Review By John Anastasi

Thank God for The Hold Steady.

Don't get me wrong. I love my indie music, but today's scene desperately needs a throwback. I want some rock and roll. I want a big, bombastic sound. I want lush arrangements with plenty of piano. I want evocative stories about cars and girls, parties and bars, and kids who discover America one night at a time.

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band threw down that gauntlet back in the 1970s, and if any group working today is equipped to pick it up, it's The Hold Steady, whose 2006-opus Boys and Girls in America propelled them to a place where comparisons to the Boss don't sound so ridiculous.

That made The Hold Steady's first-ever show at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park – a place that music lore will forever link to Springsteen – especially significant.

More on the show in a second, but first a few words about the Stone Pony...

It is a popular misconception that the club just off the boardwalk in Asbury Park gave Springsteen his start. In reality, the place did not open until 1974 – after Columbia Records had released his Greetings from Asbury Park NJ and The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle.

But he often dropped by in the 1970s to watch performances by house band Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, which included his friend and future E Streeter Steve Van Zandt. Springsteen did play there periodically both in scheduled shows and impromptu appearances onstage.

The venue closed in 1998 and a refurbished Stone Pony opened under new management in 2000, with an eye toward preserving its original feel and paying homage to its past. The wall in the southwest corner of the main room is lined with signed electric guitars.

The place is smaller than it looks on the outside. It's wide but not deep, so everyone on the floor is practically on top of the action.

There was plenty of it at The Hold Steady's Jan. 19-show.

The band arrived onstage at about 11 p.m. and started with a Positive Jam from its 2004 debut Almost Killed Me then followed it up with the terrific Stuck Between Stations from Boys and Girls in America.

Craig Finn's voice, which had sounded pretty shot the previous week on Late Night with David Letterman, was strong and clear and the band, a Budweiser and whiskey-straight-out-of-the-bottle drinking crew, was locked in all night.

At times I thought piano/organ player Franz Nicolay could have been a little bit more prominent in the mix, but his contribution to tunes like You Can Make Him Like You and First Night were clutch.

On a handful of tunes, the band used a horn section that Finn said turned up prior to the sound check. The three kids told Finn they knew all their songs. He gave them a shot during the sound check and, pleased with the result, dubbed them the Ybor City Horns.

The crowd was a non-stop party. They sprayed beer, threw confetti, bounced up and down, cheered wildly and screamed lyrics. For better or for worse, the crowd looked exactly like the hard-partying bunch on the cover of Boys and Girls in America.

That shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone who has listened to The Hold Steady. Their gin-soaked catalog is clogged with stories of sex, drugs, parties, drinking and rock and roll music.

Bruce Springsteen had his recurring female characters in Mary and Rosie. The Hold Steady has Halleluiah, the hoodrat around whom the band's 2005 Separation Sunday album revolves.

For Holly, her drugs are a religion and her religion is a drug. And by the time she made her fifth and final appearance of the night – in the second encore's How a Resurrection Really Feels – I was thanking God, once again, for The Hold Steady.

This piece contained information about the Stone Pony’s history culled from www.welcometoasburypark.com.