The idea that Springsteen was manipulated into acting out his mentor's literary fantasies is tempting, but the initial results can't be faulted. Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978), The River (1980) and Nebraska (1982) are his work's core. The previously apolitical singer wrote Nebraska under Guthrie's influence, as a stark tour of the small-town America he grew up in, laid waste by Reaganomics. The River's title song remains his best. Its young married couple in a closing factory town have no future in a way more crushingly solid than punk's teenage mantra. "Is a dream a lie if it don't come true/Or is it something worse..." the man wonders, of an American Dream he has been forced awake from. It was a heartbreaking political song because it barely looked up from personal concerns; as good as Guthrie, but Springsteen's own."
Nick Hasted
Bruce Springsteen "Working" on a new hit
Reuters – Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform at Veterans Park NEW YORK (Billboard) – Triple A radio, a format targeted at older rock fans, has been kind to Bruce Springsteen in the past decade.
The good vibes continue this week for "Working on a Dream," the first single and title track from the Boss' upcoming album, which comes out on January 27 via Columbia. "Dream" debuted at No. 13 on trade publication Radio & Records' Triple A chart, making it only the fifth title to debut in the top 15 since the chart expanded to 30 positions in August 2006.
Springsteen is also the only artist to achieve that distinction twice; "Radio Nowhere" debuted in the same position in 2007 and eventually climbed to No. 2. Since the chart launched in 1996, Springsteen has notched five top 10s, including a No. 1 with "The Rising."
Springsteen debuted "Working on a Dream" during a November 2 rally for Barack Obama in Cleveland. Excerpts from the studio version soundtracked a package of NFL highlights that aired November 16 on NBC, while the full track hit digital retailers November 24. In its debut week, the song sold 8,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
A second new track from the album, "My Lucky Day," went live December 1 on Amazon and MySpace. Fresh off winning the top tour honor at the Billboard Touring Awards, Springsteen and the E Street Band will return to live duty February 1 as part of the Super Bowl halftime show in Tampa, Fla.
First, let me thank you for the great opportunity tonite to help you & Associated Press out, and express my gratitude at getting paid for something (videotaping parts of the concert) I would have gladly done for free!
On the way home, my thoughts started to coalesce more coherently, as they usually do after a great show, and of course, i wished i had said some of the following things to you earlier tonite when i had the chance, during the interview. Oh well--Murphy's law: you always wish you said the right thing at the time, instead of later, when you've had the time to think of it.
So here goes: random thoughts about the show:
It was a historic meeting of new jersey & long island, as bruce said at the beginning. Even john legend, who opened up the show with a great rendition of U2's "in the name of love" to properly set the tone of the show (a tough feat), acknowledged he (and indie arie) was "the warm-up act." But they both performed and sang well, tho they were kind of in the same hierarchy that Youssou N'Dour & Tracy Chapman were in 1989's Amnesty International Human Rights Tour, that Bruce headlined with Sting. And even going back further, the No Nukes Concerts at Madison Square Garden in 1979 that Bruce also headlined: these shows all inevitable become Bruce shows, with a coupla opening acts, as it were. And Bruce's legend has only grown stronger and more respected as the years have passed.
So here comes Bruce's biggest tri-state "rival," Billy Joel, come to share the stage with him. Who would get the preferred "placement"? Who would close the show?
But, as i might've said earlier to you, Legend was right: it WAS about the historic sharing of the stage of maybe america's 2 greatest solo-personality rock & rollers of the modern era, Bruce & Billy: billy piano based (kind of like the american elton john, whom I always thought billy most resembled, not bruce's long island twin son of different mothers), bruce guitar-based (tho Born to Run, the album, bruce's masterpiece, was written on piano).
So Bruce & Billy are flip sides of the same rock & roll coin in many ways, because, tho they grew up on opposite sides of manhattan, they had more in common than not: both about the same age, true baby boomers, same musical influences, both were in numerous flailing rock bands in the late 60s/early 70s, both broke on the national stage around the same time (billy w/piano man in '74, bruce with BTR in '75, tho his first 2 albums precede billy's), went to each other's shows in the early years, and now, here they were, finally sharing a stage, and doing each other's songs! (also kinda like when billy & elton john first toured together in '93, and did each other's songs).
Of course, Bruce was at a seeming "disadvantage," because he was playing with Joel's band (but on "neutral" turf, NYC), and only Roy Bittan, bruce's piano player, was on hand to play--but only on Bruce's songs. Why? Because it seems Billy didn't really know Bruce's material! (Even Bruce mentioned, casually--or a little miffed?--that he was "surprised" that Joel didn't know "Spirit in the Night" but man, the crowd sure did). And Bruce, the master of rock & roll covers, sure knew Joel's material. They alternated on an abridged version of both their greatest hits, among them: Bruce's "10th Avenue freeze-Out,' "Thunder Road," and "Glory Days"; Joel's "Movin' Out," "A Matter of Trust," & "In The Middle of The Night." And then, there was "New York State of Mind"...
