PrettyFakes

DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS
YR AXXION TEAM: Jaxxie + Jaysus Glam, La Cat, Gorjus, Ink, plus Special Guests.*

La Cat and I stagger the six blocks to the Monteleone, where Jaxxie and Jaysus are secreted away. We’re starting to starve to death and it’s only about five hours until the show and so we’re getting edgy. Mostly we had to stay in bed since around two because our hangovers kicked in after the Bloody Marys at Petunia’s had sharpened them up and I’d started to get serious about getting to the venue because I kept singing “You Can Make Him Like You” to myself whenever I had to go to the bathroom, which was not at all, because I was dehydrated after a full night of playing Assault on Daiquiri Mountain. I opted for the delicious and treacherous Goldschlager Ascent, and thus doomed myself to heartburn and giddy confusion as I shook my head to JSBX at the R Bar while the Garbage Pail Kids movie played in the background.

But that was yesterday, and yesterday’s for suckers, and when we make it to the second floor at the Monteleone the door was opened with smiles and offers of beer and really: I think it may be the greatest thing in the world to have friends who will genuinely discuss with you whether what you’re wearing is going to be too hot after thirty minutes of dancing and should you forsake taking your jacket, hell it’s only a few blocks even though it might get kind of cold, but at least you won’t sweat too much at the show.

We missed the Zydepunks, and felt bad about it, catching only the last jagged strains of accordion spiking over guitar: dinner had run long and we had a long night in front of us—hell, we all drove from Jaxxon and Cat flew in from Phoenix. We want to be ready. The Big Sleep were from Brooklyn, “etcetera etcetera,” as they themselves announced, and clanged along merrily, too loud, distorted like busted nines in the back of an IROC.

It wasn’t their fault: the mix was just busted, worrying us bad about what the boys would sound like, and waltzing along in the traditional soundguys hate opening bands tradition. I thought Jaxxie was going to whip the hell out of the fella and basically had to duck under the table when she stalked up to him. I don’t know what happened but it got better. Bobby Drake kept hopping out to play tambourine for the Big Sleep, who dedicated their last song to the headlining patrons.

Miller High Life in the can was a buck fifty. I know you want to know what the setlist was, but I don’t know: I know they opened up with “Stuck Between Stations.” I know it was jittery glory. I know that she’s going to walk around and drink some more. I know they didn’t actually play “First Night” but I kept singing it anyway. I know that the merch kid was making out with a hot girl with dyed black hair. I know the Hold Steady had never been in New Orleans before.

“This is our first time here, and I gotta say . . . I think you’re lagging behind Tallahassee!”

Boos and cheers. Craig was choppy and majestic, Costello hopped up on a handful of pills, popping open a can of Budweiser and spraying the screaming crowd. There wasn’t a lot of us: I’m no good with numbers but maybe fifty. Enough that it was a party, and it was for all of us, and it was plenty enough for a temporary neighborhood.

The High Life took its toll. La Cat was always a foot from the stage, hands in the air, but I prowled the back of the room, a can in each hand. I found a stack of signs by the side of the stage: two feet long and six inches wide, TENNESSEE MASSACHUSETTS NEW YORK CALIFORNIA MONTANA, a name, mostly states, written on each one—printed out in block letters, hand colored and glued to the board. There wasn’t a Mississippi but I kept looking, wondering who made these and what they were for. I decided they were for all of us and pushed my way through the crowd and handed ARIZONA to Cat, my Phoenician cousin. Then I ran around and chose new friends: “You’re from TEXAS!” “You’re from MINNESOTA!!” “Improbably, I do believe you are from CANADA!”

When they played “Party Pit” I called Fury and held the phone up, but I don’t think it worked all that well, but the point wasn’t to transmit perfect digital sound, it was to say, listen, listen, I wish you and everyone else in the world could be here for this. The Hold Steady: one of the absolute hardest working bands I’ve ever seen, giving Guided By Voices a run for their money, fists in the air throughout “Massive Nights” and basically a band in love with playing music and what felt like love for us.

That was the greatest thing: everyone at the show was just so happy. I kept smiling and my calves were tired from all the jumping up and down. I high-fived guys in the bathroom who were shaking their heads and singing along. We were all in love with the music and with each other and I wish I didn’t sound like a hippy but dammit, rock and roll is about being someone else and trying to find people that are just like you, and how it feels when you do.

Is it true that I have seen the future of rock and roll, and that the Hold Steady hit it in the stomach, yanked its pants down, wrote a poem about its past struggles with substance abuse, and then made out with its girlfriend while it was passed out on the couch?

Is it true that later at One Eyed Jack’s I stood with a group of strangers who had been at the show—we recognized each other—and we gushed and talked about the show and we bought each other drinks? Just because we had been in the same physical space for a number of minutes and had the same waves of sound ricochet off the delicate structures nestled in pink cartilage?

Is it true that I once deleted a couple Hold Steady songs off my computer, wagging my head and saying “I don’t get it” after reading some of Fury’s odes of joy?

Is it true that I’d never read a poem by John Berryman until Monday, when I rushed after work to Lemuria and slid my fingers over the pages of a dream song?

Is it true that when the record came out Jaysus sat me down with Boys and Girls in America and made me listen to “Southtown Girls” over and over until I started to smile?

Is it true that Franz Nicolay somehow manages to play the keyboard and also lead the crowd in constant background chant-a-longs?

Is it true that we love the Hold Steady because we live the Hold Steady? That the songs tell stories about the things we used to hide? That there’s nothing better than right now when you’re seventeen? That there’s nothing better than right now when you’re thirty-three?

Is it true that I didn’t know what “Hood Rat” meant when I bought the “Hood Rat hoody”? Is it true that La Cat told me, when attempting to explain the term with roughly a bottle of Absolut in her belly, that it meant “basically, a slutty slut”? Is it true that I’ve worn it ever since?

Well. What do you think?

My eyes creaked open the next day, voice shot from singing along and not much better than a croak. I looked over at the lump of covers on the next bed:

“We had some massive nights, Cat.”
A head pops out from under the covers, squinting in the sunlight and
“DUDE. We had some crushing lows.”

* NOTE: No Professor Fury was in attendance at this show, because he had to plot to overthrow America or vote for Bush or something equivalently destructive of all we hold dear, since he was only one hour away in Red Stick and totally blew us off, even though we’re best pals, whatever, it’s not like it’s a big deal or something, or that we brought him presents, and that he’s the person who actually introduced me to the Hold Steady, but seriously, not a big deal. Just, you know, one of the greatest shows since the hu-mans started banging on animal skins.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 5th, 2006 at 9:29 am and is filed under Gorjus, In the South, The Rock and The Roll. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.