Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Stay Positive (2008)
Growing up as a hard rock fan in the '70s and '80s, sometimes it felt like being a sports fan. For a while there, it was all about which guitarist could play the fastest. When guys like Yngwie Malmsteen and the like were being worshipped in the mid-80s for playing a gazillion notes in one solo, it just felt like the plot was lost. I stopped caring so much about fretboard athletics and wanted to hear bands that played well together. The real test of a band for me was what they sounded like live. Could they elevate a song beyond what was on tape to something special?
One of my favorite bands of the last 20 years does just that. The Hold Steady have consistently delivered great albums, but their concerts are communal experiences that make you believe in the power of rock music. The band formed in 2003, three years after the breakup of the indie band Lifter Puller, which also featured singer-songwriter Craig Finn and guitarist Tad Kubler.
While their old band was more focused on post punk, the Hold Steady was inspired by classic rock artists like the Band, Bruce Springsteen as well as by their punk roots and bands like the Clash. Finn's dense lyrics told stories about young people dealing with parties and drug addiction, religion, positive jams and unified scenes; many of the songs were based in Minneapolis, where the band started before moving to Brooklyn. Finn wasn't a classically trained singer, but he could bark out a song; Kubler used big riffs and hot solos to drive home the band's anthemic sound, aided and abetted by Franz Nicolay's distinctive keyboard work.
I got into the band with their second album, 2004's Separation Sunday and then saw them twice on the 2006 tour for their next album, Boys and Girls in America. I loved the albums but the live setting is where the band really catches fire, with Finn leading the festivities like a conductor. He wears a guitar but hardly ever plays it because he's busy egging on the crowd, clapping or just running around the stage. Meanwhile, the band just locks in and kicks the requisite amount of ass.
I caught them at the Middle East downstairs at the last show of that leg of the tour; it was a drunken affair that ended with the band inviting fans to come on stage with them. I thought that thing was going to collapse. A few months later, I was in New Orleans for a conference and saw THS at the smaller House of Blues room there. It was another amazing show that ran late; unfortunately for me, I had to fly home the next morning and basically only got three hours of sleep before heading to the airport. Totally worth it.
For their 2008 album Stay Positive, the band expanded their sound a bit. They brought in some different instrumentation, including harpsichord on one song, had some guest appearances from J. Mascis, Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers and Ben Nichols of Lucero, and even featured more refined vocals from Finn, who took some vocal lessons. The album came out in July and I listened to it all summer as I did marathon training. The title track has Finn looking back at his punk rock past, even shouting out some of his favorite bands.
"I've got a lot of old friends that are getting back in touch/And it's a pretty good feeling yeah it feels pretty good/I get a lot of double takes when I'm coming round the corners/And it's mostly pretty nice it's mostly pretty alright/'Cause most kids give me credit for being down with it/When it was back in the day, when things were way different/When the Youth of Today and the early 7 Seconds/Taught me some of life's most valuable lessons."
The song reflects on navigating through the growing pains that every punk scene has to deal with as it matures, and of course emphasizing it with an awesome "Whoa, whoa, whoa"-fueled chorus.
"There's gonna come a time when the scene will seem less sunny/It'll probably get druggy and the kids will seem too skinny/There's gonna come a time when she's gonna have to go/With whoever's gonna get her the highest/There's gonna come a time when the true scene leaders/Forget where they differ and get big picture/'Cause the kids at their shows, they'll have kids of their own/The singalong songs will be our scriptures/We gotta stay positive."
Stay Positive was the band's peak. Nicolay left after the tour to pursue a solo career and THS released one album before taking a break for a few years. They released one more album before Nicolay rejoined the band and have released three albums since, the most recent being last year's The Price of Progress. I saw them on the tour for 2010's Heaven is Whenever but hadn't seen them again until last spring, when they played a 20th anniversary show at the new Roadrunner venue in Boston, with Dinosaur Jr. opening up. It was a great show as always, but I was impressed/surprised by how many young (like college age/early 20s) kids were at the show, singing all the words to every song, even the newest ones. Some of them were probably kids of the people at THS shows 20+ years ago. This, as with most things these days, made me feel old, but also happy that the band's reaching a new audience.
"When the chaperone crowned us the king and the queen/I knew we'd arrived at a unified scene/And all those little lambs from my dreams/Well, they were there too/'Cause it's one thing to start it with a positive jam/And it's another thing to see it all through/And we couldn't have even done this if it wasn't for you."
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