None of them calls Minnesota home anymore. Most of them haven't even lived here for over two decades.
Somehow, though, Saturday night's kindred pairing of the Hold Steady and the Bob Mould Band at the State Fair grandstand still felt like a homecoming celebration.
The last full-fledged concert in this year's well-attended fair grandstand series — the amateur contest finals are Sunday, then children's act Blippi is Monday — Saturday's pairing fell under the banner of Minnesota Public Radio's rock station the Current. Its attendance figure, 5,909 fans, doubled the number of last year's Current show with Portugal. The Man and Manchester Orchestra, which had to be evacuated because of a tornado warning.
Rather than lean on younger and trendier bands this year, the Current's Music-on-a-Stick concert stuck to two beloved and reliable old standbys who play in town often. In fact, the show's locally based opening band Dillinger Four ironically has been more scarce in recent years than the expat acts — the Hold Steady featuring band members who grew up in the Twin Cities, while Mould lived in Minnesota for most of the 1980s, when he co-helmed the influential punk trio Hüsker Dü.
Saturday night's concert was thus loaded with songs either set in the Twin Cities or written in the Twin Cities.
In the former category, the Hold Steady's "Southtown Girls," "Stuck Between Stations" and "Your Little Hoodrat Friend" all referenced local landmarks such as City Center, Southtown Mall, Rainbow Foods and the Washington Avenue Bridge.
In the category of songs written here were the trio that opened Mould's 45-minute set: "Flip Your Wig," "I Apologize" and "Hate Paper Doll," all Hüsker Dü songs.
As he did on the same stage nine years earlier, Mould steamrolled through his 13-song set with an intensity and sturdiness that belies his 62 years. His drummer Jon Wurster (from Superchunk) broke through his snare drum a few songs in trying to match Mould's delivery.
