Constantines, friends deliver energetic set

November 08, 2005|Globe Correspondent

If there was one thing that was abundantly clear at the Middle East on Saturday, it was that the Constantines, the Hold Steady, and Thunderbirds Are Now! just plain dig one another. From the constant stream of hugs and head-kissing to the seeming open-door policy on jumping in and playing along, the affection felt by the bands' members as they prepared to separate after weeks of touring together was palpable.

The Hold Steady are on a bit of a roll right now, with ''Separation Sunday" revealing itself as one of the year's best albums and a live show of Springsteen-damaged garage rock that has been playing incrementally larger venues since January. Frontman Craig Finn twitched and clapped out eighth notes as he spat out words like he was testifying instead of singing.

With Finn's guitar hanging mostly unused, hacked at as punctuation whenever he felt the spirit, guitarist Tad Kubler and keyboardist Franz Nicolay filled in the gaps on songs such as ''Stevie Nix" and the stadium-size ''Your Little Hoodrat Friend." Constantines keyboardist Will Kidman grabbed a guitar for the last two songs, including a blowout jam on ''Most People Are DJs."

Kubler returned the favor, singing harmony with Bryan Webb on the Constantines' ''Young Lions." The floodgates had opened by then, with everybody from the Hold Steady and Thunderbirds Are Now! providing some form of percussion for opener ''Draw Us Lines." Whereas Thunderbirds Are Now! was possessed of an irrepressibly manic energy, the Constantines were more like a lit fuse, the band members' substantial energy internalized as tension in moody, churning songs such as ''Hotline Operator" and ''On to You."

Like Finn, Webb was a collection of tics, albeit more pained than ecstatic, but his mumbling monotone came through effectively. By the time the Constantines played ''Working Full-Time," which was like ''Gimme Shelter" with a ''Won't Get Fooled Again" intro, members of the opening bands were drifting on and off stage when they weren't simply watching their comrades from the wings.