TITUS ANDRONICUS & CRAIG FINN ENERGIZE THE HOLLOW

Whenever you can get two headliners on the same bill it is always a treat. The “No Faith, No Future, No Problem” Tour that is wrapping up and hopefully Craig Finn and Titus Andronicus can do it again for everyone who happened to miss this tour. The energy in the room may have been different between the two halves, but the crowd hung on every word and note that was played over the course of 3 hours.

Craig Finn started the evening and though it wasn’t the most rocking set he has ever played, the room was still buzzing from the music. Craig is always a great story teller during shows and it is always amazing how much these anecdotes add to his show. His humor comes through brightly in these moments between songs and the audience never once talked over them. To have that kind of control over a crowd is such a feat, even if you have been playing in front of people for over 20 years.

Craig Finn

The three piece band he has with him now lets the music breathe by creating these beautiful pockets of nothingness, which allows the music to spread around the lyrics Craig sings. They covered material from all over Craig’s career, but the biggest cheers were of course held for songs from The Hold Steady, which happened to have Adam Reich from Titus Andronicus pitch in to help with keys. The set ended with a song from Craig’s first band Lifter Puller titled “Nassau Coliseum” as a send up to the famed venue.

Craig Finn

Poster

After a brief change over, Patrick Stickles and Adam came out and began their set as a duo with Patrick telling the crowd to take care of one another throughout the evening and enjoy yourself. It seemed to be the theme of the evening as most songs tended to deal with being all in it together. As Patrick and Adam began to play the crowd erupted and sang right back at them until the other four members hit the stage and the band dove right into their mix of punk and indie rock with a slight twinge of some surf music once and awhile for the rest of the night.

Titus Andronicus

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Titus Andronicus

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Titus Andronicus never took their foot off the gas pedal the rest of the night with every song being played as if they would never play a show again. The music has this wonderful retro mid 70’s attitude, while not feeling outdated one bit. Patrick gave a heartfelt thank you to the crowd as the night ended and then brought up Craig Finn to close it out with a cover of The Replacements “Bastards of Young.” Watching Craig front Titus for a bit was great as the whole band was all smiles and the crowd was dancing harder than they had all night.