The Hold Steady are one of our great live bands. A lot of that has to do with the group’s ability to connect with a sweaty, drunk, fired-up crowd — with the way people react to their big, surging moments and with the way that the Hold Steady react to people’s reactions. But even if you take the live-crowd energy out of the equation, the Hold Steady still get it done onstage. They proved that again last night.

Last week, the Hold Steady came back blasting with their excellent new album Open Door Policy. Last night, the longtime Hold Steady fan, supporter, and friend Seth Meyers welcomed the Hold Steady onto his show as musical guests. Meyers has always had both the Hold Steady and leader Craig Finn on his show at every opportunity. In 2019, for instance, Meyers got the band to record the theme song for his Netflix comedy special, and then he had the band play that song on his show. So of course Meyers was going to bring the band back to his show immediately after their new album’s release, and of course they were going to kill it.

On Meyers, the band bashed their way through the Open Door Policy single “Family Farm,” bringing levels of emotion and energy that it’s not easy for bands to conjure in the quarantine era. The band couldn’t be in Meyers’ studio — it appears that they played the song in an empty Brooklyn Bowl — but it made for great TV anyway. Watch it below.

Open Door Policy is out now on the band’s Positive Jams label. Read our recent We’ve Got A File On You interview with Craig Finn here.