to be seventeen forever

Saw the Hold Steady and Art Brut last night. Initially I was apprehensive to seeing Art Brut; their music, with the exception of a few songs ("Emily Kane" and "Bad Weekend" in particular), always seemed gimmicky and uninteresting to me. But they sure did change my mind with their show. Singer/uglyass brit Eddie Argos ran around on stage complaining about drunk texting, too many dvds in record stores and ex-girlfriends, all in a very charming fashion (part of the charm being his accent). Probably the highlight of their set was when Argos drunkenly ran into the crowd, jumping around with the kids, then drunkenly ran and stumbled over the barrier between the drinking/non-drinking sections of the Crystal. Between the rock-star posturing of their second guitarist (who really didnt play the guitar all that much, thinking back on it. Argos called the other guitarist the 'actual guitarist') and the drunken mishaps of Argos, Art Brut put on a pretty good show.
The Hold Steady, however, were something great. Their first set was standard fare, playing through a large number of songs from mostly their last two albums, with all of the energy and fire of their recordings. When they came on for the encore, though, something amazing happened. They played 'Chips Ahoy' like they knew how much we wanted to hear it, and then Craig Finn said he haid one last thing to say to us. Obviously drunker than before (part of how amazing they are live is how much alcohol they imbibe yet still manage to play even better than on the record) he kept on pausing and stuttering, talking about how people say he talks to much (he doesn't talk enough in fact). With a smile and a nod, he said "there is so much joy in what we do up here," to the cheers and screams from the crowd. And what he said defined their show; part of what was so amazing was the great energy and joy with which they played. After the shouts subsided, the band proceeded to rip through one of the greatest jams I have witnessed, playing the jaw-dropping "Stevie Nix" and then segueued into a song I hadn't previously heard, "Killer Parties", from their first album. I've included a playlist of "Killer Parties" and "Emily Kane" by Art Brut, but the recorded version of "Parties" comes nowhere near the power of what I witnessed. By the way, their lead guitarist deserves major props. It seemed that the more he drank the better he played [and they fucking drank; the keyboardist downed an entire bottle of wine and then several beers and other assorted liquor (did his moustache absorb some of it?), the guitarist had plenty of Jim Beam, and Craig had more beers than I could keep track of (some of which he sprayed on the crowd)].

Very satisfying, all in all. If you, reader (do we have readers?), have the chance, I highly reccomend seeing the Hold Steady. And not asking sketchy crackheads to buy you alcohol.