Hi, my name is Stuart and I’m a Bruce-aholic.
“Hi Stuart.”
I remember my first taste of Bruce juice. It was 1981 and I was a freshman at Cal State Northridge, vegging out after class in the student union music center where you could choose a record — yes, we’re going back to the days of vinyl — and listen to it in sound-proof booths.
Familiar with the legend of “Born to Run” but not having listened to it in its entirety until then, the music captured me in a way no song or album ever had to that point. Growing up in New York, I was a fan of Billy Joel — that’s the law if you’re raised on Long Island — but Joel’s songs never grabbed me the way Springsteen’s did.
From the opening harmonica of “Thunder Road” to the closing primal scream of “Jungleland,” “Born to Run” left me virtually speechless. It was a masterpiece on first listen and remains Springsteen’s greatest work.
The joy of the live show
But Springsteen, the maker of albums, and Springsteen the concert performer are two entirely different creatures. The music at a Springsteen show doesn’t just come alive, it encompasses you in the way a train would affect your balance if you were standing on the edge of the platform and it passed at 150 mph. It leaves you barely holding on, as you feel the rush of energy move through you on every note, on every lyric sung.
My first show came during the 1984 “Born in the USA” tour, but that’s a somewhat sad story in the fact that I could’ve attended one of “The River” shows three years earlier. In one of those decisions that you regret as soon as you’ve made it, I passed on a ticket because I had English homework that night.
So I’m forced to wait an excruciating three years — after collecting all the bootlegs, buying the albums, reading the Time and Newsweek cover stories, making friends who had been to the ’78 Roxy show and the famed Winterland set in San Francisco — and it’s finally Oct. 25, 1984. I have no idea what time my daughter was born, but I still remember everything about that day. The drive on the Santa Monica Freeway to the Los Angeles Sports Arena, finding a parking spot, checking out the T-shirts, getting to our seats, and waiting … and waiting some more for the show to start. And then, when the venue went completely dark at 8:13 and, above the screaming, all you heard was Springsteen counting down, about to burst into the title track, and it sent me a place I hadn’t been before.
From that point on I was hooked. Springsteen played seven nights in L.A., and I went to all seven shows. On the second leg of that tour, he played the cavernous Los Angeles Coliseum and I was front row, dead center. By that point, the album, tour and even his own persona had taken on industrial-strength proportions.
A staggering seven singles were released from “Born in the USA,” including “Dancing in the Dark” (yes, that’s Courtney Cox dancing with him in the video), “I’m on Fire” and concert fave “Glory Days.”
His energy on stage had no bounds. He’d play a 90-minute first set, an hourlong second set and then three encores, closing out around midnight. The set list changed every night but you could be assured of the staples, songs that had more resonance that others, that, as Springsteen liked to say, “made you glad you‘re alive”: “Thunder Road,” “Badlands,” “The Promised Land,” “Rosalita” and the traditional closer, the “Detroit Medley.”
Change is good
When Springsteen hits the road for the upcoming “Magic” tour, I certainly don’t expect to hear those same songs in concert that I heard over 20 years ago. That’s OK as I’ve been to over 100 shows and I’ve pretty much heard everything. He’s added a lot to the canon since those days — and grown up as a musician and family man. He once said he’d never be able to write songs about being a father, but he has, and, whether he’s liked it or not, has taken on the role of Everyman, commenting on the American experience.
Look no further than Sept. 11, when he watched the Twin Towers fall from across the Hudson River. From that he came up with “The Rising,” in which he delivered the album’s powerful message of agony, sorrow, redemption and joy.
While Springsteen will forever be connected with the E Street Band, their association in the last 20 years or so has been tenuous at best. From 1973’s “Greetings at Asbury Park, N.J.” to “Tunnel of Love” in 1987, he and the band were inseparable, but Springsteen has taken a more solo route since then, offering up material that seemed better suited for an acoustic guitar than a full-band treatment. Understandable? Absolutely. He deserves to present his material in any way he seems fit.
But that’s what makes both the upcoming “Magic” album and tour such a joy. It’s the Big Man (and, at 65, a much older Clarence Clemons) back on sax again, Professor Roy Bittan tinkling the piano, Little Steven Van Zandt (aka Silvio Dante from “The Sopranos”) strumming guitar and sharing a mic during “Two Hearts,” and all the other E Streeters returning to deliver the goods again. Back in the day, we used to take the band’s contributions for granted. Now, longtime fans treasure every show, every song.
Back in the ’80s and ’90s, traveling around the country to see a Springsteen show was always de rigueur, never even given second thought. Jersey shows, Philly shows, maybe a stop in Texas, or Boston, or D.C., or even somewhere in the heartland was something that wasn’t discussed so much as implied. Of course, these days — with jobs, families, bills to pay — road trips are a bit tougher, though certainly not impossible.
At 58 years old, it’s hard difficult to say how much longer Springsteen will be able to play these marathon concerts. And though he said a “farewell tour” now or later is out of the question, one needn’t be a mathematician to figure out that, with the band getting older as well, there will be fewer and fewer tours to come.
So, to repeat what the late, great American songwriter Warren Zevon said when asked what advise he would give just before he passed away a few years back, he said, simply, “Enjoy every sandwich.”
Relish in the revelry of “Cadillac Ranch,” in the quiet pleasures of “If I Should Fall Behind,” in the communal nature of “10th Avenue Freezeout.”
And know that more magic is on the way.
Stuart Levine
Thank god.
In the seventies, recording artists played it close to the vest. They would issue no licenses and release no live material, except for the de rigueur, sweetened in the studio, double live album. You didn't want to kill the golden goose, your record sales, you lived off your record sales.
But not the Grateful Dead. The Grateful Dead took Philips' invention to a new extreme. The success of that band, far into the eighties, up until Jerry Garcia's death, was built upon the trading of cassette tapes. But they're not the only ones... Metallica's fan base was built by tape trading too. That's the hardest thing to do, spread the word. But, if you're good, people can't help but tell others about you. Just like I'm going to tell you about this cover of "Highway 61 Revisited".
The original "Highway 61" is a horse race. It leaves the gate with a whistle and gallops all the way to its three and a half minute finishing line. It was an track deep into Dylan's 1965 album that featured the gargantuan hit "Like A Rolling Stone". If you were a nascent rocker, you knew every lick of this album. Lyrical incisiveness was no longer limited to folkies, you could plug in and still tell your story. Pickers all over the world were liberated. People like Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt and Bruce Springsteen. Who united twenty five years later at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium to lay down a version of the song that was aged in decades of rock history. They took the original and filtered it down to its essence, its pure soul. Ironically, in accompaniment with Jackson Browne's acoustic guitar. And the Boss' harmonica.
The reason people go to the live show is for the vitality. There's a life force absent from the record. The record is perfected, it's sterile. It's like going back in time and fixing a date. Whereas live is one time only. You're in the bedroom of your high school crush, what are you going to do?
And we have crushes on our rock stars. We think if we could only meet them, talk to them, never mind bed them, our lives would suddenly work. We're convinced when they're looking out from the stage that they're actually staring at us. That's just how powerful the music, the experience, is.
I can't even remember what the Christic Institute is/was. But I do know you couldn't get a ticket to this benefit concert. Today they paper the house, even for best-selling artists. As late as 1990, the ticket was still golden, you beamed when it spat out of the ticket machine, as if Willy Wonka himself handed it to you. And you went to the gig with a sense of anticipation.
Bruce performs "Darkness". Even "Thunder Road" and "My Hometown". But what is truly transcendent is this take on "Highway 61" with his homies.
Yes, despite our inability to even speak to them, the musicians are friends. When they get together and play they're having such a good time they don't even think about the audience.
Jackson picks out a groove. Only vaguely reminiscent of the original take. Bruce lays down some harmonica chops and Jackson starts to sing:
"God said to Abraham, 'Kill me a son'
Abe said, 'Man, you must be puttin' me on'
God said, 'No.' Abe said, 'What?'
God said, 'Abe you can do what you want, but
The next time you see me comin' you better run'
Abe said, 'Where do you want this killin' done?'
God said, 'Out on Highway 61.'"
Then Bruce picks up and makes the lyrics his own:
"Well Mack the Finger said to Louie the King
I got forty red white and blue shoe strings
And a thousand telephones man don't ring
You know where I can get rid of these things
Louie the King said let me think, for a minute son
Yes I think it can be easily done
Take everything out on Highway 61."
Mack the Finger and Louie the King are relatives of the Magic Rat, they're characters straight out of the second side of "Born To Run", scrambling around in Jungleland.
And Bonnie steps up to the mic and sings:
"Well the fifth daughter on the twelfth night
Told the first father that she just didn't feel right
My complexion she said is much too light
He said come over here, step into the light, he says hmm, yes
Let me tell the second mother what has been done
But the second mother was with the seventh son
And they were both out on Highway 61."
She's like a cross between a dame on Grand Theft Auto, the coolest chick in your high school and a diva channeling the history of the blues. You just want to get closer to the flame.
And when Jackson comes back in, the Boss and Bonnie are helping out, singing backgrounds. They're together, locked on. Not auto-tuned, but pulsing together in live performance. Recorded for all posterity but unavailable widely until the Internet. Now you can find the track easily.
This is not a rote cover. The musicians make the song their own. It's the little hiccup in Jackson's guitar work that truly makes the track, hooks you. Like your buddies sitting in your parents' basement playing Beatle songs. Strumming hard for EMPHASIS!
This is a cover song. A show capper. Rearranged in your own style. Picked to make a statement.
