Some Hold Steady for your Friday (yeah, yeah, I know, I never shut up about them)

It looks like I'll be flying solo as I head out to Brooklyn to see The Hold Steady tonight. Usually I wouldn't go to a show alone, but this is the world's greatest currently functional rock band. You don't know what you're missing, my friends.

Some video of the group rocking out acoustically is available here.

The L.A. Times ran a lengthy piece about The Hold Steady a few weeks back. Among other things, we learn that Craig Finn, the moving force behind the band, was motivated to start the group after screening The Last Waltz. This thrilled me, as The Last Waltz is one of my favorite movies, and certainly my favorite concert film. Noted Finn:

"My wife took me to see 'The Last Waltz,' " he recalled. "I thought, 'These guys are playing music, they're listening to each other and they're hearing each other and reacting off that, and they're loose and it's cool and they're taking chances.' "

It struck Finn and Kubler as an invigorating alternative to what they saw as the sterility of the disco-punk sound that was so big in New York.

Just another reason to love these guys.