By DCist contributor Graham Hough-Cornwell

In 1974 after watching a show at the Harvard Square theatre, rock critic Jon Landau famously wrote, “I saw rock and roll’s future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen.” Now anyone who’s spent any time with rock history knows this as a defining point in Springsteen’s career, after which he graced the covers of Time and Newsweek (simultaneously) and would never have to play another dingy bar again in his life. Of course, anyone who’s spent any time with rock criticism knows hyperbole like this rarely works, and for every Springsteen there’s at least one Golden Earring. And anyone who’s a cynic – or worse, not a card-carrying “rockist” – probably reads desperation and/or naiveté into Landau’s words.

So, where you place yourself in the Landau/Rock ‘n’ Roll Future spectrum, then, might directly correlate to how much you like the Hold Steady. Last night at Ottobar in Baltimore, the fanboy and the critic in me kept coming back to those words and asking myself if it really could get any better than this. Today – gushing subsided and inner cynic’s voice restored – I’ll keep the potentially hazardous exaggerations to myself and tell you what I know to be true: the Hold Steady are one of the best bands in America.