"New York State of Mind," one of Joel's most signature songs, was, without a doubt, the highlight, the legendary moment of the evening, with Bruce & Billy trading vocals with each verse. To hear Bruce's unfamiliar vocals where your mind expects to hear Joel's was startling, and yet thrilling, because Bruce's booming, soulful, full-throttle voice sang Joel's classic with such intensity that it sent collective shivers down the audience's spines. Obama's staff should immediately put it out as a fundraising single: I predict it would outsell Elton John's custom-"Candle in the Wind" that followed Princess Diana's death in 1997.
An interesting footnote, coming from an admittedly biased bruce fan (tho I've always liked & respected Joel, too): no offense to joel's band, which performed admirably thruout the evening, but to hear Bruce's songs backed by Joel's band was like hearing a bruce cover band doing bruce; anyone who's familiar with the E Street Band knows that had they been there instead, with Billy playing HIS songs with THEM, the Hammerstein Ballroom would've become an instant ampitheater--because Bruce & the E Street Band would've blown the roof off the joint!
Bruce did close the set, with a smashing version of Born to Run. Who can EVER top that, our true national anthem?
And speaking of our national anthem, and the impending presidential election, the reason we were all there that evening, in support of Barack Obama (who had the unenviable position of following BOTH Bruce & Billy, yet he came through beautifully, because he understood that all he had in the face of their talent, was the power of WORDS--which Obama used to rally the crowd to its feet, roaring at the end to "fire it up!"): the REAL president of the United States of America is--and has been, for over 30 years--Bruce Springsteen, as I once wrote:
"Bruce is doing what a true leader should be doing: living his life by example, using it to inspire and exhort others to do the same, a bona fide moral leader for our age." For You.
ROLLING STONE REVIEW
Shortly after a roof-raising version of “Born To Run” featuring Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and key members of both their bands, Bruce turned to the back of the stage at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom and said “We want to bring out the next President of the United States!” With that, Barack Obama took the stage to the loudest cheers of a very loud night. “What a magical evening,” Obama said to the crowd, who donated between $500 and $10,000 to his campaign and the DNC for tickets. “I just told Michelle backstage that the reason I’m running for president is because I can’t be Bruce Springsteen.” He went on to warn the crowd not to get “giddy” over his high poll numbers with less than three weeks left in the election. “Don’t underestimate the power of Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.”
One also can’t underestimate the ability of a ninety-minute set of Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel hits to bring a theater packed full of middle age tri-staters to screaming fits of hysterical joy. “Good evening bridge and tunnel elite,” Springsteen said in the middle of an early show mini acoustic set. “I know you spent a lot of money, but like you did with the vice presidential debate: lower your expectations.” Three songs into Billy Joel’s set — when Springsteen, his wife Patti Scialfa and E Street Band keyboardist Roy Bittan joined Joel and his band for a rousing “10th Avenue Freeze-Out” — expectations were already exceeded. From here, an only-for-Obama supergroup was born. Springsteen stayed onstage for the next hour and a half, with the setlist rotating back and forth between Joel and Springsteen classics. Each sang big portions of each others’ tunes, often with their eyes focused on what was surely a teleprompter.
The pairing worked surprisingly well. When Springsteen sang “they’re closing all the factories down” in “Allentown,” it sounded like it could have been a Darkness On The Edge Of Town outtake. Likewise, Joel made the sweet nostalgia of “Glory Days” seem like one of his own. “Movin’ Out” was dedicated to Bush and Cheney, and featured Springsteen singing the verse about “Mister Cacciatore’s” and the “Cadillac-ack-ack-ack-ack.” Other highlights included “Thunder Road,” “A Matter Of Trust,” “Spirit In The Night” and “New York State of Mind.” If anyone on earth was ready for such an evening, it was Joel’s multi-instrumentalist Crystal Taliefero, who toured with Springsteen in 1992/93 tour. Whether it was playing the bongos on “River Of Dreams” or filling in for Clarence on the sax “10th Avenue Freeze-Out,” the woman knew what she was doing.
Earlier in the night John Legend and India.Arie played “Ordinary People” and U2’s “Pride (In The Name of Love)” during a brief acoustic set. They came out again at the end for a cover of “People Get Ready” and the grand finale of “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours,” during which Barck and Michelle Obama stood center stage clapping and occasionally singing along. It was a great night — worth every penny — though there was much work to be done. As Caroline Kennedy told the crowd before the show while urging them to volunteer: “This is the last time you can have this much fun for the next twenty days.”
