Sarah Ditum on Pop

Rock as ritual

“IT’S LIKE WE’VE COME TO ONE OF the support groups at the start of Fight Club,” said my husband. He was right: we’d gone to see The Hold Steady at the Electric Ballroom in Camden for the first date of their annual three-night London run, and all around us there were men emanating the distinctive joy that comes with feeling your feelings. I don’t want to suggest that a Hold Steady audience is a testosterone-only environment — after all, I was the one who had dragged my husband there. But there is something about the Hold Steady experience that seems to hit particularly sweetly for men. As singer Craig Finn rasps on the song “Carlos Is Crying”, “it’s different for boys”. Like most Hold Steady songs, “Carlos” is really a…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2024

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