Further On Up The Road: A Reconsideration of Springsteen's The Rising

Bruce Springsteen--"Further On (Up The Road)" (mp3)

This Sunday, it will have been 10 years since the towers came down, the Pentagon collapsed, Flight 93 became the ultimate battle of good and evil.

But there is one aspect of this powerful, emotional anniversary that few realize: ten years down the road, no one has tried to heal this nation, except Bruce Springsteen.

Our president sent us shopping and off to war. The "Never Forget" stickers peeled off our cars. Other musicians, though still relatively few, gave us the rage, the revenge, even the understanding (as in Steve Earle's brilliant "John Walker Lindh"), but nothing that we could use to heal. Bruce Springsteen gave us a soundtrack as a balm for our pain.

You may have been surprised, as I have been, by the dearth of 9/11-related songs. But then, there is no great song about Pearl Harbor, is there? I think I expected the range and dexterity of the Vietnam War songs, but those developed over years about a situation that lasted years. We may have wanted a song like Neil Young's "Ohio" about 9/11, but it never materialized and what would we protest against anyway? Instead, we got The Rising and we continue to have The Rising and little else. Luckily, it's been enough, all these years.

Always a champion of newer music, I nevertheless will argue that The Rising contains many of the best moments in popular music over the last ten years--"Lonesome Day" is the strongest opening song on a CD that I can name (and the song that holds up to repeated listenings more than any other), "You're Missing" stands as the most powerful testament to the losses on 9/11, the singular most defining event for an American these past ten years, and the "Na-na-nanana-nas" of "The Rising" are the most redemptive, cathartic moments of 21st century popular music. Bar none.

That being said, we would be remiss not to remind ourselves that Springsteen is a commercial artist; The Rising is a commercial endeavor. When we start there, we can concede that the CD's famous first and last tracks, "Lonesome Day" and "My City Of Ruins," have absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 or New York City. "Lonesome Day" is a song about a relationship, a failed relationship, and all of the emotions that go with being the one who didn't choose to end it. Wikipedia, pompous rock critics like Dave Marsh, and others have simply got it wrong because they are so desperate for unity, so desperate to take words like "vengeance" and "Hell" and tie them in to that day. What they miss is that, tonally, a song like "Lonesome Day" or another song that has nothing to do with 9/11, "Waitin' On A Sunny Day," simply fit because they evoke similar feelings--loss, anger, hope, need for vengeance--to those that 9/11 inspired. "My City Of Ruins," as is well known, was written before 9/11, about Springsteen's New Jersey hometown, not New York City. But it fits. And like any true artist, Springsteen is not going to waste a song that fits, regardless of its origins.

Ten years later, the CD's best 9/11 songs still paint a complex portrait of people not sure to how feel about what has happened to them or to their country as a result of those specific events. "Into The Fire," "Empty Sky," "You're Missing" and "The Rising" illuminate the specific circumstances of those involved and of those left behind. The immediacy of these songs has lost nothing to either the years that have passed or to multiple listenings. Others, like "Further On Up The Road" and "Countin' On A Miracle" are raw musical statements, with searing, unguarded vocals and melodies that capture a kind of desperation and hopelessness, sometimes tinged with bravado, sometimes intensely intimate, that the other songs don't have, but that the CD needs.

Taken as a whole, The Rising's songs evoke the most personal of losses. If the CD has a dominant motif, it is the loss of a kiss, the emptiness of a bed meant for two with only one person in it. Springsteen territory.

Not that there aren't some duds. "Nothing Man" nobly tries to capture what is was like to be a hero on that day, or, more specifically a survivor, but it doesn't delve into the soul like the aforementioned songs or offer the brutal details of "You're Missing." Still, it reminds what it must be like for survivors who are still here because of a whim, a casual decision, a stroke of luck, a simple twist of fate. Other songs, like "Worlds Apart" or "Skin To Skin" or even the haunting "Paradise" simply fail because they reach beyond the CD's mixture of love and loss toward reconciliation with an enemy that we still don't understand. "Paradise," while evocative, is simply misplaced on the CD, the second to last song a sensitive portrayal of a terrorist? No. Plus, "Worlds Apart" and "Skin To Skin" are the weakest songs, musically, on the CD.

In terms of instrumentation, The Rising belongs to Nils Lofgren. While the parts he plays, often on lap steel, are not challenging, they are the standout musical moments on a CD that more often wants to build a wall of instruments and voices. It is Lofgren's notes that usually make the songs soar.