Susan Whitall / The Detroit News
YPSILANTI -- "Hello, Ypsilanti. Glad to be here, don't know how to spell it, though," Bruce Springsteen quipped as he took the stage at 4:50 p.m. Monday on the third stop of his Vote for Change 2008 mini-tour for Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
Dressed in a gray and white flannel shirt, Springsteen kicked off his set with several of his songs about the struggles of the working class. First, "The Promised Land," then he strapped on his harmonica harness for "The Ghost of Tom Joad," his bleak 1995 song about the protagonist of John Steinbeck's Dust Bowl tragedy, "The Grapes of Wrath."
He dedicated the next song, "Devils & Dust," to the troops deployed overseas, "may they come home soon safely." Then it was "Used Cars," a song about a hard-working father buying a "brand new used car" yet again. When he got to the line, "as my pa steers her slow out of the lot for a test drive down Michigan Avenue," the crowd cheered.
"Can't go wrong singing a song that has the name of the state in it," Springsteen said with a raspy laugh. "Cheap applause getter."
He went on to speak to the crowd about the American ideals that defined his life and career: social justice, generosity and opportunity for all.
"I know that I want my dream back, I want my America back, I want my country back. So now's the time to stand up for Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and let's come on up for 'The Rising.' "
He ended his set with Woody Guthrie's familiar anthem, "This Land Is Your Land," but it wasn't the politically correct version expunged of all leftist sentiments. Springsteen restores some of the Depression-era lines, including: "... in the squares of the city, in the shadow of the steeple, by the relief office, I saw my people/and some are grumbling and some are wondering if this land is still made for you and me..."
"Obama is going to be president of the United States," Springsteen vowed. "That's right. The tequila is lined up already."
Over the weekend, Springsteen performed at rallies in Pennsylvania and Ohio, performing an acoustic six-song set and urging fans to register to vote, and vote for Obama. After his rally here, Springsteen will perform a benefit for the Democratic candidate on Oct. 16 in New York with Billy Joel and John Legend.
Fans streamed into Eastern Michigan University's Oestrike Stadium when the gates of the baseball park opened at 3 p.m. Michael Malach, an associate athletics director at EMU, estimated the crowds eventually swelled to around 11,000.
Braving the chill Monday afternoon on field, Jane Doner, 60, of Ann Arbor had a "Boomers for Obama" button pinned to her jean jacket. Doner admitted she's more a fan of Obama, than of Springsteen. "I've supported a lot of candidates, but something about Obama has touched me."
Greg Zulewski, 61, a retired firefighter from Brooklyn, Mich., in Jackson County, drove an hour to attend the rally. "I'm surprised how many people still claim to be undecided," Zulewski said. "If I can change someone's mind by doing walks for Obama every weekend, great. Same thing with Springsteen; if he can convince someone to vote for Obama, great. Bruce really gives back to all us working class guys, he's still one of us."
Brooke Peschke was a young face even on a college campus; the Ann Arbor Pioneer High School student is 16 and admits that rapper Jay-Z's Saturday rally for Obama at Cobo Arena in Detroit would have been more her cup of tea. "My dad brought me," Peschke confessed.
Her grinning dad Rob, 48, said: "Sure it'll help," about voter registration efforts, although, "It's the very last minute," he pointed out. "But I've seen people with clipboards everywhere, signing people up to vote outside every grocery store, for weeks."
In between each act, Obama organizers asked that everybody register to vote, and called for volunteers with clipboards to raise them so people could see where they were.
First to perform was Ann Arbor folk favorite Dick Siegel, who came on at 3:25 p.m. "Last night, someone came up and asked if I would do this, and I said I wouldn't miss it for the world," Siegel said before beginning his brief set with "A Little Pain Never Hurt."
"John McCain is about to become a minor footnote in history, George Bush a bad dream, and we and Barack Obama are about to become tomorrow and the future," Siegel said. "This song is about one of the reasons we're all here today." He launched into an anti-war song, "Fighting for King George."
The folk theme continued with Kitty Donahoe, who sang "Shady Grove" and "Ready for a Change." Soldier Chris Owens came out to lead the pledge of allegiance, and the EMU Gospel Choir sang the "Star-Spangled Banner."
Then the political pitches began; Debbie Dingell spoke, then her husband, U.S. Rep. John Dingell. "You need to take your roommates ... you need to take your teammates ... and go out and vote. Sen. Barack Obama and the Democratic ticket needs you," Debbie Dingell screamed.
Dingell apparently didn't realize that the groundswell of "Bruuuuce" cheers weren't "boos." "Negativity won't win us the election," she said to the puzzled crowd.
