Craig Finn of the Hold Steady plays to the crowd at Epic (photo by Jon Behm)

If ever there were a Hold Steady gig that could've been less than killer in the Twin Cities, Friday night's was it. The venue, Epic -- really a dance club with a lot of fancy lighting and badly deflected acoustics – was ideal for the Vita.mn anniversary party and all its layering elements (or lack of layering in the case of the faux nude art installation). Also, the band came in off its first-ever extended hiatus, and it arrived for the first time without a keyboardist in tow. More than a few fans were skeptical of losing the ivories.

The Midwesterner New Yorkers answered all these possible rock 'n' roll problems with a resounding, "Pshaw!" Before the show, frontman Craig Finn promised a "leaner" version of the group, and the 1,500 attendees truly received a no-fat serving of Hold Steady. Finn also mentioned he ran the Twin Cities Half-Marathon this summer, and it felt like his four bandmates were trying to keep up with him as they tore through 23 songs in 105 minutes.

They repeatedly went straight into the next song without stopping (best segue was "Constructive Summer" blowing into "Hot Soft Light"). They rarely stopped long enough for the usually chatty Finn to talk (and when he did, it was usually something like the Twins dedication, "Let's build something next summer," which set up "Constructive Summer"). Heck, the band didn't even stop when Tad Kubler's amp wasn't working properly in the encore, a possibly major hitch that the guitarist apparently saw as a minor opportunity: He stage dived onto the crowd.

With new guitarist Steve Selvidge giving Kubler a run for his licks, the Hold Steady did take on a slightly different shape. One couldn't help but remember the band's 2008 tour with the three-guitar-fueled, always-full-throttling Drive-by Truckers and wonder if that didn't make a big impression. There really were some godly (but never ungodly long) guitar jams, especially in "Rock 'n' Roll Problems" and "Southtown Girls." The old keyboard parts were only missed a few times, namely the mid-song piano breakdown in "Stevie Nix." Once those guitars started back up, though… forget about it.

Here's the whole set list below. Finn set up the Kiss cover with a poetic line about becoming a rock fan at age 8, "and now pretty much all my rock 'n' roll dreams have come true." Nobody has ever sounded more emotional about playing "Dr. Love."

Margaret Andrews, Star Tribune

Hornets! Hornets! / Hurricane Jesse / The Swish / Rock & Roll Problems / Magazines / Girls Like Status / Sequestered in Memphis / Constructive Summer / Hot Soft Light / Chips Ahoy! / Stuck Between Stations / Stevie Nix / Multitude of Casualties / You Gotta Dance (With Who You Came to the Dance With) / You Can Make Him Like You / The Weekenders / Your Little Hoodrat Friend / Southtown Girls / Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night / How a Resurrection Really Feels ENCORE: Dr. Love (Kiss cover) / Massive Nights / Killer Parties

Announced on the party lineup just a day earlier to coincide with his spot on the Vita.mn anniversary covers, P.O.S. (Stefon Alexander, photo left) was also coming off something of a break -- at least a break from being P.O.S. He and his man on the decks, Plain Ole Bill, suffered some technical glitches at first but shook off whatever dust there was by the time they got to "Drumroll (We're All Thirsty)," three songs in. While he'll be breaking in a bevy of new tunes soon (including his positive jams on the new Doomtree album), P.O.S. seemed content and thoroughly invested Friday revisiting the songs off 2009's "Never Better." It's hard to imagine "Purexed" or "Optimist" ever growing old for anyone.