The other thing that's happened in the interim, of course, is that the E-Street Band has taken these songs out on the road, in my opinion, with mixed success. While "Lonesome Day" or "The Rising" can stand with Springsteen's best concert numbers, a song like "You're Missing" loses meaning out of context and a song like "Waitin' On A Sunny Day" is revealed as the lightweight song that it is when removed from the original song cycle. The much-maligned (by my friends) "Mary's Place" is maligned because of the way it is used in concert, as a late-in-the-show replacement for audience party songs like "Rosalita" or "Kitty's Back." In context, it's a nice contrast to some of the rougher numbers.

Ultimately, The Rising is clumsy, in the way that all rock and roll is clumsy. But that is its charm--boys, now men, trying to explore their emotions and match those to music has always been the best that rock had to offer. No man would say in person what he will say in song. That a rock band, in almost its 30th year together, would be expected to, would dare to, take on a national tragedy was never in the cards when rock was young. That Springsteen is able to do that in a sprawling, loose commercial venture that addresses the wounds of an entire nation with a certain amount of timeliness and complete non-partisanship (while revitalizing his own career) is even more amazing. In effect, what was once a rockin' party band throws 15 musical darts at "the big topic", and a good 2/3 of those hit their mark, or come close.

But then music in general, rock and roll in particular, has always been about salvation for Bruce Springsteen. Those who love him understand that; those who don't or who are indifferent apparently don't need to share in that salvation. And that's fine. Perhaps, for 9/11 and its aftermath, Springsteen found himself as the perfect artist, nay, by 2002, the only artist, whose natural musical tendencies fit so perfectly with addressing our unhealed wounds.

If art is supposed to be a reflection of society, then there is precious little art that matters where the life-changing events of September 11, 2001 are concerned. The only one who figured out that people like me were hurting, sitting in our dark kitchens each 9/11, drinking beer and contemplating God-knows-what along with our unexplainable sense of loss, was that larger-than-life character "Bruuuuuuuuuuuuce!" Despite all my years of listening to him, that still somehow amazes me.

So, yes, Mr. Springsteen, I will indeed meet you further on up the road. I know you'll have a song to sing to keep us out of the cold.

The Promise Has Not Been Broken

Bruce Springsteen--"Cindy" (mp3)

Forget the bleakness of the photos that go with the CD; those are better suited to Darkness On The Edge of Town.

As I told a friend, when I first listened to The Promise, Springsteen's release of leftover material from Darkness, I felt like I had stepped into a parallel universe. I felt the same way when Tracks was released, only moreso. It was kind of like being sucked into the world of the great show Fringe, where there's another world that coexists with ours, only everything is slightly different. It was a good place to be.

I've been through The Promise several times. Here's what I think I've learned: there could have been a different Springsteen than the one we got.

Actually, I first got an inkling of that when we watched the making of Darkness movie at Troutking's house a few weeks ago. It was during that film that Steve Van Zandt declared that Springsteen could have been one of the great pop songwriters. When he first says it, you kind of go, yeah, maybe. Not sold on that claim.

But then you think about it and you realize that bands as diverse Mannfred Man, The Pointer Sisters, Greg Kihn, Aretha Franklin, Gary U.S. Bonds, The Hollies, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes all had hits from remakes and castoff songs of Bruce's.

And it's that last band, Southside Johnny and the boys, that actually gives us the best context for The Promise. Once Springsteen decided he wanted Darkness to be working class social commentary, he chucked the party songs. So many of the songs have horn arrangements and sentiments that I, an avowed Southside fan, can hear Johnny singing instead of Bruce. And, in one case, "Talk To Me," Johnny did sing the song and sang it better than Springsteen does here. I'm surprised he didn't also record "The Little Things My Baby Does" or "Wrong Side Of The Street."

For the best of The Promise could be a terrific party album. There are plenty of uptempo songs about love lost and found, a wealth of great sax, memorable guitar signatures, and wonderful singing. Most of The Promise is the Springsteen album where you can dance to both the words and the music.

