August 8 2008: The Hold Steady, the Loved Ones - Proud Larry's, Oxford MS

Circa 5pm: rolled into Oxford MS, roughly pretty much in-between Memphis and Jackson, in a rental car with the windows down and the cicadas audibly electric and a complete fucking stranger named Corey in the passenger seat. How did this come to be? The answer: too complicated to really get into. But goddamn. Oxford MS. Oxford happens to be maybe one of the flat-out best places I've ever had the pleasure to visit. A few blocks of downtown centered around a square which is built around the old county courthouse. A college town in the summer without college students. Nice bars, good food, pleasant weather despite being in both the deep south and the month of august.

I was in town was to see the Hold Steady play at his place called Proud Larry's, which is right off the square and has a capacity of 295 patrons. But I do not for one goddamn second believe that the fire marshal would have been too pleased regarding the number of patrons at Proud Larry's. But the beer was good and local and reasonably priced and the Hold Steady were loud. And amongst those over-capacity patrons was this girl named Stephanie whom I've now run into four different times over the past four years, each time at a concert in a different city. How about that.

The Hold Steady opened with "Constructive Summer" and then went right into "Multitude of Casualties" and "Chips Ahoy." Not a bad way to open a set. "Two Handed Handshake" and "You Gotta Dance With Who You Came To The Dance With" (that "they powered up and proceded to jam, man" line was probably the best-delivered of the night") came in pretty quick. "Joke About Jamaica" was great to see after finally comprehending its finer qualities, and "Your Little Hoodrat Friend" provided catharsis after 60 hours of travel. The set ended with "Slapped Actress," which the assholes in the backwards baseball caps sang along with.

Encore started with "Certain Songs," which I'd never heard live before probably could have lived the rest of my life happy without hearing live. But the third and final tune of the encore was "Most People Are DJs," which fucking made my night. Goddamn do I love that song. And hearing it played live remained the night's highlight right up until the moment when I, an hour or so later, sat at William Faulkner's grave and drank a Wild Turkey straight-from-the-bottle toast to him, to Oxford, to the Hold Steady, to good fucking times. Goddamn.