At least candidate for Michigan Supreme Court judge Diane Hathaway referenced a Springsteen lyric, saying her opponents' philosophy was "a death trap, a suicide rap..."
Obama Ypsilanti field organizer Robert Johnson came out and made the voter registration pitch, then led the Obama cheer. He yelled "Fired up!" as the crowd responded, "Ready to go!"
by Neurotic Dem
My brother-in-law invited me to Columbus this weekend to see Bruce Springsteen singing for Obama, and I got in the car, rolled down the windows, and let the wind roll back my hair.
Well, I got in the minivan. The windows were, up, technically, but I had the AC on. I made it to Columbus from Akron in just over two hours, only stopping twice to pee.
I don’t know, Bruce. Maybe we ain’t that young anymore.
There are days, even in a 20-month-long election campaign — moments, really — that stand apart. They’re sublime. You know even when they are happening that you’ll remember them long after the last votes are cast. Today was one of those days. A breath. A palliative. A restorative moment with nary a pundit in sight.
For a neurotic democrat from Central Jersey, a tonic.
It’s hard to describe the day. Fall, on the Ohio State campus, but cloudless — warm. Alive with hope. A line of people waiting to get onto the lawn, more than a football field long. People wearing Obama pins and shirts. Firefighters for Obama Biden. Ohio Education Association for Obama. Another Clintonville Voter for Obama.
“Are you guys all up to date with your voter registration?” a kid with a clipboard asks.
To get inside, we have to fill out our name and address on a ticket, then rip it and hand it to them — one more way for them to collect names, emails, cell phones of supporters.
An American flag, maybe 100-feet long, hangs from a crane on the Oval. Soon, the lawn is over-flowing with people, students mainly, but also workers, parents, with little kids on their shoulders.
The Columbus mayor, Michael B. Coleman, is first on stage to fire up the crowd. “They’ve moved off the issues and they’re going negative,” he said, of McCain-Palin, imploring us to show courage, to knock on doors, get on the phone, get on the Internet “Let’s let America know that we can not take four more years of George Bush and John McCain.”
Next came Sen. John Glenn, an Ohio hero, followed by a group of six local Ohioans who had knocked on 4,000 doors in two days, earning the right to stand on stage before the Boss. A short video followed. Obama came on near the end, and the whole place cheered for his image on the giant video screen.
And then Bruce walked out, hugged John Glenn, and strode to the mic. “It’s not everyday you get introduced by John Glenn,” he said.
Typical Bruce: He followed with a few lines from the classic Byrds’ song, “Hey, Mr. Spaceman.”
He started his set with Promised Land …
The dogs on Main Street howl
’cause they understand
If I could take one moment into my hands
… and I thought: That’s why we’re all here today. That’s what we’re doing.
He moved from there to the Ghost of Tom Joad, with its haunting images of John Steinbeck’s Depression-era dust bowl.
Shelter line stretchin’ round the corner
Welcome to the new world order
Families sleepin’ in their cars in the southwest
No home no job no peace no rest
When he finished, he said that someone backstage reminded him he was in Columbus for the first time in 1973, opening up for Sha Na Na.
“Not many people remember Sha Na Na,” he said. “Not many people remember 1973 — I’m impressed.”
“We were here four years ago,” he added, when the laughter died down – a reference to the tour he did for John Kerry in ‘04. “This time, we’re winning.”
And the place roared. When the cheering subsided, he eased straight into Thunder Road.
Show a little faith, it’s magic in the night
Then, a gem, one of my all-time favorite Springsteen songs: Youngstown. A poetic retelling of the rise and fall of a great American steel town. As he sang, a long, lazy sun-lit spider web floated over the crowd.
Well my daddy come on the Ohio works
When he come home from World War Two
Now the yard’s just scrap and rubble
He said, “Them big boys did what Hitler couldn’t do”
These mills they built the tanks and bombs
That won this country’s wars
We sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam
Now we’re wondering what they were dyin’ for
“We were in Pennsylvania yesterday,” he said, before the next song. “I don’t have to tell you” how important it is for Obama to win Ohio. “Oh,” he said, ”we were praying last time.”
From there, onto No Surrender.
We learned more from a three-minute record …
He paused — held the line – and laughed, and thousands of students on the Oval laughed with him
… then I ever learned in school.
“Maybe that just says something about me, I don’t know,” he added, interrupting the song, sunlight glinting off his guitar. “Early Alzheimer’s has long ago set in.”