Back in college, during senior year, there were many a night when we would drink a few beers and smoke a little something and then pull out the Springsteen bootlegs from the '78 Darkness tour and shout the lyrics out the window. What surprises me, as I look back on it, is how we missed out on the sex. Springsteen is nothing, if not highly-sexual music, but back then, we got caught up in the songs' anthemic qualities. And nobody wants to screw to an anthem--they want to screw to Marvin Gaye or Frank Sinatra. When you get caught up in the anthem, you get caught up in the plight, you think, hey, he's singing about me, you relate more to "Sometimes I feel so weak that I wanna explode" than you to do "I go drivin' deep into the light in Candy's eyes." But that was Darkness. With few exceptions, The Promise is about women.

And once you get familiar with it, The Promise is pretty spectacular. It has to have that qualifier because it has songs we are already familiar with, sometimes in lesser versions, and lyrics we already know, ultimately put to better use. But it's a fascinating look at a songwriter in transition. Some of the songs sound pre-Born To Run, some, like "Save My Love," could fit comfortably on Magic. And like Tracks, the takeaway here is that Springsteen is an even more expansive songwriter than we knew--more playful, more fun, and with a greater vocal range. Songs like "Outside Looking In," with its Buddy Holly influence, and the intimate "City of Night" show us the rocker who hadn't yet decided that he needed to be an icon.

To me, the great irony of the set is the title track itself. I heard Springsteen play "The Promise" in Philadelphia during his '76 tour. He played it pretty much alone at the piano. That is the way it is presented on Tracks. That is the way it sounds best. The version here, a mid-tempo full band rocker, loses the personal betrayal that inspired the song when first written. It's a great transitional song, because it starts out with Springsteen cycling through the situations of various characters, but it quickly settles on the narrator. And that's where the song should center.

Much as I love Neil Young, his "archives," at least so far, have not delivered the kind of powerful body of work that Springsteen has now unleashed twice. They say you can't go home again, but Bruce Springsteen continues to allow his fans to travel back in time and not repeat the past, but understand it more fully.

Note: "Cindy" is not off of The Promise; instead it is an outtake from The River and, perhaps, suggests the promise of another set of songs from Springsteen that we haven't heard.

Bruce Stinksteen!

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes--"Trapped Again" (mp3)
Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes--"Hearts Of Stone" (mp3)

Okay, I'll fall on the grenade. I'll speak the blasphemy. I'll argue what many, many people have to be thinking: Bruce Springsteen's new CD, Working On A Dream, is simply not very good. In fact, much of it is pretty bad.

Forget his triumphant Super Bowl performance. Did you notice that he kept the "Working On a Dream" snippet as, by far, the shortest song segment he presented? If he didn't have the Foreigner-like choir and the glow sticks for that segment, he would have ground his entire performance to a standstill.

In Bruce's long history of musical releases, this really hasn't happened before. At least not for me. I'll admit I wasn't all that crazy about either Devils and Dust or We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, but I figured that was just me. But as time has passed, I wouldn't be that sorry if I owned either of those (I don't). On the other hand, I was given a bootleg copy of Working On A Dream last week; I wish I'd just stuck with that instead of spending $9.99 on Itunes today to own a legitimate copy.

The funny thing is, I've been feeling really good about Bruce lately. I've been thinking in my head, 'You know, Bruce is really experiencing kind of a second creative cycle. Of all of the 70's rockers, he seems to be more at the top of his game than anyone else--including favorites of mine like Neil Young and Tom Petty.' Now, instead, it's even more clear that nothing that generation has put out recently comes even close to the quality of Dylan's last studio release, Modern Times.

The problems with Bruce's new effort are threefold:

1. The songs aren't very good. Bad songs come in three forms. They aren't very memorable or they are trite/cheesy or they are poorly executed. The songs on Working On A Dream are guilty of all three sins. You think the CD starts off promisingly with "Outlaw Pete," and then you realize, wait a second, this is a cowboy song whose hero is robbing banks in diapers in the first verse and Bruce is trying to pull that off and you want to go with him and you do, sort of. You wonder if he's thinking that guys like Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie could write cowboy songs, so why can't he?

The insipid title track is so generalized in its images that it could be about anything:

Out here the nights are long,
the days are lonely, I think of you
and i'm working on a dream
I'm working on a dream

Now the cards i've drawn's a rough hand,
darlingI straighten the back
and i'm working on a dream
I'm working on a dream

If you think the song is going to zero in on something specific, think again. Every reference is a hackneyed cliche that probably is supposed to capture the American spirit, but doesn't. Contrast it, by example, with the opening of another Springsteen song about the American Dream:

On a rattlesnake speedway in the Utah desert,

I pick up my money and head back into town,

Drivin' cross the Waynesburg County line,

I got my radio on and I'm just killin' time.

