There were so many people packed last night into the Scala to see Okkervil River that if I’d arrived any later, I probably would have had to watch the show from across the street, on the concourse of King’s Cross Station. As it is, by the time the band came on to a throaty roar from a rowdy crowd, I’m pinned by a press of bodies to a wall at the back for much of what follows, all of which is great. They get off to a surprisingly subdued start, though, I should tell you that. The sound’s a little too low, not the crisp wallop a song like “A Hand To Take Hold Of The Scene” surely demands. There are niggling technical problems on more than a few subsequent occasions, in fact, which Will Sheff copes with admirably, his exasperation showing through only in flashes when some people in his position may have thrown a complete hissy fit or been tempted to storm off in an attention-seeking strop. It’s unfortunate, though, that the one song that’s most effected is usually the show-stopping “John Allyn Smith Sails” with its now-famous – among Okkervil fans, anyway – appropriation of “Sloop John B”. It starts fantastically, with Sheff’s vivid spoken description, a kind of speed rap over frantically strummed guitar, of the song’s subject, the great American poet John Berryman, walking through a college campus to the bridge in Minneapolis from which he jumped to his death (Craig Finn tells the same story in The Hold Steady’s “Stuck Between Stations”). Unfortunately, the sight of guitarist Lauren Gurgiolo and a harassed technician trying to get Lauren’s guitar to work and in the process wrapping themselves up in endless lengths of leads and wires is, while a moment of high comedy, something of a distraction for both the rest of the band and at least one member of the audience, namely me. It’s quickly forgotten, though, in all the surrounding excitement and great music. Most of the set’s taken from the band’s last two albums, The Stage Names and The Stand-Ins and includes early on a very sharp version of the venomous “Singer Songwriter”, a lovely, drifting “Girl In Port” and a riotous “Pop Lie”. As it did last year at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, Will’s mostly solo version of “A Stone”, from Black Sheep Boy, that brings the place to an absolute standstill, everyone for a moment hushed, taking a moment to recover when finally, after what seems like at least 10 minutes, it’s over, some lovely playing by Gurgiolo taking it out. The next 30 minutes or so are a non-stop blast, with “Lost Coastlines” followed by “Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe” and, inevitably, “Unless It’s Kicks”, which ends with Sheff doing his hillbilly preacher thing – “Show me your hands!” – and generally looking wild and transported. We’re by now at that point in the show where people are shouting out for songs they’re afraid won’t otherwise get played – a chap a few feet away from me makes me laugh out loud when after much nervous throat-clearing finally pipes up with a request for the cheerfully-titled “The War Criminal Rises And Speaks”. In the evnt, we get the witty “Plus Ones”, a beautiful “Last Love Song For Now”, from The Black Sheep Boy Appendix and the whole thing ends with the Appalachian hymnal of “Westfall” with Guglio on trilling mandolin and everyone coming on like one of The Carter Family.

I mentioned yesterday’s that I was just off to see The Hold Steady at the Islington Academy and I duly went and they were, as ever, duly brilliant – urgent, incendiary, delirious, a symphonic juggernaut, a hurtling thing, a wholly rousing noise. This was where a few years ago, they made their London debut, to a room Craig Finn remembers was so empty he’s able to refer to members of that sparse audience by name. Tonight, the Academy’s small space is crammed, a heaving howling mob in boisterous mood waiting impatiently for the band when I get there, getting rowdier by the moment. This is a warm-up show for their headlining appearance this weekend at the End Of The Road festival, a rare chance these days to see The Hold Steady in the kind of ‘intimate’ environment where for years they toiled, honing their musical craft to its current perfection. Everyone I speak to feels lucky to be here, as do the band themselves, their career over the last couple of years taking off in ways they seem still surprised by. You might think by now that Finn’s inclination towards public humility, his much-expressed gratitude to people for buying the band’s records, turning up in numbers to their shows, would have worn a bit thin, become something of a performance in itself. It hasn’t, because he’s one of those people who seem incapable of playing the crowd with any hint of cynicism. If he tells us that what The Hold Steady have become rescued him from the dead-end his life was looking at, the dream he had that has come riotously true, we believe him, unquestioningly. He can be hammy, no doubt about it, but cheerfully so. And it’s something that will probably always make you want to take his side and cheer him on. He seems, no less than the rest of the band, to be so happy to be where he is you’re just glad for him, pleased for them. It’s a kind of shared euphoria that makes everyone feel good going on great, a collective experience it’s a thrill, generally, to be part of. Any thought that tonight would be the equivalent of someone doing cautious warm-up exercises before a big race, or a light sparring session before a big fight, nothing too strenuous, in other words, the real work to come this weekend in Dorset, is made to seem ridiculous from the off. They start, explosively, with “Constructive Summer”, “Hot Soft Light” and “Magazines”, one detonation after another, with more to come, the Academy’s roof already blown off, Tad Kubler’s guitar solos doing most of the damage. What else do they play? “Sequestered In Memphis” arrives early, about five songs in, and its syncopated mayhem segues breathlessly into “The Swish”, “Massive Nights” coming up on the rail behind it. “Party Pit”, “Same Kooks”, “Stevie Nix”, “You Can Make Him Like You”, “Your Little Hoodrat Friend” aren’t far behind, “Stay Positive” and “Slapped Actress”, the audience hoarse from singing by then, taking the set across the finishing line at a furious gallop. Along the way, there are four new numbers, still being worked up, you suspect, but already sounding in great shape, hearing them for the first time stirring an eager anticipation for the next album. Working titles are “Heaven Is Whenever”, “Going On A Hike”, “Separate Vacations”, “Our Whole Lives” and there are hints in them, here and there, of things from the last album like “Navy Sheets” and “Yeah Sapphire”, also on “Our Whole Lives” moments that make me think of the dark drift of something like “Both Crosses”. It’s played tonight as the second of three encores, book-ended by an incandescent “First Night” and a tumultuous “Killer Parties”. “We’re The Hold Steady and we fucking love you,” Finn fairly yells at the end and he can tell by the cheers that come back at him and all the stomping and yelling and so on that the feeling’s more than mutual.

As our recent Uncut playlists probably make clear, we’ve been happily overwhelmed by a glut of Big Star-related material over the past few weeks, beginning of course with the hefty “Keep An Eye On The Sky” boxset. On top of that, there seem to be separately released new versions of the first two albums plus, imminently, an expanded edition of Chris Bell’s “I Am The Cosmos”. My lengthy mag review of the Big Star boxset has just appeared on the Uncut website and, since I’m a bit rushed finishing the next issue to file a proper blog today, can I offer this up as something to read instead? Sorry to cheat with this one. I don’t seem to have written that much about Bell in the review, and from his solo album only “You And Your Sister” and “I Am The Cosmos” itself make the tracklisting for “Keep An Eye On The Sky”. Revisiting it the other day got me thinking, though, about how it arguably might be ageing better than “Third/Sister Lovers”, and how the traditional focus on those two aforementioned tracks sometimes obscures the strength of the whole album; “Better Save Yourself”, for instance, is a pretty extraordinary thing.