Killer parties almost killed me...

Once again, The Hold Steady rocked my FACE OFF!

Saturday's show was the first time I saw them headlining... we saw them open for U.S.E. last June, and my brother and I saw them open for a punk band (whose name escapes me because we didn't stay for them) in Philadelphia last November. Headlining gave them just that much more freedom to jam and get sloshed. Their set was well constructed, their playing was tight, and their performance was happy and energetic. The crowd, at least down front, was way into it. There was considerable moshing by Seattle standards.  

They played a strong mix of songs from this year's Boys and Girls in America and last year's Separation Sunday -- which was tied for my favorite album of 2005. They only played two songs, I think, from their debut Almost Killed Me, including closing the night with "Killer Parties". I'm starting to think it's their best song.

Their joyful performance was in stark contrast to that of the opening bands. The first band, Neutral Boy, took us in a time machine straight back to 1982, sez theCultFigure, for some excellently executed frozen-in-time punk rock. I got the sense that they wrote a song about anything that ever crossed their minds. And I think they may have played every song they knew in 45 minutes, despite having been a band for ~12 years I think they said? They were pretty good actually, for what they were.

Way more irritating was the second band, Sean Na-Na, who seemed to be a bunch of at-best moderately talented dickheads. I really don't appreciate being repeatedly ordered to clap, e.g., "Did you write that song? No, I wrote that song! Give it up for me!" That is pretty much verbatim. And this went on throughout the whole set. Also, their keyboard player looked like he had bird flu or something. He did not look healthy.

I'm thrilled to discover that The Hold Steady will again be playing in Philly while we're visiting my mom for Thanksgiving. That's two years in a row! So, yeah, I'm totally going to go get my FACE ROCKED OFF again next month! Sweeeet.