God bless The Hold Steady.

when i figure out how to post photos and link things, this'll be way cooler. but i'll try to dazzle with just the words...

Traveled to a little club here in Pittsburgh the other night to catch The Hold Steady, a band i have been falling deeper and deeper in love with since being introduced to them last fall. 'Twas the first time in a long time that just me and my girl went in search of the rock (kids will, in fact, do that to ya), and the rock we surely found. We also found God and Springsteen and dead poets and drugs...and community, in a room full of people singing along 'till their faces were red to songs about God and dead poets and drugs and community...and maybe Springsteen too.

The Hold Steady are the poets laureate of bar rock, and the show was a stunner. They disarmed with a guileless exuberance and made an authentic connection with their Boss-tastic gospel-of-rock-and-roll delivery. Pure joy. The songs? Glorious and heartbreaking, tragic and grand and beautiful. Outside of U2, I can't remember a stronger sense of togetherness at a rock show. There was something other in the room, a spirit in the songs that said these are our magnificent, dissolute lives. Together we will make our way through this beautiful mess. All this from songs about boys and girls getting high? Talk about finding God in the trashbins...


"Citrus," from The Hold Steady's Boys and Girls in America
hey citrus
hey liquor
i love it when you touch each other
hey whiskey
hey ginger
i come to you with rigid fingers

i see judas in the hard eyes of the boys working the corners
i feel Jesus in the clumsiness of young and awkward lovers

hey barroom
hey tavern
i find hope in all the souls you gather
hey citrus
hey liquor
i love it when we come together

i feel Jesus in the clumsiness of young and awkward lovers
i feel judas in the long odds of the rackets on the corners
i feel Jesus in the tenderness of honest nervous lovers
i feel judas in the pistols and the pagers that come with all the powders

lost in fog and love and faithless fear
i've had kisses that make judas seem sincere

If I see a better show this year, it'll be a miracle.