The support band were Cat The Dog, who I'd seen a bit of a few weeks ago, and who sounded OK. This time, I could actually see them properly, and they looked a bit like The Kooks. I wrote last time that their song called Gotta Leave was the obvious standout track, and I'd stand by that view. Even latest single I'm A Romantic, which they played as their last song, didn't compare. They played all the power riffs well, but seemed to be lacking a good number of really strong songs. In short, they were interesting, but not that interesting.
The Hold Steady came on stage to triumphant cheering, in a venue which seemed to fill up massively in the 5-10 minutes before they came on. They said nothing, but immediately started playing Hot Soft Light, which prompted even more mad cheering, and a good deal of beer throwing. Chips Ahoy and Stuck Between Stations followed fairly soon afterwards, and by 15 minutes into the set, it was pretty obvious that the band were preaching to the converted. The crowd was younger that at the previous show I went to, although there were still relatively few teenagers, and still quite a few old Springsteen fans there. Over the summer, the band have spent a lot of time in the UK, playing their festival set aimed at winning sceptical and curious people over to them. So, it was good to see that this has been successful, for a decent crowd of people at least. They finished up with an 8-minute version of Killer Parties, which seems to get better and better each time I hear it (and don't be fooled by the album version, it is a million times better when you hear it live). Good band, good gig, and hopefully they will be back before too long.
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