"Well the frozen gambler he was very bored
Tryin' to create a next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before
But yes I think it could be very easily done
We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it on Highway 61."
We're bored with the official music scene. With its filters and blanded out product. We're looking for something different, something with more soul. Which is why we go online. Sure, we download the new stuff, but so often delete it when it doesn't live up to the hype. But then we come across gems and play them ad infinitum. Because they contain the essence.
The essence is life. Absent from the Mariah melismas. The beat-driven escapades. If you use a drum machine, won't the final product SOUND like a machine?
I'm gonna link you to a lame YouTube clip. But if you do just a bit of Googling, you can download a pristine take of "Highway 61 Revisited". And you should. Because you'll be hooked by Jackson Lee Hooker's guitar work. And the man who gives him that appellation's wailing harmonica playing. And the glue of Bonnie's voice.
Don't put this on a CD. Don't clean it up. Just post it where everybody can hear it, even the tech unsavvy. And pray that two decades on, these three go on tour. Together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fQXHrG2I
One of those real special nights
Posted by Stan Goldstein May 08, 2008
Wednesday night's benefit show for the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, was one of those real special Bruce Springsteen performances, one that will go down in the history books as a great, great show.
For the first time, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed a whole album from start to finish, in the order the songs appear on the album.
But it wasn't just one album, it was two. Fans were treated to the entire "Darkness on the Edge of Town" album, then the entire "Born To Run" album. To cap off the night, Bruce played four fun, fun encores.
Before the show started, Patti Scialfa came out to talk to the audience. She said she goes back more than 25 years with the Count Basie Theatre. She told the crowd that she grew up in Deal, just north of Asbury Park and the movie theater she remembers was the Mayfair Theater in Asbury Park. "It was so beautiful. It has this arched ceiling with the stars and the sky. And they had little love seats in the balcony that everyone got their first kiss in. Not me though!," said Scialfa.
She said how it was so sad when the tore down the Mayfair in the early 1970s and she wants to make sure what happened to the Mayfair Theater doesn't happen to the Count Basie.
Scialfa then introduced Brian Williams of NBC News. Williams, a native of Middletown and a graduate of Mater Dei High School, said he goes way back with the Jersey Shore, to the Stone Pony and to the Tradewinds. Said he spent many a night seeing the band Fresh and hitting those places after hearing rumors that Bruce might show up and play.
He talked up Jack's Music Shoppe in Red Bank, as "they sold more rolling papers than records in the 1970s."
Williams said: "I've been all over the world and there's no better place to be than right here."
Williams then introduced Bruce who came on at 8:39 p.m.
"Good evening" Bruce said to the packed house. He said: "We're going to do something different tonight. We're going to take the Darkness and Born To Run albums and play them in sequence for you.
"So that should be interesting."
Bruce said he was going to play the Darkness album first, so "we don't send you home suicidal."
He talked about writing the Darkness album. How in 1977 he was livining in a house on farm in Holmdel and it was a tough period in his life. "
When the band broke into "Badlands" the first song from the album, things were a bit messed up and Bruce said: "We ******* it up already."
The setlist:
1. Badlands
2. Adam Raised A Cain
3. Something In The Night
4. Candy's Room
5. Racing In The Street
6. The Promised Land
7. Factory
8. Streets Of Fire
9. Prove It All Night
10. Darkness On The Edge Of Town
They took a 15-minute break and came back to play the "Born To Run" album.
Bruce talked about how it took him six months to write and record the song "Born To Run" and another six months to finish the rest of the album. He said it was make or break time for the band, as they were in danger of being dropped from Columbia Records.
.
11. Thunder Road
12. Tenth Ave Freezeout
They brought out a four-pience horn section for the song. Mark Pender, La Bamba, Jerry Vivino and Ed Manion played.
Bruce jumped into the crowd during the song. He jumped off the front of the stage in front of Little Steven, then walked over, past N.J. Gov. Jon Corzine, to the left side and jumped up on seats. As the crowd swarmed him, they lifted him up a bit. It was like a 1976 show again!
13. Night
14. Backstreets
15. Born To Run
16. She's The One
17. Meeting Across The River
Beautiful trumpet on this song by Mark Pender.
18. Jungleland
Encores:
19. So Young And In Love
Bruce had a lot of fun in this. He told the band to remind him that there was an instrumental part in there some where.
20 Kitty's Back
All the horn players did solos.
21. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
22. Raise Your Hand
Show ended at 11:14 p.m.
Bruce also jumped up on Roy Bittan's piano several times and did some dancing up there.
Bruce didn't talk between songs, he just right into one song after another.
New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine was sitting in the front row, just off center. He left during the start of the encores.
Great show, great night. One of my top Bruce Springsteen shows of all time.
To see Bruce in a 1,500-seat theater at this stage of his career is phenomenal.
A very special night. For You A New Bruce Springsteen Book.
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