Perhaps you've heard: Brooklyn-based rock quintet The Hold Steady has become somewhat of a sensation around here. Their romanticized tales of last-call lovers — sung over big guitars and stately keyboards — would have likely won the critically acclaimed indie band fans across Tampa Bay sans a local angle. But surely it hasn't hurt that one of The Hold Steady's best-known songs ("Killer Parties") includes a reference to Ybor City.
So it was no surprise that The Hold Steady played to a full, lively room of several hundred last Saturday at the Ybor City club Czar. And yes, the band closed with "Killer Parties." Virtually every mouth in the room sang along to the line "Ybor City is tres speedy" and then lead singer Craig Finn invited audience members to join the band on stage.
Attendees ranging in age from late teens to baby boomers filled the nightclub's large back area. The diversity of the crowd spoke to the concert being Skatepark of Tampa's 15th Anniversary bash, as well as The Hold Steady's ability to hook mature listeners. Their marriage of highly literate lyrics and glorious, bar-band rock 'n' roll, replete with flashy guitar solos, rightfully appeals to an ardent group of enthusiasts.
At the show, though, some of these enthusiasts took to moshing, crowd-surfing and even trying to climb the lighting scaffolds. Considering the rather cerebral nature of The Hold Steady's music, this type of crowd reaction caught me off guard. I mostly remained a safe 20-25 feet from the stage and grappled with a pillar blocking my view and a sound system unable to highlight Finn's vocals — until about halfway through the show, when I found a great spot in front of a speaker off the right side of the stage.
Finn doesn't look like a rock star. He's balding, bearded, wears eyeglasses and sports a formidable paunch. But he sells each lyric with engagingly exaggerated facial expressions and hand gestures, working the stage like a roly-poly Mick Jagger, even busting out the occasional white-boy dance move. This anti-rock-star routine makes Finn an ideal hero for members of the indie scene who need ironic cover in order to pump their fists and get down with testosterone-driven histrionics. Luckily, Finn & company's performance proved gloriously sincere.
Performing in the round before a crowd of more than 18,000 Saturday at the St. Pete Times Forum, George Strait showed why he has been country music's most consistent and respected hitmaker and touring act for the past couple decades.
Yeah, critics knock Strait for being wooden in concert. I've seen him twice now, and he basically stands there with his guitar the whole time, as if afraid to wrinkle his pressed shirt or those blue jeans with the creases down the front. But watch him up close (we had great seats) or on the big screen, and every lyric comes to life on that famous face — even early '80s hits like "Amarillo By Morning," one of the great cowboy songs of the modern era.
I caught the first hour of Strait's set before heading to see The Hold Steady and was treated to carefully recreated (courtesy of Strait's excellent Ace in the Hole band) oldies like the heartstring-tugging ballad "Ocean Front Property," the bawdy two-stepper "Fireman" and the recent "I Hate Everything," a number as gripping as anything in Strait's impressive back catalog.
NFL playoffs and bad weather kept people away, but the fervent folks who did show up for Ronny Elliott's CD release party Sunday left happy — albeit a bit numb from the cold. Backed by his longstanding band The Nationals, Elliott debuted material from his new album, Jalopypaint, and offered spirited renditions of fan faves like "Same Three Chords" and "Burn, Burn, Burn."
This article appears in Jan 23-29, 2008.