Crisp, visual, clear in tone. Everything many of the new songs are not. Conventional wisdom says to give Bruce a pass on his crappy lyrics because he worked up this CD while on the road, but, hey, take another listen to REM's New Adventures in Hi-Fi to remind yourself what a road album can be.

The litany of bad songs continues, unfortunately. "Queen of the Supermarket" is a travesty of songwriting, and, frankly, I don't think any of us want to go pushing a cart down the aisles with a persona of Springsteen's. And, frankly, I don't get the song. Is it "Girls in Their Summer Clothes, part deux?" Bruce, write me a song about the single mom you see in Toys R Us that you want to bang. Get some lust into it, instead of all this angelic bullshit. By the time the song gets to its climactic moment (which Bruce underemphasizes as if he's embarassed to say "fucking"), the song has already lost me:

As I lift my groceries in to my car
I turn back for a moment and catch a smile
That blows this whole fucking place apart

Yawn. No emotional impact.

"This Life" is probably the worst melody Springsteen has ever written. It sounds like he is channelling Barry Manilow in melody, lyric, and arrangement. There's a good reason why so many great rock songs are about lust, rather than love--lust is easier to convey. While I don't doubt that Bruce or one of his personas is in deep love with a wife or lover, the attempt to convey that in a way that is meaningful to a listener fails miserably. "Good Eye" is stupid, generic, clunky blues by a band that doesn't have a blues bone in it. Give me "Spare Parts" off of Tunnel of Love anyday of the week. I'm getting depressed talking about the bad songs, so I'll stop.

2. The production is simply terrible. Brendan O'Brien, I know you supposedly have some talents as a producer, that you have "orchestrated" some great hit records. But you've allowed or encouraged the cardinal sin of all rockers, that latent desire to be either the Beach Boys or the Beatles or both. Many songs are weighted down with wall upon wall of background vocals. How many people are in this band? Thirty? "This Life" even begins with a Beach Boys-style keyboard and California chorus of vocals. Many of the songs add either synth or real strings. I long for the simple, clean organ lines of the late Danny Federici.

Bruce and co. have also apparently forgotten the pleasures of an instrumental solo. Guitars are used only to repeat melodic lines or simple, monotonous phrases, and often are multi-tracked with other instruments. The E Street band has three very skilled (and in the case of Nils Lofgren, virtuoso) guitarists. None of them are featured in any of the songs. Before jam bands took the concept of the solo too far down the road, I thought songwriters understood how a powerful solo could really heighten the impact of a song. When we do get an instrument that stands out from the mix, it tends to be a harmonica, a blues harmonica nonetheless, and, let's face it, Bruce Springsteen is not Little Milton. There is no doubt that the E Street band is a tight, talented bunch, but there are too many of them and now their parts are multiplied even more with overdubs, so that musicians and singers get cameos, rather than solos.

3. Problems #1 and #2 cause me to overlook the CD's stronger points. "What Love Can Do" is a good, solid mid-tempo rocker, but, again, the guitar solo is simply a restatement of the vocal melody and the repetition of too many verses before that weak solo (who can even tell which guitarist is playing it?) gets boring. The slight good news is that the songs that come near the end of the CD are better. But, in the modern world, if the early songs aren't good, people usually don't stick with listening to a CD. The first time I listened to Working On A Dream, I stopped at track 9. By the way, it's no surprise that many of these later, stronger songs, "Tomorrow Never Knows," "The Last Carnival," and "The Wrestler," sit comfortably in stripped-down arrangements.

But here's the worst aspect of the songs: I simply don't believe them. And that's key with Springsteen: those who love him believe, those who don't, dont. Sorry, Bruce, you're not really in love with the Queen of the supermarket and you never will be and neither will we.

Footnote: it's probably not fair to bring Bruce's Super Bowl performance into a critique of his new CD, but I did want to note that he had no less than 5 guitarists onstage, committing that same problem of overdone, indistinguishable instrumentation that marrs much of the CD. I offer, as a contrast, a couple of tracks from an old Southside Johnny CD to demonstrate what Springsteen could sound like. Both songs were written by Springsteen; the album was produced by E Street band member Steven Van Zandt, who offers a very clean production of a 10-piece band. Just so you can hear what this evergrowing E Street could sound like. Of course, the songs are better than what he has written on this new record, but still.

