W.S. Walcott Medicine Show

Night Number Two of Massive Nights 10 (AKA Separation Sunday Thursday)

I make no claim to be a tried and true fanatic (in the literal sense of the word) of The Hold Steady. Make no mistake, however, I do love the band and without fail will always attend one of the Massive Nights shows at Brooklyn Bowl. Massive Nights, of course is a regular first weekend in December thing which the band has now been doing for 10 years and as the walk up music (thanks to Andy Williams’ classic Chirstmas tune) each year proclaims, “It’s the most wonderful time of year”. No I can’t recite every word that Craig sings/says like virtually everyone in the crowd can do but Hold Steady shows in general are a hoot and Massive Nights seems to bring the festivities to a whole other level. This year’s 4 night residency at Brooklyn Bowl is a little different than years past in that there are no openers. Each night is one of those “an evening with” kind of nights where the headliner performs two sets. As advertised, each night of the four has a different theme. Wednesday’s opening night had a first set which was a sit down story tellers event where the crowd was treated to hearing stories from everyone in the band not named Craig. Thursday night was Separation Sunday night and we got the full album as an opening set followed by a smorgasborg of nuggets for a second set. Friday and Saturday each promise to offer up two other albums in their entirety followed by a more traditional second set.

Thursday commenced with the band hitting the stage shortly after the 8 PM scheduled start time and Craig introduced themselves as “Sunday and the Separations”. The boys proceeded to dive right into “Hornets! Hornets!” and proceeded to play Side A of the album in it’s entirety. Steady Eddie came out prior to “Hoodrats” tossing confetti all over the stage much to the consternation of Finn who ended up kicking him off the stage since Eddie never knows when its actually confetti time. Truth be told, it was a little bit weird doing the confetti so early in the show and it definitely paled in comparison to what I’m used to. But, what the hell, its a small price to pay.

After “Charlamagne”, Craig interjected that this would be when you would flip the album over to Side B. He went further to say that when recording the album, they didn’t have much if any leftover material besides one song which would be the LP’s only singe B side, “212 Margarita” to which he dedicated the tune to anyone who was around New York back in ’05.

On to side two and the remaining 6 songs from Separation Sunday. I’ve got to say that doing full album sets can be hit or miss sometimes depending on the original sequencing of the LP, but aside from “Hoodrats” coming too soon, the album worked quite well start to finish in a live setting.

The band would leave the stage for a brief intermision and return with “Curves and Nerves” off of Almost KIlled Me. The second set would end up consisting of 17 songs from 8 different albums, quite a thorough mix of material. We would also get amongst of these tunes, one new on called “Dream Down By The Water” which sounded great but its slower tempo made me feel that this particular jam would be better suited as solo Craig material.

With the evening closing out with “Southtown Girls” and “Killer Parties” I would be hard pressed to find a single human in the venue who didn’t walk/stumble out into the freezing night air with a compete feeling of satisfaction.

Complete Slideshow: