Ot - Brrruuuuuuuuccccce!

[Ray]

I don't know if anyone else here is into Springsteen, but if you are and you have the chance, go see him on this tour. I saw Bruce a LOT in the '70s, a couple of times in the '80s, but not at all in almost 20 years. I caught the Saturday night show in Philly last weekend and was well and truly blown away. I mean, the guy's 58! Most of his bandmates are that old and look it. But damn, can they still play! This show seems to be the best he's played on this tour, based on the reviews I've seen, but it's early yet and they're bound to get better over the next weeks and months.

Over the years, the Dead and Springsteen were always my favorite live acts. I remember thinking in the early 80's, when both were starting to show signs of not being kids anymore, that the Dead were likely to age better than Bruce because their music was much more about imagination, subtlety, and improvisation, which I figured would age well, whereas Bruce was all about EXTREMELY HIGH ENERGY. Which I didn't figure he could maintain into middle age and beyond. I was wrong. The Dead got pretty bad near the end, with Jerry falling apart visibly night by night and all. And they were just barely in their 50s at that point.

Bruce is pushing hard against 60, and he's still amazing. He doesn't have the physical energy he did 30 years ago. No running across the stage and sliding on his knees up to Clarence just as the song hits a new peak, no more jumps off of banks of amplifiers, etc. But the musical energy is still phenominally high. He had a full arena in full dance mode for most of a 2 1/2 hour show on Saturday.

Highlight was a beautiful "Incident on 57th Street", from the second album (The Wild, the Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle). I still love that album best of all of 'em. I like ALL of his stuff, but back then he was still playing himself instead of made up characters intended to represent the American soul - it was just his soul back then. He does a great job with the made up characters and the literary aspirations, but something about that album just rings incredibly true to me.

Sorry for the off-topic. But it was one of those peak experiences that takes you completely out of yourself and reminds you of how much fun rock and roll can still be on occasion.

-Ray

[MarleyMon]

Sounds like fun! Where's the set list?
I saw the Today Show concert a couple weeks ago and thought they sounded great.
Sounds like we had similar taste "back in the day." I saw Bruce the week he was on the cover of both Time & Newsweek (fall '76), a couple weeks before my first Dead show. I said of both - "I'll go see these guys anytime!" (Little did I know...)
He was in Indy a few years ago w/ E Street - a good time.
I'll have to check on this tour schedule. Thanks for the review.
Mike

[rustychisel]

Thanks for the review and the reminiscences Ray.

I saw Bruce in 1984 when the E Street played in Melbourne on thie world tour. I was not a fan, and I'm still not, but the SO needed to be there so we drove 800km to get to the concert.

It's still the best rock n roll show I've ever seen in my life; well that and Midnight Oil (1981) and Bad Religion (er, about 1998).

[RIHans]

The Wild ,the Innocent, and The E-Street Shuffle is on my I-Pod and listen often! I also saw Bruce a few times in the 80's and am very glad he is still making great music.

If The Boss comes my way, I'll be there!

Ciao, 4th of July Asbury Park (Sandy), I always sing along.
Hans

[TimD]

... my sister is at the Meadowlands and I'm listening to "Adam Raised a Cain" at this very instant via telephone!!! Yeah man!

We went to the first rehersal show in Convention Hall (on the boardwalk in Asbury Park for those of you who don't get it.). The full arena stage was set up in a hall the size of a medium-size basketball gym. We stood about 6' from said stage... imagine a locomotive running through your living room and you'll have an approximation of what it was like! :banana:

Also took in Hartford, this time with my 14-year-old. The seats were not quite as good, but it was his first show (not counting the two Who shows I took him to last year) and he loved it.

[DonH]

Went to the Hartford show as well. Had a great time and was lucky enough to get great seats. The energy was incredible. Im definitely going to one of the Boston shows also.

[Ray]

Setlists and mini-reviews here: http://www.backstreets.com/setlists.html

I'd imagine plenty of other tour information elsewhere on that site. I was into Bruce in high school - didn't get into the Dead until college. But I've seen just about everyone worth seeing (and plenty that weren't) and Bruce and the Dead, on good nights, were better than anyone. Bruce still is.

I had pretty good seats, but was not in the pit. Best seats I ever had were in Phoenix in '78. There's a famous video of Bruce playing Rosalita when four teenage girls managed to get on stage and tackle him and damn near had their way with him. Classic show. I was about three rows back when that happened. I'll never forget it. Never forget a LOT of Bruce moments.

Edit - just found it on YouTube (sometimes I LOVE YouTube) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N36SsTOcsL8

-Ray

[RIHans]

As I type this, WMVY ( Martha's Vineyard Radio online) is playing the new Bruce with the E-Street Band Cd! Edit folks...It's called Magic.

And it sounds Great!

[rbtmcardle]

huge springsteen fan here, I have probably 100 shows on cd from 73 thru 06 and never tire of listening, I prefer the live music to the studio albums - you will always be surprised at what gets pulled out of the songbook at a show. What can be better than Racing in the Streets or The Promise and how about "you aint a beauty but hey your alright" from Thunder Road.

thanks for sharing
bob

[ti_boi]

Bruce....and I...share a birthday....sept 23.

He has always been a personal favorite of mine.

Seen him a few times over the last 20 years....(lordZ).

I sang this song at my sister's wedding...it brought the house down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3duEHG7gnVU


Great new CD....great performer.... :cool: :cool: :cool:

[Bradford]

When you think about Springsteen at 58, try to place yourself back in Harvard Square, in 1974, seeing this kid from Jersey for the first time, as Jon Landau did and wrote about in this timeless article...man, what I would give to have a time machine.
__________________________________________________ _

Still, today, if I hear a record I like it is no longer a signal for me to seek out every other that the artist has made. I take them as they come, love them, and leave them. Some have stuck — a few that come quickly to mind are Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush, Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions, Van Morrison’s Tupelo Honey, James Taylor’s records, Valerie Simpson’s Exposed, Randy Newman’s Sail Away, Exile on Main Street, Ry Cooder’s records, and, very specially, the last three albums of Joni Mitchell — but many more slip through the mind, making much fainter impressions than their counterparts of a decade ago.

