Craig Finn, the lead singer of the rock band, The Hold Steady, played a solo gig in Austin on Saturday night. Accompanied by a backup band, he sang and played songs from a soon-to-be-released album that he recorded here last summer.
The concert was held in the back dining area at Frank, a combination bar / hot dog place on Colorado Street. (Their url is appropriately named hotdogcoldbeer.com.) The tables were taken out to allow more room, but I was able to stand on one of the remaining side benches and have an unobstructed view of the stage.
Now I must mention that Bill has seen Craig Finn and The Hold Steady at least 20 times. He’s been to concerts in Dallas, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York City (Brooklyn and Manhattan!), and of course Austin. Our son has gone to most of these concerts with him. Even I have seen this band three times!
But back to Saturday’s show…Craig took the stage a little after 11 PM and performed about an hour. His songs were mostly rock-and-roll, a la The Hold Steady, but some had a twinge of country-western. We liked the majority of the songs but felt a few were too slow and plodding.
We love you, Craig…but we love you even more with The Hold Steady!
Slow and plodding. That will send you home early. Still sounds like a fun night.
We liked most of his songs, just two were kind of boring. But seeing Craig Finn in such a small venue was really fun…and just two blocks away from our apartment so the walk home was short!