No retreat, baby, no surrender …
When he finished, he looked out at the audience — a large, but much more intimate gathering than the stadiums and arenas he’s used to filling – and made his pitch. I include it here in full, because it is so eloquent, so on-target. It may come from an aging Jersey rocker who once sang “I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd … when they said ‘Come down’ I threw up”, but it’s as important an endorsement of Barack Obama as any I’ve heard.
“I’ve spent 35 years writing about America, its people, and the meaning of the American Promise,” Bruce began …
The Promise that was handed down to us from our founding fathers, with one instruction: Do your best to make these things real. Opportunity, equality, social and economic justice, a fair shake for all of our citizens, the American idea, as a positive influence, around the world for a more just and peaceful existence. These are the things that give our lives hope, shape, and meaning. They are the ties that bind us together and give us faith in our contract with one another.
I’ve spent most of my creative life measuring the distance between that American promise and American reality. For many Americans, who are today losing their jobs, their homes, seeing their retirement funds disappear, who have no health care, or who have been abandoned in our inner cities. The distance between that promise and that reality has never been greater or more painful.
I believe Senator Obama has taken the measure of that distance in his own life and in his work. I believe he understands, in his heart, the cost of that distance, in blood and suffering, in the lives of everyday Americans. I believe as president, he would work to restore that promise to so many of our fellow citizens who have justifiably lost faith in its meaning. After the disastrous administration of the past 8 years, we need someone to lead us in an American reclamation project. In my job, I travel the world, and occasionally play big stadiums, just like Senator Obama. I’ve continued to find, wherever I go, America remains a repository of people’s hopes, possibilities, and desires, and that despite the terrible erosion to our standing around the world, accomplished by our recent administration, we remain, for many, a house of dreams. One thousand George Bushes and one thousand Dick Cheneys will never be able to tear that house down.
They will, however, be leaving office, dropping the national tragedies of Katrina, Iraq, and our financial crisis in our laps. Our sacred house of dreams has been abused, looted, and left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs care; it needs saving, it needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power or a quick buck. It needs strong arms, hearts, and minds. It needs someone with Senator Obama’s understanding, temperateness, deliberativeness, maturity, compassion, toughness, and faith, to help us rebuild our house once again. But most importantly, it needs us. You and me. To build that house with the generosity that is at the heart of the American spirit. A house that is truer and big enough to contain the hopes and dreams of all of our fellow citizens. That is where our future lies. We will rise or fall as a people by our ability to accomplish this task. Now I don’t know about you, but I want that dream back, I want my America back, I want my country back.
So now is the time to stand with Barack Obama and Joe Biden, roll up our sleeves, and come on up for the rising.
He launched into The Rising, his post-9/11 anthem, with its searing image of firefighters heading up the dark, smoky stairwells of the Twin Towers …
Lost track of how far I’ve gone
How far I’ve gone, how high I’ve climbed
On my back’s a sixty pound stone
On my shoulder a half mile line
… and the message of the song takes on new meaning, new urgency, as Springsteen’s words reverberate: We need someone to lead us in an American reclamation project … someone with Senator Obama’s understanding, temperateness, deliberativeness, maturity, compassion, toughness, and faith, to help us rebuild our house once again.
For an encore, he sings This Land is Your Land, opening with Obama’s mantra: Yes we can!
Only this version closes with a new verse, words that drift out over the field where sunlight streams. “I saw my people,” Bruce sings …
and some are wonderin’ … if this land’s still made, for you and me.
“Sing loud if you’re gonna take it back,” he says.
I can feel the beat in my feet, through the grass, rising up from the dirt.
“Let’s let ‘em hear in Washington!”
Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can!
“It’s up to you now, come on!” he says, the last chords fading out. ”Vote for Barack Obama for president. Let’s build that house. Yes, we can do it!” ForYou
Thank goodness for global warming - here in Philadelphia it is more than 75 degrees on this October day.
We are here with thousands of Obama supporters as we listen to Amos Lee and other performers before the Boss comes on stage.
The campaign took over a part of Ben Franklin Parkway and built a soundstage in the heart of the city.
This swing state is now swinging strongly for Obama - but nothing can be taken for granted. Although recent polls put Obama up by 7-9 points here in PA, there is still time for that gap to narrow.
PA Gov Ed Rendell addresses the crowd - "As long as I am up here I promise NOT to wink at you" - the crowd goes wild.
-- Bruce is now on stage - the audience is hushed.
Today he is playing acoustic from his album "Nebraska." He is channeling Bob Dylan with songs of struggles of life.
"I'm no hero, it's understood...but with the chance of making good"
"Come take my hand as we walk to the promised land".
-------
Bruce pauses his performance to address the audience:
"I have spent my life measuring the distance beteeen the American Dream and the American Reality"
"Barak Obama has taken that measure as well. Never has the gap between the Dream and Reality been greater.
