Craig Finn and Patterson Hood have been writing the storied “Great American Novel” for decades. Finn, with The Hold Steady and on his own, has been building a world of Midwestern scenesters and drug-taking partiers, lost lovers and conflicted Catholics, while Hood, with Drive-by Truckers and in his solo material, has spun a narrative that wrangles racism, poverty and alcoholism into a specifically Southern eccentricity inspired by William Faulkner and Wright Thompson.
That the material is broken into songs or short stories rather than compiled into one printed volume is of no import: Finn and Hood are writing the story of America in real time. On Sunday night, when they put on their “Devil in the Details” show at Music Hall of Williamsburg, the scenes in the songs were illuminated by cinematic accompaniment by multi-instrumentalist Ben Hackett and their between-song stories of their mutual admiration and their very different but complementary experiences as humans living in this country.
Finn talked about moving to Brooklyn and wanting to no longer be in a band. This changed after he saw a Drive-by Truckers show: “That show changed by fuckkng life. And I walked out and said I have to start a band.” He would form The Hold Steady, who played their first show at Northsix, which is now Music Hall of Williamsburg (which, sadly, will close at the end of the year).
Finn told the story of his courting of the DBTs, with an early funny misstep at 30 Rock, after he and Hood sang the DBTs song “The Righteous Path.” It includes the line “Just trying to hold steady on the righteous path.” Finn said that when he first heard the song, he felt the band he loved was sending a message to his band; Hood confirmed this was indeed the DBTs’ intent.
Finn played several tracks from his 2025 album “Always Been,” and Hood emphasized material from “Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams.” Hood prefaced “Miss Coldiron’s Oldsmobile” with the heartbreaking Southern Gothic tale of the title character, his godmother.
Finn said he’s working on a new album and played a song from it called “Palominos” about a townie who has flings with visiting carnies. Before singing “The Living Bubba,” the Drive-by Truckers’ tribute to Gregory Dean Smalley, the Atlanta musician who died of AIDS in 1995, Hood spoke about becoming tight with Smalley when he did sound for some of his shows at The High Hat in Athens, where he’d look out for the sick man. A gut-punch of a line in the song: “I can’t die now ’cause I got another show to do.”
Other highlights of the combined set included Finn’s “People of Substance” and “Shamrock,” and Hood’s “The Van Pelt Parties” and “(I Never Heard of) Emmett Till.” Finn only played one Hold Steady song, “Certain Songs,” which ended the encore, while Hood played a handful of DBTs songs along with his solo material.
Hood said the DBTs are about to go into the studio to make their first album since 2022.
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