The first band on were Demander, a three piece with a female singer, who also played the bass. I had listened to a couple of their songs on MySpace before the show, and wasn't really impressed. Seeing them live kind of confirmed that, with not a great deal interesting going on. Eddie Argos from Art Brut was having a drink at the bar during their set, which was interesting. I must admit that they did get significantly better towards the end of the set, but I won't be rushing back to see them.
Next up were Art Brut, playing something longer than a "normal" support set, at about 45 minutes. I was due to go and see them in London in June, but had to drop out thanks to a nasty bout of food poisoning. At this gig, of course, hardly anybody in the audience had heard of them, so very few people knew what to expect. I was wary to begin with, about how Americans would react to some very over the top Englishness. As it turned out, though, this was a great way to see Art Brut, watching them completely win over a crowd that had never heard of them before, to the point where they were eating out of the band's hand by the end.
The set was drawn pretty equally from across Art Brut's 2 albums, although the sound, and the quickfire nature of the lyric delivery meant that it was at times difficult to hear what Eddie Argos was saying. But, all in all, Art Brut are one of the funnier bands you can watch - the stage presence of all of the band (but the singer in particular) is amazing, and they really put on a good show. From Blame It On The Trains towards the beginning of the set, through Nag Nag Nag, to the finale of Direct Hit and Good Weekend, their set had people dancing and moshing, and Eddie Argos had people laughing. A really good live band, (with a lookalike for Gareth Keenan from The Office on guitar), I fail to see how anybody could watch them live and not enjoy it.
After a mercifully short changeover, The Hold Steady appeared, and started their set with a fantastic version of Positive Jam, the first track on their debut album, every word of which was sung back loudly by the majority of the crowd. That song is not well known enough in the UK, and not instantly likeable enough, to play it first, and this was the first sign that the set would be very different to the Hold Steady gigs I'd been to in the UK before. Of course, in the UK, the band have novelty value, being so American - which just doesn't apply here - but they also seem to attract crowds here that know the songs much better, and that know songs from more than just the latest album. This was an outing for comparative die hards.The Hold Steady had been playing new songs already on this tour, and this continued with the debut of an excellent new song called Lord I'm Discouraged, something which the NME Review of the gig surprisingly failed to pick up on. (This review also contains utter fiction about Eddie Argos tearing through the crowd topless at the end of Art Brut's set. He did get into the crowd on one occasion, and he did unbutton his shirt on a different occasion - neither were at the end of the set). This new song (and a couple of others) were played with a double necked guitar - the ultimate in rock cheese, which of course the Americans loved, and seemed to see no cliche whatsoever in.
When the set got around to Your Little Hoodrat Friend, the venue went completely mad, and that song was the undoubted highlight. In fact, many of the highlights were songs that aren't from Boys And Girls In America, again showing how much deeper the American fans seem to be into the band. Many of the songs were played quite a bit faster than the recorded versions, which I thought meant that a few of the lyrics got a bit lost - I would have preferred some of the tunes to have been heavier sounding, rather than faster, but there we go. The band rarely stopped to talk to the audience, which was cool, and gave the set a real sense of urgency.
As the set wound on, the band gave a mention to their English t-shirt seller, who they met in Manchester (the English one), but who had the broadest Scouse accent imaginable. Towards the end of the set, there was a blistering version of Southtown Girls, a rendition of a brilliant song that I'd never heard before called Girls Like Status, with the classic chorus line "guys go for looks, girls go for status", and to finish the show, a manic version of Killer Parties, complete with a huge cheer during the lyric about Philadelphia. A great gog overall, seeing the Hold Steady in America was a very different experience to when they are in Europe - it is a full throttle show, and extremely enjoyable indeed.
Review
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