"What we need now is an American Reclamation Project. Bush and Cheney leave office (applause) leaving us Iraq, Katrina and the financial mess.
"Around the world, we remain the repository of people's dreams. A thousand George Bushes and dick Cheneys cannot tear that house down.
"I want my house back, I want my country back. I want my America back."
The crowd cheers.
Thank you Bruce for reminding us of what is important in life and how important this election is for "making good" in this great nation.With Billy Penn over one shoulder and the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul over the other, the rock star as agit-pop troubadour took, as he put it, to "exploring the distance between American promise and American reality" in a 40-minute solo set that surveyed his career through a Woody Guthrie lens, and did its inspirational best to boost his preferred candidate for president of the United States.
"I'm not Barack Obama, but I'll do my best," Springsteen said, stoking his own base while telling the crowd, which included Obama volunteers and non-rowdy Bruce fans, that "it's good to be back in my home away from home."
With that, he went into a "Promised Land" that was dusty and spry, quick-strummed on acoustic guitar. He sang in a cracked country voice, folksy and intimate without the thunder of the E Street Band, but full of belief and itching for a fight.
That and the six songs that followed - including Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land," complete with oft-omitted Depression-era lyrics about "some are grumbling, and some are wondering, if this land is still made for you and me" - all adhered to the Springsteen strategy of cataloging dreams on the verge of being crushed, bucked up by a faith that refuses to die.
"The Ghost of Tom Joad" kept up the Dust Bowl theme, taking a page out of John Steinbeck with its "Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free, look in their eyes, Mom, you'll see me."
But this wasn't the dour acoustic Springsteen of the mid-1990s Tom Joad tour, weighed down by despair. In 3 1/2 decades, the guy has learned a trick or two about holding an oversize audience's attention.
"I've played to some crowds in big stadiums," he said, laughing. "Just like Sen. Obama."
And yesterday he kept the tempo moving, letting the crowd handle the "show a little faith" line in "Thunder Road." The songs were delivered with cheer and combativeness, their confidence unwavering.
"We tried this four years ago," he said, alluding to the Vote for Change tour of 2004. "This time, we're winning."
The matching of material to occasion extended to the oldie for the hard-core fans: "Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?" from 1973's Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. Two birds were killed with one manically verbose stone with a song Springsteen remembered "playing many, many times at the Main Point" in Bryn Mawr. It has two prominent lines that could have been written for the Obama campaign: "The Daily News asks me for the dope. I said, 'Man, the dope's that there's still hope.' "
Springsteen referred to America as "a repository of hope" and "a house of dreams" in an impressively articulate speech that preceded "The Rising."
That dream house, he declared, "can't be pulled down by a thousand George Bushes or a thousand Dick Cheneys." And it provided Springsteen with a reclamation metaphor he artfully meshed with the 9/11-inspired "The Rising" and "This Land Is Your Land," the latter infused with a Bo Diddley-beat-powered "Yes we can" chant.
"I want my house back," Springsteen declared. "I want my America back, and I want my country back."
Christina Bellantoni
Voters in Wisconsin got to see Barack Obama while his wife, Michelle, courted Colorado and Missouri residents and former President Bill Clinton appealed to Floridians.
And that was just yesterday.
A deep bench of Democratic firepower - paired with star power from the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z, who will hit the trail for Mr. Obama this weekend - is allowing Mr. Obama to take his campaign to several states every day.
Sen. John McCain, by contrast, has fewer stars and is playing on a smaller map. The Republican nominee rarely splits from his wife, Cindy, and shares a stage more often than not with his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
The joint campaigning allows the Republican ticket to electrify far larger crowds than Mr. McCain was able to attract earlier in the year, but it also means the campaign can cover less territory.
On any given day, 10 to 15 Obama surrogates are fanned out across several battleground states, spreading the Obama message from Miami to Las Vegas.
Mr. Obama has Stevie Wonder and even the reunited Grateful Dead on his side. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher starred in a Web video reminding Americans to register to vote. They join Queen Latifah, Kal Penn and Sean Astin, all of whom have recorded Web ads on Mr. Obama's behalf.
Mr. Springsteen and Billy Joel will hold their first-ever joint concert Oct. 16 in New York to benefit Mr. Obama. Mr. Springsteen also will headline free concerts in Columbus, Ohio, and Philadelphia this weekend, a final push before Monday's voter-registration deadlines. Rapper Jay-Z is doing the same in Miami and Detroit.
Republicans have their own voter-registration push this weekend, and Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant scoffed at the rock stars aiding the Democrats.
"I guess they're impressed by Obama's Grammy. But regular voters will be more impressed by McCain's judgment and experience," he said. Mr. Obama won a Grammy Award for the audio recording of his book.
