The Hold Steady

Like many of America’s smartest rock bands — from Fountains of Wayne to the Drive-By Truckers — this Minneapolis-to-Brooklyn quintet are an anomaly. With their third album they’ve moved to youth-culture central at Vagrant and earned high praise from the hipster judges at Pitchfork. Yet as frontman Craig Finn tries singing instead of just reciting and the band hang tighter around their major-chord riffs, the music sounds older than ever, recalling beautiful-loser ’70s rock like Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Jungleland.” And Franz Nicolay at times tinkles the ivories with such abandon, he could be the E Street Band’s Roy Bittan tripping on mushrooms. Which he might well be except that, like Springsteen’s E Street, the Hold Steady are empathetic spokespeople for fucked-up youth, not fucked-up youth themselves, and their boss is like the Boss — a reprobate Catholic obsessed with redemption. Finn’s American boys and girls make pipes from Pringles cans, are great kissers but lousy lovers, yearn for “guys with the hot soft eyes,” and flip through radio stations as if they were searching for salvation. If they stumbled across the Hold Steady, they — unlike Bruce’s boys and girls — might even smirk and move on. But that’s one more reason a smart agnostic like you shouldn’t.

Drive-By Truckers

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Pop and Rock Music

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Orpheum Theatre

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Alternative and Indie Rock

Latest Articles

Raising the Bar (Rock)

The Hold Steady + The Drive-By Truckers at the Orpheum, November 9, 2008
On the "Rock and Roll Means Well" tour, Drive-By Truckers and the Hold Steady upgraded their respective brands of quintessential American bar rock with a number of arena-rock trimmings.
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | November 14, 2008

Call it a comeback

The Drive-By Truckers veer from the brink
Alabama offspring Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley have been making raucous rock and roll together in one band or another for the past 23 years, about the same time it takes most offspring to grow up and get real jobs.
By FRANKLIN SOULTS | November 03, 2008

Going on sale: August 22, 2008

Breaking news from the concert ticket trade
Kaki King, The Hold Steady, N.E.R.D., Dungen, Deerhunter and more.
By GOING ON SALE | August 19, 2008

Towns on the edge of darkness

The Hold Steady explore the shadows on Stay Positive
If 2006’s Boys and Girls in America was the Hold Steady’s Born to Run, Stay Positive is their Darkness On the Edge of Town , where the cocksure auteur grows older and less certain of his place in the world.
By MICHAEL ATCHISON | July 14, 2008

Diminishing returns

The Hold Steady make it hard to Stay Positive
For a while, Hold Steady lead singer Craig Finn wrote terrific stories.
By RICHARD BECK | July 09, 2008

Portland scene report: February 22, 2008

Sibilance starts now
If you’re jonesing for some new Sara Cox, check out her Valentine’s Day present to the world, “White Dress and All.”
By PORTLAND PHOENIX MUSIC STAFF | February 20, 2008

The top 20 local albums of 2007

Here’s to the cream of a very impressive crop
Whatever you may think of Portland’s live-music scene nowadays — I’d argue it’s improving.
By SAM PFEIFLE | December 19, 2007

Craig’s list

It’s hard for me in almost every moment not be aware of how good things are for us.
By LOU PAPINEAU | October 17, 2007

We're all the Hold Steady

Fans’ notes on the band that’s sharing joy and changing lives, one gig at a time
When’s the last time you fell so hard for a band you drove 339 miles — alone — to see them?
By LOU PAPINEAU | October 17, 2007

Holding steady

Craig Finn returns to BC
When you think about it, the Hold Steady are the perfect Boston band.
By MIKE MILIARD | September 19, 2007

Post-punk pantheon

Daydream Nation tops our list of 10 landmark albums that made indie rock
They were, by definition, misfits.
By PHOENIX STAFF | July 16, 2007

In the Black

Twisted Roots return to prominence with their first full-length since 1999
Twisted Roots transformed their “reunion” into a forward-looking intent to bestride Portland once again and develop a new crop of fans who dig terrifying guitar solos and teeth-rattling vocals.
By SAM PFEIFLE | June 20, 2007

Not better off dead

Art Brut find their way in the post-punk world
Three years ago, London’s Art Brut debuted with a punk-rock song called “Formed a Band.”
By NICK SYLVESTER | June 12, 2007

The 100 unsexiest men 2007: 10-1

These guys couldn't turn on a radio

By | April 14, 2007

Guest lists

What 30 of the Phoenix 's music critics liked this year
What small, private lists like this remind us is that big, honking institutional lists are largely fictions, mirages of a consensus that no longer exists, if it ever really did in the first place.
By PHOENIX MUSIC STAFF | January 02, 2007

Visionary sounds

A year in jazz and pop
Sonic Youth, Andrew Hill, Bob Dylan, and more
By JIM MACNIE | December 20, 2006

The IFC Soundtrack

Indie rock for indie movies
The bridge between independent film and indie rock has been getting easier and easier to cross with the rise of a new generation of directors weaned on music videos and the multimedia underground.
By MATT ASHARE | December 04, 2006

The Hold Steady

Boys And Girls In America | Vagrant
Like many of America’s smartest rock bands — from Fountains of Wayne to the Drive-By Truckers — this Minneapolis-to-Brooklyn quintet are an anomaly. The Hold Steady, "Killer Parties Remix"
By FRANKLIN SOULTS | November 13, 2006

Hitsville UK?

Art Brut, the Cribs, and Brakes spearhead Britain’s new underground
Of the many, many excellent jokes singer Eddie Argos makes on the crackerjack debut by his London-based band Art Brut, the best might be the band’s name itself.
By MIKAEL WOOD | February 22, 2006

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