Hearts of Stone is available at Itunes.

Who Owns Music?

Bruce Springsteen--"Brilliant Disguise (live)" (mp3)
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band--"Trapped (live)" (mp3)


I spent a good bit of last night downloading and listening to a couple of Bruce Springsteen concerts. The concerts were not for sale. They were not official releases. Bruce, undoubtedly, would not be happy to know that they are available out there in cyberspace. Or else he doesn't care. Or else that space has gotten too big for music lawyers to keep up with all of it. Or.

Here's the scoop on those concerts. The first one is one that I used to listen to when I was in college in Philadelphia. WMMR, the local, commercial, hip FM radio station used to broadcast some or all of this show all the time. The show had been recorded locally, up in Bryn Mawr, at a place called the Main Point, a place where I saw many concerts during my college years. It probably held about 200 people and was the ideal place to see folk acts, bluegrass acts, singer-songwriters. I missed Bruce by only a few months. Anyway, I heard those songs many, many times, even taped some of them off of the radio onto cassette tapes from my dorm rooms. There were many highlights--a cover of Dylan's "I Want You," a slowed-down version of "The E Street Shuffle," a pre-Born To Run version of "Thunder Road," performed under the title "Wings For Wheels."

So when I saw that show online, not only did all of that college nostalgia kick in, but I also thought, 'I used to have that, that used to be mine, I'm going to get it again.' But was it mine? Yes, I did have a cassette of it, and record companies weren't clamoring to bust people making cassette copies of vinyl albums or radio broadcasts.

The second concert is from The Ghost Of Tom Joad tour, a tour I never saw. I did buy the cd, however, and have always thought it was underrated and undeservedly bashed by the critics. One review I read said that it was "tuneless," that there were no memorable melodies. I couldn't disagree more. I think the cd is full of beautiful, quiet songs. We presented at a conference in San Diego not long before or after its release, and just getting the sense, during that brief trip, of what life on the border, life in "Balboa Park," was all about, made the cd more poignant. So, I was excited yesterday to hear what some of those songs sounded like live. I bought the cd, the concert tour came nowhere near me, and I had very young children at the time anyway. So last night, guilt-free, I downloaded that show, too.

I know that this concept would never hold up legally, but is it possible that someone like me who owned all of the Springsteen records on album up through the Live 1975-85 box set on vinyl and then, when the technology changed, purchased all of that stuff again and continue to buy each new Springsteen release on either cd or Itunes, is it possible that in some cosmic way I have some "right" to hear all of Springsteen's music that I can get my hands on? That's not even counting concert tickets, songbooks, dvd purchases. Do I own anything that I didn't directly pay for?

As I see it, there are two issues here. The first is quality control. I understand that artists who slave over putting out, say, a cd that they worked on for three years may be disappointed to think that some raw, slightly off-key outtake or live version of their stuff is out there for public consumption. The second is money. By law, that artist has royalty rights for every sale and performance of his or her music. God knows, we all like the money, and I'm not going to try to argue that such-and-such an artist already has enough money. I don't know and I don't care. But after my own "career" of collecting and listening to music for 45 years, there are some five or six artists, a slightly-shifting list, whose output has engaged me so much that I'm interested in hearing whatever of their music that I can, regardless of the source. And I pursue that goal, from time to time, without apology.

I know it's impossible to distinguish me from some virulent Chinese conglomerate selling Springsteen knock-offs all over Asia, but I'm not trying to make money, I'm just trying to hear what was played. I know it's skewed, I know it's indefensible, but I have come to believe that if an artist played it and someone recorded it, it's okay for me to hear it. Sorry, Bruce. Ultimately, the passage of time will prove me right.

The Best Music is Packaged - A Rebuttal

A response to Bob's previous post

Thunder Road (live) - Bruce Springsteen (mp3)
Talent Show - The Replacements (mp3)

Give me recorded music over concerts anytime. But first, I must digress.

Before I saw him perform at the Dean Dome in Chapel Hill in 1993, I was hardly a fan of Bruce Springsteen. Before Courtney Cox hopped up on stage with him in 1984 whilst I witnessed the event from my living room watching MTV, I didn't know Bruce from Adam.

