Review: The Hold Steady kicks off 4 massive Minneapolis nights at tiny 7th St. Entry

Throughout his career with the Hold Steady, Craig Finn has talked often and even sang about the impact that 7th St. Entry’s all-ages punk shows had on him. He can now start harping on some awesome middle-aged gigs there, too.

Finn’s New York-based, Minnesota-rooted band returned to the little room next to First Avenue’s Mainroom in a big way Thursday night. The instantly sold-out concert was the first of four nights that the Hold Steady booked in Minneapolis this week to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its second album, “Separation Sunday” — the record that made them too big to play 7th St. Entry except on special occasions.

This one certainly felt special. It was extra packed, for starters. That’s what happens when the Entry is filled with a lot of beer-bellied dads instead of skinny indie-rock kids; the 250-person room can feel like it has 350 in it.

It was a long and loud and hot and sweaty show, too. A two-hour set that ended with the song “Killer Parties,” it seriously could have killed one or two of the aged partiers. Godspeed to the fans who have three more nights ahead of them.

As expected, the first half of the set was dedicated to “Separation Sunday.” Most unexpectedly, though, the band played the songs in reverse order. Sure, why not?

The album’s redemptive closing track, “How a Resurrection Really Feels,” thus became an opening credo. Fans sang out the hook, “Walk on back,” as a sort of a welcome-back greeting to the prodigal ex-Minneapolitan rockers. They also cheered the first of many Twin Cities lyrical references: “The St. Paul Saints waved me through.”

The best instance of local referencing came two songs later in “Don’t Let Me Explode,” when the audience — including many out-of-towners who came just for these shows — shouted out in unison, “We thought it might be best to go hang around in the Upper Midwest.”

The reversed song order worked surprisingly well. It saved some of the album’s best-known and rowdiest tunes for last, including “Your Little Hoodrat Friend,” “Cattle and the Creeping Things” and “Hornets! Hornets!” — all songs based around Finn’s youth in the Twin Cities and those cord-cutting, pre-adult years when everything seems wilder than it really is.

After the mid-album groover “Charlemagne in Sweatpants” — a showpiece for guitarist Steve Selvidge, who wasn’t even in the band in 2005 — Finn talked about how “Separation Sunday” became “the start of us driving around the country, the start of so many friendships.

“The story started right here,” he said. “I don’t mean just the Twin Cities. I mean the story started right here.”

The Entry didn’t hold an entirely dear place in his heart, though, as he later recounted of those 1980s shows: “Imagine it with the same number of people in here, but 95% of them are smoking cigarettes.”

Thursday’s set was rounded out by an hour of assorted other Hold Steady tunes, ranging from 2004’s “Killer Parties” to several off their two post-pandemic albums, including “Sideways Skull” and “Parade Days” — the latter inspired by the Minneapolis Aquatennial, according to Finn. (It seems he’s still mining his hometown for lyrical fodder a quarter-century since leaving.)

Only a handful of other fan faves were thrown in, including “Stuck Between Stations,” “Sequestered in Memphis,” “Massive Nights” and “Constructive Summer.” Plenty of choice cuts were still left on the table untouched for subsequent nights. The celebration continues Friday and Saturday at First Avenue and then wraps with a storytellers-style matinee show Sunday at the Fine Line.