The Hold SteadyProbably the best live experience I’ve had in the last ten years or so, which is why I've chosen them - I like their recorded stuff but they don't really shine until you see them in the flesh. Formed in New York in 2004 these guys leave it all out on the stage and are just a shitload of fun really, five blokes who look like librarians fast approaching middle age but who really know how to kick up one hell of a sweet racket.
A punky, indie-ey bastardised version of classic rock - so pub rock really, but in the best possible sense - over which frontman Craig Finn talk-sings wordy, literate, frequently hilarious tales of debauchery and twisted night life that burst into life with epic, singalong choruses. I think I read somewhere that he’d been described as the “poet laureate of the fucked up,” and though this is probably a bit of a misnomer, the guy’s got talent and he’s a real entertainer. As the man himself says though, he’s just part of a band who “play bad-ass rock and roll while I spout bollocks over the top.” The videos are worth checking out just for Craig Finn and keyboardist Franz Nicolay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJGL0IIZkIIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuFxNkpCS9Ehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I05E5mh27zs