I was 12, fer' Chrissakes. I still thought "Hello" by Lionel Richie was a kickass song. (Lionel's first two solo albums were amongst the first dozen I ever purchased.) I was too naive to even appreciate the disturbing stalker professor nature of the song.

Born in the USA became the first in a string of Springsteen album purchases for one of my best friends, and as all good friends should, I worked hard at liking that huge LIVE 1975-85 box set he got for Christmas, even though that song "War" and the video of it really just scared me.

As a sophomore, I finally began to buy into his brilliance when a hallmate forced me to sit down and listen all the way through "Thunder Road" three times. This was while a keg party raged all around us, but John swore my lack of appreciation for the song was much more important than any girl. By the third time, I knew he was right.

A year later, Bruce had released both Better Days and Lucky Town to an array of opinion, but I was a nascent fan, so he could do no wrong. A girl I pined over for two years mentioned he was coming to town, so we camped out together and got second row upper level seats. Hell, just getting to be in line with her was worth the money. We were going on a date! I thought!

I have told many friends about this particular concert. It was, simply put, the single most impressive concert experience I've ever had. Springsteen played for right at three hours (maybe 2:45 if you take away the breaks between two encores), all the while my date-slash-friend held a lengthy and flirty conversation with the two Army dudes from Fort Bragg sitting behind us. But even her betrayal wasn't enough to take my attention away from Bruuuuce, whose joy for performing has been plenty well-documented.

He sang "Thunder Road" the way he performs it on the MTV Concert album, the way some dude who was older in the tooth would sing it, all the while crying for and laughing at the young twenty-something who wrote the song in the first place. That song is so freakin' amazing that it's stunning at any speed, even with the inestimable Roy Bittan laying down some mood-altering organ instead of pounding on that wonderful piano. "Light of Day" was so transcendent that I to this day can even listen to the Joan Jett/Michael J. Fox version and still adore it.

The whole damn concert was an emotional injection of musical adoration. It made you love music more to see these veterans up there having the time of their lives performing songs they'd played thousands upon thousands of times before.

But then came the part that made the experience truly unique.

The lights went up. The roadies came out and started breaking down the stage. The crowd thinned out, but I was stuck with my date -- except now she was clearly just my friend, because she was still talking to this one Army dude while his friend and I exchanged frequently uncomfortable looks.

And then we heard some girls squealing. And we heard applause. And we saw the remaining ants on the floor below us rushing toward the stage, or what was left of it. Our eyes went to that area, where we witnessed The Boss and his E. Street Band taking off the roadie coveralls. They had merely sized the stage down for a more intimate set to be played only for the true fans who refused to leave and the goobers whose attempts at romance backfired.

We all ran down to the floor and enjoyed what, if memory serves, was another six-song set. They played long enough that word had spread to the exiting masses, several more thousand of whom came rushing back, packing the floor. (And this was before cell phones and text messages!)

The concert had converted me to a fan. That final encore made me a believer.

Of the many amazing concerts I've seen, The Boss @ the Dean Dome tops them all.

But if I had to choose between my memory of that experience or my ability to listen to any of my Bruce songs anytime I want to, I'd take the albums every time, and I wouldn't even have to think twice.

The reasons are simple:

1. Simple math, really. In 1991, I saw the Zoo Station concert in Atlanta, 10 rows from the floor, for $35. Or, in album math, roughly the price of three albums. If I wanted to see anyone who has ever sold more than 500,000 albums in their career in 2008, I'd have to fork over at least six or seven albums' worth of cash. The concerts haven't gotten twice as good. If they were only worth three albums in 1991, then they ain't worth a penny more today.  
2. I've never had some fucking moron scream out "FREEBIRD!!!" while I'm listening to my iPod.
3. On my iPod, no jerk next to me sings so loud I can't hear the Bono or Patty or Geddy, and I can sing along as loudly as I want without someone else thinking of me as that same jerk.
   
4. No one holds up fucking lighters every time they hear a cheesy ballad on my iPod.
5. Without the recorded music, nine times out of ten I wouldn't go to the concert. The egg really does precede the chicken more often than not for concert-goers.
   
6. Finally, and most importantly, for every Great Concert Moment in my life, there are 20 times when I was stranded on an emotional island in my room, or in my car, or somewhere else, and I heard a song, and my isolation was gone. Or I was overwhelmed with love, and I heard a song, and it me to an altogether even higher place of joy. Or I was sad but had held back my tears until I could be alone, and a song put its hand on my shoulder and let me lean into the nape of its neck to lose myself in a healing cry. As amazing as music can be in bringing people together, it's even more valuable to me when I'm alone with it.

