Reviews

The Hold Steady at Club Academy

The Hold Steady

Think an unholy alliance of Richard Dreyffuss, Charles Grodin with a smidgeon of Dustin Hoffman. As these three have proved, appearances can be deceptive, because Craig Finn totally dominated the stage.

A bouncing, whirling ball of energy, he acted out his band’s tales of Kerouac-ian high and low, drug and alcohol-fuelled jinks with an appealing passion and humour. Luckily, the other Hold Steadys were masters of their art too and provided a fabulous wash of sound that provided an abundance of power and punch that made the whole crowd reel.

This was live music at its most alive produced by an organic band, not created, styled, or made over by the music business, hence the lack of skinny jeans, studied cool or any pretence that a lack of reading - or breeding - is somehow to be boasted about. These ambitious men from Minneapolis are a fine example of everything that rock music can be.