Constantines,
friends deliver energetic set
The Constantines/The
Hold Steady/Thunderbirds Are Now!
Middle East Downstairs, Cambridge, Massachusetts
November 5, 2005
by Marc Hirsh
[photos
taken by Marc Hirsh]
originally published in
The Boston Globe, November 8, 2005
If there was one thing that was abundantly clear
to anyone
paying the slightest bit of attention at the Middle East
on Saturday, it was that the Constantines, the Hold Steady and
Thunderbirds Are
Now! just plain dig one another. From the constant stream of hugs and
head-kissing to the seeming open-door policy on jumping in and playing
along,
the affection felt by the bands as they prepared to separate after
weeks of
touring together was palpable.
The Hold Steady are on a bit of a roll right now,
with their
Separation Sunday revealing itself as
one of the year’s best albums and a live show of Springsteen-damaged
garage
rock that has been playing incrementally larger venues since January. Taking
advantage of being right on top of the audience while he still can,
frontman
Craig Finn twitched and clapped out eighth notes as he spat out his
words like
he was testifying instead of singing.
With Finn’s guitar hanging mostly unused, hacked
at as
punctuation whenever he felt the spirit, guitarist Tad Kubler and
moustache-waxed keyboardist Franz Nicolay filled in the gaps on songs
like
“Stevie Nix” and the stadium-sized “Your Little Hoodrat Friend.” Constantines
keyboardist Will Kidman grabbed a guitar for their last two songs,
including a
blowout jam on “Most People Are DJs” where Thunderbirds keyboardist
Scott
Allen banged on a tambourine as guitarist Ryan Allen just hung on the
ceiling
pipes watching.
Kubler returned the favor, singing harmony with
Bryan Webb
on the Constantines’
“Young Lions,”
but the floodgates had opened by then anyway, with everybody from the
Hold
Steady and Thunderbirds Are Now! providing some form of percussion for
monolithic
opener “Draw Us Lines.” Whereas Thunderbirds Are Now! was possessed of
an
irrepressibly manic energy (Scott Allen was quite literally bouncing
off of the
walls at one point), the Constantines were more like a lit fuse, their
own
substantial energy internalized as tension in moody, churning songs
like
“Hotline Operator” and “On To You.”
Like Finn, Webb was a collection of tics, albeit
more pained
than ecstatic, but his own mumbling Springsteenian monotone came
through effectively.
By the time the Constantines
played
“Working Full-Time,” which was like “Gimme Shelter” with a “Won’t Get
Fooled
Again” intro, members of the opening bands were drifting on and off
stage when
they weren’t simply watching their comrades from the wings.
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