I remember reading somewhere, probably on Pitchfork, that The Hold Steady are going to save rock and roll. With the release of this live CD / DVD combo, the band proves that they are well on their way to making this happen. A Positive Rage documents The Hold Steady on their tour supporting the release of their third album, Boys and Girls in America. The DVD half is sort of a patchwork documentary, which splits up clips from live performances with footage of band and fan interviews. The CD half features the band’s full performance from the Metro in Chicago on Halloween 2007.

I drove all over Fort Myers to find a copy of A Positive Rage last Tuesday, and I’ve been listening to the CD pretty much constantly ever since. I’m usually not a fan of live albums, but this one just keeps growing on me. The album finds The Hold Steady playing a set list that covered a great mix of their music. There are three songs from the band’s first release (Almost Killed Me), one from their second (Separation Sunday), eight of the eleven tracks from Boys and Girls in America, and one song from the then yet-to-be-released Stay Positive (released in 2008). They also played a few songs that were bonus tracks from their studio albums (one each from Almost Killed Me, Boys and Girls in America, and Stay Positive). I had no idea that Almost Killed Me (or any of the said bonus tracks) even existed before buying A Positive Rage, so it was cool to hear the live versions of those songs with a clean slate.

The quality of the live audio is pretty amazing. It’s easy to picture lead guitarist Tad Kubler shredding away during the solo on “Lord, I’m Discouraged” – the track from Stay Positive. This is my favorite song from Stay Positive, so I’m glad that it made it onto this set list. During every Hold Steady concert, lead singer / rhythm guitarist Craig Finn does this snake-like dance in front of the microphone. It looks like he’s shivering uncontrollably, while at the same time shaking out of pure joy. Listening to “Stuck Between Stations” it’s easy to imagine him doing this while stuttering out the lines, “we drink, and we dry up, and then we crumble into dust. We get wet, and we corrode, and now we’re covered up in rust.”

A big selling point for any Hold Steady live show is that the band makes it their mission to make sure the crowd has a blast. There seems to be a disturbing musical trend these days for bands to look like they aren’t having fun. Thankfully, The Hold Steady didn’t get that memo. At one point in the DVD Finn comments on hearing a fan say that The Hold Steady were one of few bands he’d ever seen smiling on stage. I agree with Finn that this is “a pretty bad sign.”

In the liner notes for A Positive Rage, Finn writes that at one point on this tour they started implementing massive “stage invasions,” where they encourage fans to, quite literally, invade the stage. The DVD includes some footage of this, and it basically makes me hate living in Florida. For some reason or another, the band’s tours don’t usually bring them this far south. As much as I enjoy the music on A Positive Rage, it seems like this was only released to make me jealous of the Midwest.

Come back to Florida!

"Stuck Between Stations"

"Lord, I'm Discouraged"

"Southtown Girls"

"First Night"