But tonight there is someone I can write of the way I used to write, without reservations of any kind. Last Thursday, at the Harvard Square theatre, I saw my rock’n'roll past flash before my eyes. And I saw something else: I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time.

When his two-hour set ended I could only think, can anyone really be this good; can anyone say this much to me, can rock’n'roll still speak with this kind of power and glory? And then I felt the sores on my thighs where I had been pounding my hands in time for the entire concert and knew that the answer was yes.

Springsteen does it all. He is a rock’n'roll punk, a Latin street poet, a ballet dancer, an actor, a joker, bar band leader, hot-**** rhythm guitar player, extraordinary singer, and a truly great rock’n'roll composer. He leads a band like he has been doing it forever. I racked my brains but simply can’t think of a white artist who does so many things so superbly. There is no one I would rather watch on a stage today. He opened with his fabulous party record “The E Street Shuffle” — but he slowed it down so graphically that it seemed a new song and it worked as well as the old. He took his overpowering story of a suicide, “For You,” and sang it with just piano accompaniment and a voice that rang out to the very last row of the Harvard Square theatre. He did three new songs, all of them street trash rockers, one even with a “Telstar” guitar introduction and an Eddie Cochran rhythm pattern. We missed hearing his “Four Winds Blow,” done to a fare-thee-well at his sensational week-long gig at Charley’s but “Rosalita” never sounded better and “Kitty’s Back,” one of the great contemporary shuffles, rocked me out of my chair, as I personally led the crowd to its feet and kept them there.

Bruce Springsteen is a wonder to look at. Skinny, dressed like a reject from Sha Na Na, he parades in front of his all-star rhythm band like a cross between Chuck Berry, early Bob Dylan, and Marlon Brando. Every gesture, every syllable adds something to his ultimate goal — to liberate our spirit while he liberates his by baring his soul through his music. Many try, few succeed, none more than he today.

It’s five o’clock now — I write columns like this as fast as I can for fear I’ll chicken out — and I’m listening to “Kitty’s Back.” I do feel old but the record and my memory of the concert has made me feel a little younger. I still feel the spirit and it still moves me.

I bought a new home this week and upstairs in the bedroom is a sleeping beauty who understands only too well what I try to do with my records and typewriter. About rock’n'roll, the Lovin’ Spoonful once sang, “I’ll tell you about the magic that will free your soul/But it’s like trying to tell a stranger about rock’n'roll.” Last Thursday, I remembered that the magic still exists and as long as I write about rock, my mission is to tell a stranger about it — just as long as I remember that I’m the stranger I’m writing for.

[Ray]

When you think about Springsteen at 58, try to place yourself back in Harvard Square, in 1974, seeing this kid from Jersey for the first time, as Jon Landau did and wrote about in this timeless article...man, what I would give to have a time machine.

That was the review that launched Springsteen and, shortly after, Landau quit the music criticism business and became Bruce's manager. I'm almost cynical enough to wonder which came first, but it really doesn't matter to the music. I saw him at about that same time, but I was only 15 and not well enough versed to appreciate how great he was and how different than what had come before. It took me 2-3 more years of listening to EVERYTHING to figure it out. But I loved those early shows all the same. The guy was, and is, a marvel. A force of nature.

-Ray

[BigDaddySmooth]

I kinda got a late start on the Boss. Didn't really start listening to his work until "The River" but I've been an avid fan since. His political views are not the same as mine and I feel his opinion is no more/less as important as anyone but the dude can write as well as any songwriter ever, IMHO. This will be show #6 for me. My wife is off the charts for him. I hope Patti has been taking guitar lessons so the E-Streeters don't have any weak link. In one video she completely misses the cords. But, her voice is pretty good. Patti-bashing aside, we're looking forward to the show. :banana:

[Coletta]

A golden moment in the history of rock n roll at Madison Square Garden, reunion tour finale, Bruce busted out with "Lost in the Flood", it totally rocked. I flew from Cleve to NYC for the show with my sister, we had an absolute blast! Good times :beer:

I lost my love for Bruce when he started spouting off his political views. There is nothing worse than a buzillion-aire rock start spouting off about "justice and truth".

Bruce won't have me to kick around any more!

Cheers!
Coletta

[Tom]

My brother sent me an email saying they have 8 tix to the Albany show and wondered if we wanted any. Uh, yeah. Cool. Looking forward to it.

Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle... anybody that wants to think and speak is fine with me.

[ClutchCargo]

you nailed it for me.

I'm sure the Boss has given lots of people their best concert experience. I was first first heard of him through some Long Island pals who couldn't stop raving about this phenomenal guy who had a great couple of albums and we tried to get tix to his shows at The Bottom Line in NYC in the summer of '75 but couldn't cuz Columbia records had bought 'em all for his coming out and their promotion of the Born to Run album. Caught him a few months later at the Waterbury Palace in Conn., though, and saw him several times at larger venues as his popularity increased. I've never come across another band that put on a live performance was as tight as the E Street boys; man, they could just throw such a wall of sound at you! And his energy in concert was amazing -- this manic dervish up on stage leading the band like no tomorrow, running around, wheeling his ax back and forth at the audience, never stopping to take a breath what seemed for 2-1/2 hours ! Thanks for reviving some memories; now I've got to go see about some 'a those Albany or Boston tickets.

Rock on!