Craig Finn and Patterson Hood

Thursday, July 9 · The Fitzgerald Theater

★ racket - Two perfectly matched songwriters in an ideally intimate setting. Probably the most impressive moment of Finn’s quite impressive new set, Always Been, comes on the closing song, “Shamrock,” which notes the shift from SA to Speedway to show the passage of time—and the guy hasn’t even lived here in decades. Now that’s an eye for detail. If the strugglers on Hold Steady albums always hold out a hope for salvation that’s reflected in the sweep of the music, Finn’s solo albums center on quieter vignettes about similar down-and-outers set to the sympathetic accompaniment of a back-up band inspired by ’70s singer-songwriter rock. Like Finn, Hood is best known for his band output (the Drive-By Truckers) and works solo in a subtler, more miniature scale. His most recent album, 2025’s Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams, begins with a beauty queen dead in a hurricane and climaxes with the promised flight disaster. Lyrics like “Lithium and tranquilizers/Lithium and tranquilizers” and “I was sad before I’s born” establish a mood that not even Katie Crutchfield’s harmonies on one track or Wednesday’s clamor on another can lighten much. I mean, the one where Pat hooks up with Lydia Loveless while spinning Tattoo You is even more of a bummer than the one about suicide.