Song of the Week 4/8/11

The Hold Steady - "The Sweet Part of the City"


(Fast foward to 4:00 in for the music to start)

Friday night I went with my co-worker Kerry to see The Hold Steady at Terminal 5 in Manhattan. If you've never been there, let me sum it up for you four words -- large, noisy metal box. Basically, it's the worst large sized venue in the five boroughs. But I hadn't seen The Hold Steady in four years and having someone else who really wanted to go tipped the scale in favor of making the trek to the way West Side.

I spent some time revisiting their back catalog the past week, even spinning their weakest album by far -- 2010's Heaven is Whenever. The album is filled with some total clunkers ("Rock Problems?" really?) so I hadn't really explored it since the month it was released. I had forgotten just how much I liked the opening song "The Sweet Part of the City" -- and how much it made me think of Led Zeppelin. In fact, there were three or four songs that sounded kind of Zeppelinesque Friday night. I never really noticed it before with the crazy good keyboards over top all of the songs. The band is doing this spring tour without a keyboardist, so it's all guitar all the time. I don't think that's a good idea in general (I found my mind filling in the keyboard parts in my head), but it worked just fine on "Sweet Part."