The Hold Steady and Wintersleep
Monday, September 20 at The National
Expectations are a real motherfucker. Negative expectations are very easily lived up to, to the point that they can verge on self-fulfilling prophecy. Positive expectations are easily disappointed, especially those which are held long enough to become a sort of truism in the mind of the person holding them. And then there are the grey areas--the manner in which personality traits, outlooks, and interests can shift and evolve more rapidly than preconceptions, leaving an individual suddenly shocked by the realization of how far he or she has come in life, and how little previously-held ideas relate to the present situation. This may all seem like irrelevant and not-especially-deep abstraction, but all these ideas flashed through my head over the course of The Hold Steady’s show at the National.
Wintersleep, The Hold Steady’s opener, lived up to my long-held expectation that any band warming the stage for a larger, more recognized act will be mediocre at best, and more realistically, completely abysmal. It was little surprise when the singer announced they were Canadian – they had a very Canadian (for lack of a better descriptor) sound, resembling what I assume Broken Social Scene would sound like if I could make it through more than thirty seconds of their music. Propulsive, almost dancey drumming underpinned some atmospheric guitars, all topped off with nasal vocals which sounded like either a painfully strained stab Eric Richter in his Christie Front Drive days, or a fairly spot-on impression of 90s folk-pop flash-in-the-pan David Gray. In Wintersleep’s defense, there were two or three songs, later in their set, where they seemed to remember that they owned distortion pedals. Those songs made me think that if I heard their music played in the background of some overpriced coffee shop, I would make a mental note to ask the art school drop-out barista the band’s name after ordering my quadruple red-eye. However, I’d almost certainly forget to inquire by the time I reached the counter.
The Hold Steady had attached themselves to any number of positive expectations in my mind over the years. I never completely bought the whole “saviors of rock and roll” idea that much of the sycophantic media has tagged the band with, but I can get down with any band who can incorporate Thin Lizzy-style verbosity, name-drop Dillinger Four and Profane Existence, and dig up Dave Pirner from wherever the hell he happens to be these days for a guest spot. I didn’t even like the band at first, but even before they eventually grew on me, I had The Hold Steady pegged for a good live band. At some point during their performance, however, I experienced the very abrupt realization that they are just not a band I’m really into anymore; that over the course of the days slipping through my fingers, my perspective had shifted. These days, the sort of work put forth by bands like The Hold Steady seems to me increasingly disingenuous and formulaic.
And it’s not exactly that they aren’t a good live band. The performances were spot-on and the sound at the National was excellent as usual. They have all the live band moves down--all the “I can’t hear you” gestures to the crowd, all the stage banter, a set list stocked with all their most singalong-ready material, from “Positive Jam” all the way to “Rock And Roll Problems”--everything that most people willing to shell out twenty bucks for a show expect. But that was the problem. Judging by the vast majority of people dancing and singing along to the songs, I am in the minority holding such an opinion, but The Hold Steady seemed to have internalized many of the worst clichés of the genre that critics have tagged them with saving. They are what happens when a band starts believing its own positive reviews.
Like I said, there will likely be a considerable number of people in attendance who would disagree with everything I’ve just written. And maybe it is just me. Tastes and perceptions change. While I certainly value being a smartass, I just don’t feel like The Hold Steady’s shtick--the smirking post-collegiate irony laden with more B-list cultural references than a Family Guy marathon--constitutes lasting rock and roll. There’s a lack of danger, and of the aesthetic sharp edges that make for memorable music. Rock and roll should be a force that makes a listener want to fight, to fuck, or to channel Mesopotamian trickster gods, not an environment for frat boys chugging five dollar PBR’s to watch a guy who looked like a young Eugene Levy doing a bad Prince impression.
There are scores of bands out there, from Grinderman to Graveyard, who are approaching rock and roll from the right angles, with the sort of guts and soul that make lasting artistic documents. Maybe it’s just that my tastes have shifted – again, I really am trying to at least acknowledge that fans of this band are likely to remain fans after watching them, and also to readily acknowledge my place as the wet blanket in the back of the room, scowling into a plastic cup of Starr Hill – but their music just doesn’t do it. And I wish I could express my reservations more eloquently than with those two words, but it might be appropriate than I can’t. The essence of the best rock music lies within the moments which can’t be translated to a page, but on the opposite side of that coin, many criticisms can be difficult to convey beyond explaining that you’re not really feeling it, and not really relating to it. But these criticisms come from the same emotional perspective as positive reviews of The Hold Steady. Reactions to their music, whether positive or negative, are often an immediate, gut-level response. Just because some people have found themselves oriented away from what the band tries to get across doesn’t mean that a whole lot of other people are likely to agree.