livin' up to the hype

I think the first time I heard The Hold Steady was just over a year ago. I distinctly remember driving home from some family thing or another at my parents' house. It was an early spring afternoon and the album blasting on my car stereo was Separation Sunday. I was hooked immediately, and have since been waiting for Craig & the gang to make a trip to Colorado.

I have heard a lot of things about The Hold Steady's live shows. Mostly that they are energetic, crazy, drunken on-stage parties where the band has more fun than the fans and are truly thankful for people to come see them play. Tonight proved no different... well, except for the drunken part. Despite several cans of Budweiser and a bottle of Jack, the band seemed pretty sober to me. The show was incredible - it exceeded my expectations for sure. It was just so amazing to see Craig with that goofy grin on his face for 90 minutes; to see a band that has some serious fun playing their songs. The set was a good mix of new and old songs:

Stuck Between Stations
Chips Ahoy!
The Swish
Hot Soft Light
Massive Nights
Party Pit
Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night
You Can Make Him Like You
Stevie Nix
Girls Like Status
Your Little Hoodrat Friend
Southtown Girls
How A Resurrection Really Feels
-----
Citrus
First Night
Most People Are DJs
Killer Parties

Heartless Bastards opened up - I missed them in Denver in January because I was out of town, and I didn't even know they were opening for The Hold Steady until Leah informed me today! Although it took me some time to warm up to Erika's voice, I was excited to see them. They didn't disappoint, and put on a great set.

Well, this is probably short for one of my blogs... but I'm in charge of driving my two nieces the 40 or so miles to Fort Collins tomorrow and need to get to sleep. On top of that I've been dealing with iPod issues today that finally lead me to have to "restore factory settings" tonight. Needless to say I'm pretty pissed off to be sitting here with an empty iPod. Grrr.