We are all the Hold Steady

Gaw damn.

The Friar called me and told me he had two tickets for the Hold Steady in Denton tonight and should we go? Of course.

Best. Decision. Ever.

I bought a Hold Steady T-shirt and their new CD, Boys And Girls in America, for $10 and you ought to buy it too. I cannot recommend this album too highly, unless I foolishly opine that it is better than their previous, Separation Sunday, which is insanely great.

The joint (a place called Hailey's Club) was tragically empty. The opening act was a band called Sean Na Na, whose lead singer looked kinda like Paul Simon but who danced awkwardly and showed his butt crack in way that Paul Simon probably would have found undignified. They played Mr T Experience-like punky rock which was okay.

The main show was loud and exuberant and life-affirming in a way that the Flaming Lips show, for all of Wayne Coyne's rather forced "seize the day" message, wasn't. Lead singer Craig Finn roared his literate beat poetry with joyous abandon, often forgoing the mike and shouting the words inaudibly but happily over the heads of the audience. At the end the band bought four six-packs of beer from the bar and invited the whole audience on stage to dance and spray beer in the air while they performed a terrific sing-along that ended, as far as I could tell, with the line, 'We are all the Hold Steady."

Finn signed my CD with his slogan 'Stay Positive" and Friar had the whole band sign the poster he bought. The drummer ruined my Sharpie my sucking on the tip.

Boys go for looks, girls go for status.

Some nights the pain killers make the pain even worse.

Most nights are crystal clear, but tonight it's like he's stuck between stations.

She's hard on the heart and she's soft to the touch, and she gets migraine headaches when she does it too much... and she always does it too much.

Lost in fog and love and faithless fear, I’ve had kisses that make Judas seem sincere.

She looked just like a baby bird, all new and wet and trying to light a Parliament. He quoted her some poetry. He's Tennyson in denim and sheepskin.

If you get tired of your boyfriend's things, there's always other boys. There's always other boyfriends.

We had some massive nights, we had some crushing lows. We had some lusty little crushes. We had those all ages hardcore matinee shows.

Southtown girls won't blow you away but you know they'll stay.

There's strings attached to every single lover.

It was about 3:00 a.m. when we got back to town. We stopped at the Hangout, where some of the usual crowd was still there drinking with the staff. We hid out for a while until a cop parked across the street got called somewhere else and then we all drove home.