The Hold Steady: Tiny Desk ( Home) Concert

The Tiny Desk is working from home for the foreseeable future. Introducing NPR Music s Tiny Desk (home) concerts, bringing you performances from across the country and the world. It s the same spirit strippeddown sets, an intimate setting just a different space. Lyndsey McKenna, June 3, 2021 If youve ever seen a Hold Steady show, then you know its an experience, complete with communal singalongs and confetti. But for its firstever fullband Tiny Desk appearance, the group squeezed behind a cramped backstage corner of the Brooklyn Bowl, COVID mask protocol in place (Unusual times, unusual measures, Craig Finn explains). Illuminated by string lights, the band ran through tracks from its latest album, Open Door Policy, kicking off with Heavy Covenant as a swell of clarinets and trumpets round out the sound (The Horn Steady, as Finn tells it). Though the lineup consisted of its current supersized iteration featuring both Steve Selvidge on guitar and multiinstrumentalist Franz Nicolay back on