of tracks from either album still bubble into my consciousness. And following a transcendent show last year at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco last year, where the band turned a three-quarters full and half-excited weeknight crowd into a frenzied, raving mess, I was excited to see the band again.

The legion of Hold Steady fans have grown larger in the intervening year, as evidenced by the many teeny-somethings crowding the bandshell, happily singing along to the sing along parts of the Hold Steady's recent anthems. The show, in all, was quite good, and even OES, who joined me was relatively impressed. While I prefer seeing the band in a slightly smaller setting, where Finn's spastic energy and the band's songs translate a little better, it was another enjoyable, relatively free outdoor performance in Brooklyn. Worth mention, also are the Big Sleep, who opened, and sounded like Led Zeppelin had been forced to listen to a lot of Galaxie 500 (or perhaps, Smog, given the odd, half-cover of "Teenage Spaceship" that kicked off the band's set), and decided they felt like sounding mostly like Zeppelin. A band that I am excited to see in a smaller venue, where their walls of sound and rhythmic interplay will be even better, I'm sure.

Since August isn't made for working, read these if you are bored at work:

- A PitchforkMedia "Guest List" feature with Patton Oswalt. I had a friend out in LA who used to work on the King of Queens TV show and was sort of friends with Patton. OE, my friend, always spoke highly of Patton as being both very funny and a genuinely nice person. Both come across in this guest list, along with an enthusiasm and a sort of outside-in perspective on hipsterism that I enjoy and sort-of share;
- An interesting interview excerpt of Lee Hazlewood by Dean Wareham, over at Dust Congress;
- A couple of dated Craig Finn interviews worth skimming. Given how energetic his stage presence is, it is sort of re-assuring that he comes across as a pretty normal guy in conversation.

Photos from Flickr user ezwal