Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
The Hold Steady hold up
...despite the missing piano man
Cheap Girls got the crowd warmed up for the Hold Steady. The trio from Lansing, Michigan, fueled by Ian Graham’s crooning vocals, was a throwback to ’90s alternative rock, most notably the Smoking Popes — simple bass, drums, guitar, and vocals over a comforting blanket of power chords. Leaning more toward the rock than the punk end of the musical spectrum, I found myself pondering how few bands sound like this anymore. Apparently this sound isn’t as hip as it was in the ‘90s, just don’t tell all the fans singing along to “Her and Cigarettes” about that.
The Hold Steady’s set started with a piano-less version of the piano-centric ballad “First Night,” from 2006’s Boys and Girls in America. The band’s new ace guitarist, Steve Selvidge, took the lead. He played all the keyboard parts on guitar and pulled it off. Sort of...
Wait, that's not a piano!
The remainder of the show followed a similar pattern. All of the songs from past albums that weren’t anchored by departed member Franz Nicolay’s keyboard contributions sounded great; the songs missing Nicolay’s keyboards sounded odd, empty. “Chips Ahoy” sounded strange in this regard, but the most jarring was the band’s anthem, and final song of the night, “Stuck Between Stations.” “Stations” stopped dead in the spot about two-thirds of the way through that once featured Nicolay’s piano solo. I didn’t realize how integral this solo break was to the song until it wasn’t there. Even worse, they didn’t edit it out; they just left dead air, where the band took the time to thank the crowd, and then they started the song up again, giving the audience just enough of a break to wonder why in the world they would choose to pull the plug on the music at a moment when the tune is just starting its victory lap.
The show wasn’t akin to seeing a Billy Joel or Ben Folds concert minus piano, but the feeling I took away was that keyboards might be more integral to the sound of the Hold Steady than the band realizes.
- Concert: The Hold Steady/Cheap Girls
- Venue: Belly Up
- Date: July 31
- Seats: Floor
Here's something you might be interested in.
The Hold Steady hold up
...despite the missing piano man
The Hold Steady hold up
...despite the missing piano man
Cheap Girls got the crowd warmed up for the Hold Steady. The trio from Lansing, Michigan, fueled by Ian Graham’s crooning vocals, was a throwback to ’90s alternative rock, most notably the Smoking Popes — simple bass, drums, guitar, and vocals over a comforting blanket of power chords. Leaning more toward the rock than the punk end of the musical spectrum, I found myself pondering how few bands sound like this anymore. Apparently this sound isn’t as hip as it was in the ‘90s, just don’t tell all the fans singing along to “Her and Cigarettes” about that.
The Hold Steady’s set started with a piano-less version of the piano-centric ballad “First Night,” from 2006’s Boys and Girls in America. The band’s new ace guitarist, Steve Selvidge, took the lead. He played all the keyboard parts on guitar and pulled it off. Sort of...
Wait, that's not a piano!
The remainder of the show followed a similar pattern. All of the songs from past albums that weren’t anchored by departed member Franz Nicolay’s keyboard contributions sounded great; the songs missing Nicolay’s keyboards sounded odd, empty. “Chips Ahoy” sounded strange in this regard, but the most jarring was the band’s anthem, and final song of the night, “Stuck Between Stations.” “Stations” stopped dead in the spot about two-thirds of the way through that once featured Nicolay’s piano solo. I didn’t realize how integral this solo break was to the song until it wasn’t there. Even worse, they didn’t edit it out; they just left dead air, where the band took the time to thank the crowd, and then they started the song up again, giving the audience just enough of a break to wonder why in the world they would choose to pull the plug on the music at a moment when the tune is just starting its victory lap.
The show wasn’t akin to seeing a Billy Joel or Ben Folds concert minus piano, but the feeling I took away was that keyboards might be more integral to the sound of the Hold Steady than the band realizes.
- Concert: The Hold Steady/Cheap Girls
- Venue: Belly Up
- Date: July 31
- Seats: Floor