Are The Hold Steady the best live band around at the moment?
Certainly the best I have seen for a long, long time, maybe since The Clash in their pomp in 1978, maybe since Nine Below Zero at the Piazza, maybe since the Manics at Plymouth Pavilions.
The gig at the Princess Pavilions in Falmouth was was the third time of seeing The Hold Steady for me and for Bridget, who took the picture from our vantage point in a seething mass of Cornishmen two rows back from the stage. It was robust in there, to say the least, especially during 'Massive Nights' and 'Stuck Between Stations'. But we handled ourselves pretty well and shook hands with the Sons of Trelawny after a mighty version of 'Slapped Actress' had brought proceedings to a close and we made our sweaty way out into the night for a two-and-a-half-hour trek back up through Cornwall in the early hours.
We saw them at The Point in Cardiff, which is now apparently closed. That was a 10 out of 10. Then we saw them at Bristol Students Union, where I made us late by getting lost in the Christmas shopping traffic. That was about an eight out of 10. Falmouth, where we had a pint in the evening sunshine and a bag of chips on the way up the hill to the theatre, was definitely another 10.
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