On the Republican side, some of the bigger political stars have yet to headline large rallies for Mr. McCain, a longtime senator from Arizona.
An aide to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who at this point is the biggest "star" in the party, said the Republican will hit the trail this fall and "do what he can to help the senator."
Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, the most sought-after politician in 2006 to hit multiple campaign events for Republicans, will play a "very active role," an aide said.
Change Rocks
A Very Special Acoustic Appearance ByBruce Springsteen
Saturday October 4th, 2008
Benjamin Franklin Parkway between 20th and 22nd Streets
Philadelphia, PA
Gates open: 2:00 p.m.
Program starts: 3:30 p.m.
FREE AND OPEN TO
PENNSYLVANIA RESIDENTS & STUDENTS
However, tickets are required. Seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Preferred viewing tickets are also available and will allow you to get even closer to the stage. They can be obtained by visiting one of the Campaign for Change offices and volunteering to help elect Barack Obama. ForYou
August 29, 2008
MILWAUKEE - Bruce Springsteen has long written lyrics about the struggles of working-class Americans. Harley-Davidson motorcycles have traditionally attracted blue-collar riders.
Springsteen seems like a good fit for a headlining act at the Milwaukee-based company's 105th anniversary celebration, right? It might depend on what the liberal leaning Springsteen says to the crowd.
Springsteen, who often makes political statements during performances, endorsed Barack Obama for president this month. But he will be performing to a crowd like the one that gave Republican presidential candidate John McCain a warm welcome Aug. 4 at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota. Many roared their motorcycles during his speech.
Martin Jack Rosenblum, author of 1989's "The Holy Ranger: Harley-Davidson Poems" and a featured poet in the new "Rubber Side Down: The Biker Poet Anthology," said he expected Springsteen's music to get a warm welcome since he has successfully represented blue-collar workers over the years.
But when asked how the crowd might react to Springsteen's political statements, he said, "I have the same question, I don't know."
"You cannot find them easily on any kind of political spectrum," he said.
Springsteen's spokeswoman Marilyn Laverty said the longtime rocker from New Jersey wasn't giving interviews.
The Boss and the E Street Band were part of the Vote for Change tour, a coalition of musicians opposed to the re-election of President Bush in 2004. He wrote the anti-war ballad "Devils and Dust" about Iraq.
Bob Klein, Harley's director of corporate communications, said the anniversary is a nonpolitical event and the company does not endorse any candidate or party.
"The choice of entertainers, made many months ago, was based purely on entertainment value and on what would appeal to our customers," he said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press. "We're confident that our thousands of friends and family from Milwaukee and around the world will have a great time at our event."
But the company's political action committee has given 57 percent to Republicans and 43 percent to Democrats in the 2008 election cycle, according to www.opensecrets.org. So far, the PAC has given a total of $14,550 to federal candidates, according to the site.
Springsteen's Saturday performance will be his last stop on the "Magic" tour, which started in October. Klein wouldn't say how many tickets have been sold, but said he expects the audience to be at or near the 125,000 person capacity.
The Harley crowd gathered near the new Harley-Davidson Museum earlier in this week had mixed reactions to Springsteen.
Jim Jacobs, a conservative from Clearwater, Fla., said he was a Springsteen fan until about five or 10 years ago when Springsteen started becoming more vocal about his political views. The 63-year-old retired businessman said he won't go to the show because he doesn't want to hear about politics when he's listening to music.
"If he wasn't so adamant, you could overlook it," he said.
Jacobs said he thought most Harley riders leaned to the right.
But the more liberal Ray and Toni Kneen, from Denver, said they though the crowd was split down the middle. They plan to attend the concert.
"Everybody is entitled to their own opinion," said Ray Kneen, 55, a retired welder.
"I think they like his music, and that's why they are going to see him," said Toni Kneen, 52, who is retired from owning her own housekeeping business.
After McCain's stop at Sturgis this month, Obama invoked Harleys -- the market-leading American motorcycle company -- in a Wisconsin radio ad. It blasted the Arizona senator for his long opposition to provisions that require government agencies to buy goods made in the U.S.
Harley-Davidson expects more than 100,000 people from around the nation and world to participate in the four-day celebration that officially started Thursday in Milwaukee and its suburbs. It includes a parade through the city, a party along the lake, activities at the new Harley-Davidson Museum, a special exhibit at Discovery World and other big-name bands. For You
- Mood:,
An appearance by Bruce Springsteen could further add to the rock concert atmosphere at Invesco Field.
Fueling the speculation: the Boss has a six-day gap in his tour schedule, with no public concerts listed between Aug. 24, when he's due to perform in Kansas City, and Aug. 30, when he's set to perform in Milwaukee.