 If all concerts were like Bruce's in Chapel Hill... it would at least be a harder decision.

You're Not The Boss Of Me (anymore)

For Jeff.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band--"Prove It All Night (live bootleg)" (mp3)

Every time Bruce Springsteen goes on tour, someone will ask me if I'm going to try to get tickets. Every time, I say, "No."

I'll get an incredulous look. People know I like him; why wouldn't I want to go see the greatest live show ever? "Dude," they'll say, "he plays for three hours."

I know. I saw him twice in 1978, and afterwards, I knew that I never needed to see him again.

Some moments are so trapped in time that there is no point in trying to repeat them--in any way, for any reason. My collegiate experience with Bruce Springsteen was like that. Even if I could recreate it, I'm not sure that I would. Bruce was all-night, shout out the lyrics, puke out the window. He could salve the pain of love and raise the glory of salvation. He was the savior and we believed.

Ah, those 1978 concerts--I saw him twice, in Hampton Road, VA and Pittsburgh, PA-- transcendent shows, both of them. From the extended jungle percussion jam at the start of "She's The One" to the doctors carrying Bruce back out on a stretcher to play "Rosalita," the set lists captured the mixture of poetry and frivolity of his early career. The Darkness songs had added weight. He even recaptured "Because The Night" with a searing, extended live version that told the story that Patti Smith's single had not. In Pittsburgh, he sat solo at the piano and fumbled (a little) through "Lost in the Flood," requested by an audience member whose friend had recently died in a motorcycle accident. But at the center of it all was Bruce's guitar, notes bending to capture the pain in the dark new songs.

Of course, I still listen. I was one of the few who likes The Ghost of Tom Joad. For the first three anniversaries of 9/11, my ritual was to sit alone in the kitchen with a six-pack of beer after everyone else was asleep and listen to The Rising with a beatific smile. I like the new CD, too. Good, kind of retro-Jersey, songs. But it sounds muddy to me. Too many instruments and layers, no virtuosity. I mean, Little Steven has got a few chops, but Nils Lofgren, seriously, is one of the great rock guitarists and a distinctive vocalist, but you'd never even know he was in the band, given the stock guitar parts he is expected to play. (For contrast, check out "Moon Tears" by Lofgren's original band, Grin--it's a worthy bookend to Zeppelin's "Communication Breakdown") On Magic, even Bruce rarely, if ever, plays lead.

Somewhere between 1978 and now, Bruce went from being a rocker to becoming an artist, from having a hungry heart to living a vegetarian lifestyle. It may sound sophomoric and pointlessly reckless, but rock and roll was meant to fueled by greasy cheeseburgers and amphetamines, not exquisitely-detailed backstage food contract riders and personal trainers.

I used to get angry at critics who would seek to remind us that rock was never supposed to last this long, but every time I see one of the elder statesmen trying to keep repeating youthful posturing, I think those critics were probably right.

But, in 1978, Bruce was it. This was the tour where he seemed to want to remind everyone that he could actually play that guitar he was holding on the cover of Born To Run. I mean, really play it.

All I have to offer as evidence is one song, "Prove It All Night," taken from a beat-up record with most of the highs and lows worn away, a bootleg of Bruce's 1978 show at the Roxy. It is not a great recording, but maybe somewhere in it you can hear what was then that isn't now--how stripped-down the band played, how much Bruce believes every word he whispers or growls barely on key, how his guitar cuts in like a chainsaw (sounding like no other guitar before or since), how after the solos it all drops off to just his voice and the drums, how every second of that 9-minute version of a 4-minute song seems essential. Hell, the opening piano-guitar sequence is longer than the original song. Before his guitar enters, he announces, almost to himself, "Prove it all night. Prove it all night again."

Nowadays, Bruce is promoted and canonized by adoring upper middle class adults who can afford tickets to his shows after a light supper of sushi and wine. Back then, he was unleashed on unsuspecting audiences who had heard his name on the wind, but didn't know what to expect. Then they saw. And heard. And believed.

"Prove It All Night" comes from a bootleg LP purchased at a record store in Upper Darby, PA in 1978 and recently converted to MP3 using a USB turntable I got for Christmas. The original recorded version is on Darkness on the Edge of Town, available from Itunes.