• This is what the Hold Steady looked like through my phone.

After I walked into the Crocodile, through the gauntlet of “SoCo Girls” handing out drink tickets and sunglasses and CDs, I entered the club’s showroom, AKA, every liquor commercial I’ve ever seen on TV. A DJ was up on the stage, blaring obvious crowd favorites, and the room was almost too packed to move—it was full of young people dancing and looking happy. And everyone had a Southern Comfort cup in his or her hand. (When I arrived, despite the fact the club had been at capacity for nearly an hour, there was still a line down the block of folks hoping they’d make it inside. They wanted to be in the liquor commercial too.)

Opener DJ Lord, from Public Enemy, brought the party like Prom Night 1998. He played all the songs he knew the crowd would love—Blur (“Woo hoo!”), Outkast, Crowded House, Michael Jackson, and even Nirvana. Christ, he played Nirvana. And he stopped the song to yell something like “SoCo don’t fuck around!” and to my surprise, everyone was drunk and happy and seemingly okay with it. And that’s when the guy working for the liquor company asked to take my picture.

But there was still one more thing to do before the Hold Steady could come out and play... there was the light show. There was a light show! That meant a guy got on the stage, told everyone to put on their “Under Cover” sunglasses, and then turned on a bunch of black lights while Cory Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night” blared from the speakers.

The thing is, no one looks good under black lights. The room went from shiny, pretty, liquor commercial vibe to mess of bad skin, glowing teeth, and dandruff on black shirts within seconds. EEK!

But then, THEN, the Hold Steady came out. And they were fantastic. They didn’t come out spewing any forced approval of the evening’s sponsors (a la Matt & Kim), they just went straight into delivering a set of favorite Hold Steady songs and a handful of covers (since being “under cover” was the theme of the night and all).

But, despite all the promotions making it sound like it was going to be a magical evening full of tributes to the artists that inspired them, the cover songs really weren’t the star of the show. They played a ZZ Top song that no one knew, they played “I Ain’t Ever Satisfied” by Steve Earle (which sounds like a Hold Steady song anyway), and they played the Minutemen. All valiant efforts, but the crowd was there, clearly, to see the Hold Steady play Hold Steady songs.

They also threw in a couple new songs. One was a love song: “Heaven is whenever we can get together, lock your bedroom door and listen to your records,” and one was a song about (surprise!) drinking and getting laid (“It started with mimosas and ended with relations”). Both sounded great.

And, as always, singer Craig Finn maintained his status as the happiest frontman on the planet. For an hour, he threw his arms around and shot huge smiles at the crowd, as if this moment, right here and right now, is the greatest fucking moment of his life. And you know, maybe it was. It’s not every day you get to be a star in a glorified liquor commercial.

(The setlist is after the jump, friends!)

"Most People Are DJs"
"Constructive Summer"
"Hot Soft Light"
(I forget, but something from Separation Sunday... do you know?) "Multitude of Casualties"
"Sequestered in Memphis"
"Master of Sparks" by ZZ Top
"Heaven's Whenever"
"Yeah Sapphire"
"Massive Nights"
"Magazines"
""I Ain't Ever Satisfied" by Steve Earle & the Dukes
"Lord, I'm Discouraged"
"You Can Make Him Like You"
A new song they didn't name
"Chips Ahoy"
"History Lesson Pt. II" by the Minutemen
"Little Hoodrat Friend"
"Your Time Is Gonna Come" by Led Zepplin
"Stay Positive"
"Slapped Actress"
"Stuck Between Stations"