In 2005, The Hold Steady were the right band, with the right album, at just the right time. In an indie marketplace dominated by the self-absorbed strains of emo nation and a never-ending supply of post-punk outfits pimping ‘80s nostalgia, The Hold Steady stood out with a record both decidedly Midwestern and defiantly unconcerned with anything pertaining to hipness.

What Green Day’s American Idiot does in exploring the political landscape, that disc, Separation Sunday, does for the personal. A bona fide album in the age of iTunes, Sunday chronicles a ragged evening of pitstops and remembrances between a narrator and a born-again Catholic school drop-out named Hallelujah. As memories, regrets and recriminations pour forth, the record dizzily shifts between high-octane riffage and Springsteenesque emotional gravity, all with the reckless abandon of the Replacements at their height.

But while it is right and just that rock critics heaped a metric ton of praise upon Separation Sunday, the unspoken truth is that The Hold Steady partly benefited from the fact that critics found someone likeable in Craig Finn — someone worth rooting for. One of the nice guys of indie rock, Finn's body of work is well-regarded and has aged well. In fact, much of what The Hold Steady does today — Finn’s speak-singing, the recurring characters, the rants born from memory — got its start at the beginning of the 1990s when Finn formed the band Lifter Puller.

Over the course of three releases, Lifter Puller won over a goodly share of the type of rock fans any band would kill to have — devoted, vocal, and sworn for life. But the band just got lost amid all the indie rock pedestals being built in the early 90s to Pavement, Pumpkins, and all things Seattle, and after years of hard partying and exhausting tours, Lifter Puller called it quits, leaving a hometown gig at Minneapolis’ Seventh Street Entry unplayed. So much of that past experience threads its way through Craig Finn’s lyrics, and what fosters his new band’s cheering section of critics is precisely what makes The Hold Steady so compelling — every time you hear them, you are listening to the soundtrack of a second chance.

At the top of The Hold Steady’s set at a nearly sold-out Black Cat, Finn seemed to acknowledge this fact, expressing some sincere gratitude at the size of the house and remarking that Lifter Puller played about half as many people, divided again by ten, over the course of four Black Cat appearances. But with the invocation of his previous band, fans a decade old spoke up from all over the house, as if to say they had his back, and with that, The Hold Steady plunged right into their album opener “Hornets! Hornets!” As the band bit down hard on that song’s rollicking hook, Finn’s torrent of words began — spitting out stories without losing any of the record’s just-add-water immediacy.

And Finn has got words in him to last for days — so many that the microphone wasn’t going to get to hear them all. And as the band tore through an opening trio of songs from Sunday, Finn whirled all over the stage, clapping to himself, frequently shouting stray thoughts at the front row, and basically proving himself a hard subject for DCist to capture on camera. There were more than a few occasions where audience members had to wonder if Finn was going to shake his eyeglasses clean off his face and send some lucky kid home with a souvenir.

Last night’s date at the Black Cat was the opening show on the southern leg of their tour, and the band marked the occasion by playing a pair of new songs (including one about poet and former University of Minnesota professor John Berryman!), neither of which sapped the energy of the show for want of familiarity. Mostly, however, the band drew heavily upon the songs from Separation Sunday, especially during the first two-thirds of the set. If any song seemed a little tired last night, it was, surprisingly, the well-travelled kiss-off deluxe known as “Your Little Hoodrat Friend.” Perhaps owing to the fact that it’s got to be the go-to song for every radio appearance the Hold Steady does, Finn had a hard time invigorating the song’s voice — and his penchant for stage wandering found him frequently away from the microphone when the chorus came down.

But it was one of the few lowlights of the show, and it was instantly redeemed with a gorgeous rendition of “Don’t Let Me Explode” and a tear-the-roof-off version of “Stevie Nix.” Toward the end of their set, they reached back to their first record to play “The Swish” – which the crowd was begging for – and the obliquely autobiographical “Killer Parties.” Lead guitarist Tad Kubler christened the latter song with a soaring guitar solo that just had the audience transfixed. Kubler’s performance in that song was one of the show’s standout moments… though it’s a bit odd, and perhaps even disappointing, that we didn’t hear more axe heroism from Kubler throughout the night, because quite frankly, the dude can get busy like Thin Lizzy.

Still, no one in the room was ready for the evening to be over when The Hold Steady finished their set, and a palpable thrill shot through the crowd when they returned for an encore and kicked up the history lesson “Positive Jam.” One had to wonder if Finn had the current state of both indie rock and the world at large in mind when he leaned heavily on that song’s lyric, “The 80s almost killed me let's not recall them quite so fondly,” which was greeted with a roar of approval.

Over the course of the encore, you could feel that the level of intimacy was growing, the crowd becoming more interactive. And when just Finn and keyboardist Franz Nicolay — who rocked the porn ‘stache fully all night long — were left onstage to perform “Certain Songs”, the atmosphere had become downright sentimental, with each of Finn’s sentences punctuated by an amen from somewhere in the room. And while the call-and-response effect was briefly marred by a quarreling couple who picked the wrong moment to open up a can of Overheard In DC: Special STFU Unit (“Well, I’m not the one drinking with X’s on my hands!”), the song felt like the best possible way to end the show: a valentine from Finn — noticeably grateful for his second time around, and a crowd left with the thought: “Damn right he’ll rise again.”

SET LIST:

Hornets! Hornets!
Banging Camp
Cattle and the Creeping Things
New Song--help us out if you caught the title Same Kooks
Your Little Hoodrat Friend
Don't Let Me Explode
Stevie Nix
Stuck Between Stations
Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night
Multitude of Casualties
The Swish
Killer Parties

Positive Jam
You Gotta Dance (With Who You Came To The Dance With)
Certain Songs

Photos courtesy of Flickr user leafblower.