It'll be right, and it'll be tonight
Bruce Springsteen is like Dorian Gray. His age only seems to be reflected on his albums: the material as become more reflective, with the sharper edges worn away, and each passing year seems etched into his increasingly grizzled voice. Live though, time seems to have stood still for Springsteen like it has for none of his contemporaries. His vocal instrument is vital, powerful - able to deliver the most demanding songs of his youth with the unmatched vigor they require. His energy is boundless: for two and half hours it never seems to flag or fade, and he finishes the show with an even greater intensity than he began it. Great performers feed on the crowd: Springsteen's crowd feeds on him.
Last night at Madison Square Garden, Springsteen and the E Street Band closed out a two-night stand in support of his newest record, Magic, putting on a clinic that serves as further evidence that he is America's greatest rock and roll star. Some thoughts:
Last night at Madison Square Garden, Springsteen and the E Street Band closed out a two-night stand in support of his newest record, Magic, putting on a clinic that serves as further evidence that he is America's greatest rock and roll star. Some thoughts:
It's a kind of Magic: When I saw the Rolling Stones back in the fall of 2005, they were touring in support of A Bigger Bang, and they played maybe two or three songs off that album, and then basically said, "Fuck it, we're playing the hits" - an understandable decision when you're the Rolling Stones and nobody gives a good goddamn about your new album. Springsteen, however, is not at that stage yet (if he ever gets there), and a good third of last night's set list was drawn from Magic.
Now, I like Magic, but I also like Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River, et cetera, et cetera. To the Boss's credit, most of the new stuff sounded pretty terrific live (leading me to voice the observation that "maybe he ought to just release live albums from now on"): opener "Radio Nowhere", which I suspect is going to be a longtime fixture in Springsteen's sets, packed an appropriately wicked punch, ramping the big room's energy level from 0-to-60 in about two seconds; "Devil's Arcade", a dirge-y number that no one was looking forward to tremendously benefited from a fuller (Brendan O'Brien-less) live band sound; "Girls in Their Summer Clothes" actually provoked a sing along to lead off the encore (who knew?).
Is Darkness on the Edge of Town his best album?: Three of the show's best moments were drawn from Bruce's vastly underappreciated follow-up to Born to Run: "Candy's Room", "The Promised Land", and an incandescent "Badlands". Springsteen has had three prominent public personas: the skinny kid takin' on the world from Born to Run, the beefed-up workin' man from Born in the U.S.A. era, and grizzled lefty folkie Bruce, who we've got now. Yet though the stretch between Born to Run and Born in the U.S.A. (including both albums, obv.) is generally agreed to be his greatest work, it is also Springsteen at his most enigmatic - as brilliant as Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River, and Nebraska are generally agreed to be, you won't find a lot of takers among Bruce aficionados for favorite album status. Yet last night may have changed that a little bit, as the three Darkness tracks blew the doors off the place, best of all being "Badlands", which ended the set before the encore, and left 20,000 people chanting the "oooo,OOOO,OOOO,OOO,ooooo" part from the bridge a cappella in the dark for 5 minutes before band came out for the encore.
"Born to Run" is Springsteen's favorite song: Now, I'm not even going to try and qualify this by saying that it's his favorite Springsteen song; I can see him listening to it in the car, on his iPod, around the house, wherever. I guess if you were a 24 year-old kid setting out to record the greatest rock and roll single ever cut with your music career circling the drain, and you came up with "Born to Run", you'd be pretty damned pleased with yourself too. Despite the fact that Springsteen gets a huge amount of mileage out of holding his best material pretty close to the vest in the live setting - meaning that when he deigns to play "Rosalita" the crowd goes positively batshit (see next item) - I don't know the last E Street Band set list that "Born to Run" wasn't in, a testament to how much the Boss must love playing it. And for the fans, it's still like a match to gun powder, 20,000 people singing along, "and the crowd goes wild."
He played "Jungleland": You can tell a true Springsteen die hard by the songs he most wants to hear live: "Rosalita", "Out in the Street", and "Jungleland". None of these are 'hits', per se, and there are a great many songs that are that are not automatic concert inclusions, like "Thunder Road" or "Born in the U.S.A." Yet the Bruce die hard has probably heard all of the really big hits on the road at one point or another; he may never get to hear "Jungleland".
Well, last night, he got to hear "Jungleland." Following a touching rendition of Born to Run deep-cut "Meeting Across the River" in tribute to the late Peter Boyle, the familiar violin intro to "Jungleland" kicked in, the crowd had the 411, and for eight minutes, 20,000 people felt like they had been let in on a secret and went positively bat shit. It's often said that Born to Run is Springsteen's greatest album, and that he never even attempted to make another one with the same operatic wide screen vision. Well, how many songs like "Jungleland" can a guy write in one life time?
Katie Couric had better seats than me: And I didn't even ruin the CBS Evening News. Come on! Well, they weren't that much better; it's nice that, unlike with a lot of concerts where they have these ridiculous "Platinum Circle of Friends" mega-expensive tickets where you practically get to sit in on a few songs with the band, making $15 million a year gets you...slightly better seats than I had. Workers of the World, Unite!
Miscellaneous: Clarence Clemons was pretty much playing the same filler sax solo all night, until "Jungleland" when he brought the house down..."Magic" remains a momentum-killing turd...Springsteen advertised a possibly fictitious E Street Band themed line of sex toys at the merch tables: "What we use in the comfort of our own home, you can use in the comfort of your own home"...Springsteen closed the show by bringing out Seeger Sessions band members for an incendiary run through of "American Land".