And local radio and other news outlets are reporting the Boss buzz as fact. One of the Sleuth's colleagues heard a traffic reporter on a Denver country radio station warning drivers about the traffic woes when Springsteen shows up later this week.
The Las Vegas Review Journal also is reporting that Springsteen "will follow Obama with a solo acoustic performance on Thursday after Obama's acceptance speech." ForYou
Profile The Boss picks his voice of AmericaFor 35 years, Bruce Springsteen has been the authentic, poetic voice of the blue-collar States, a liberal courted by all shades of politician to endorse their campaigns. As the latest presidential campaign nears its end, he has now cast his voteAndrew Anthony Bruce Springsteen has never taken lightly his position as the prince of blue-collar America. For many years, he avoided passing comment on subjects that could divide the nation's heartland. 'I don't like the soapbox stuff,' he said some years back. 'I don't believe you can tell people anything.' But last week, he decided to tell his large fan base that he was supporting Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, offering a statement on his official website. 'Senator Obama, in my view, is head and shoulders above the rest,' he said. 'He has the depth, the reflectiveness and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years.' Coming as it did, just days before the Pennsylvania primary on Tuesday, it was a timely and significant intervention. Polls suggest Senator Obama has been losing working-class support since he was quoted as saying that embittered small-town America clings to guns and religion. In a very tight campaign, Springsteen's support could be influential in bringing blue-collar voters back into the Obama camp. One of the most successful music acts in history, Springsteen has a long history of political involvement. But for many years, it was restricted to issues that, while overtly liberal, were non-party political - the boycott of apartheid South Africa, support for non-nuclear power and international human rights. What's more, most of this activity took the shape of benefit gigs and records. In the Eighties, at the height of his fame, he rebuffed the Democratic candidate Walter Mondale's efforts to gain his endorsement when Mondale was running against Ronald Reagan. Springsteen, though no supporter of Reagan, preferred to remain aloof from the mudslinging business of electoral politics. That all changed four years ago when, frustrated and angry with the Bush administration, he took part in the Vote for Change set up with the express purpose of mobilising people to vote against Bush. He even appeared at John Kerry rallies singing his composition that Kerry adopted for his campaign, 'No Surrender'. However, it might say something about the limits of even Springsteen's popularity that, in the event, Kerry lost. Though Springsteen received some flak, he emerged characteristically unscathed. Too careful in his pronouncements to suffer the obloquy that, for example, the Dixie Chicks received after they made anti-war and anti-Bush comments, Springsteen's message none the less was and remains very similar to that of the female Texas singers. Last year, Springsteen performed on The Today Show in America and introduced his song, 'Living in the Future', with an attack on 'rendition', 'illegal wiretapping' and 'voter suppression'. The mood has shifted in America, but in any case no one was ever going to call the Boss a Hollywood phoney, much less mount a boycott of his music. Thirty five years after he staked out his distinctive corner of the American imagination with Greetings From Asbury Park, Springsteen continues to be a byword for authenticity in an industry not overburdened with the stuff. Few stars have managed to achieve global acclaim and extraordinary wealth (he's sold more than 65 million albums in the US alone) while retaining an image of down-to-earth integrity. But Springsteen has done just that and he's done it, to a large extent, by creating his own mythology. His music and lyrics have produced a coherent fictional world of broken dreamers chasing a promised land that is tragically out of reach. Utilising his keen eye for cinematic imagery - two-lane highways in the middle of the night, screen doors slamming, rusting industrial landscapes - he has transformed cliches into vivid snapshots and almost singlehandedly reassembled modern Americana. In his live performances, epic communions with worshipful fans, he brings a wholeheartedness to the proceedings that is unmistakably genuine - and as professional as it is passionate. As he told David Hepworth, director of the Word magazine: 'You have a duty to be living in the moment when 8 o'clock comes around.' Springsteen's gift has been to inhabit the moment in such a ways as to allow those watching to believe they live in Bruce's world. It's an illusion, perhaps, but an honest one. And somewhere in the middle of it all is the beating heart of his own story. He grew up in Freehold, one of the forlorn towns in which New Jersey seems to specialise, the son of a bus driver and a legal secretary. He didn't fit in at school and was a regular truant, then quickly dropped out of college. His relationship with his father, a man who seems to have personified small-town disappointment, was often tense and difficult. Springsteen paid joking homage to his late father when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 'I've gotta thank him,' he said in his acceptance speech, 'because what would I conceivably have written about without him? You can imagine that if everything had gone great between us, we would have had a disaster.' But on another, more reflective, occasion, he said of his father: 'I've always felt like I'm seeking his revenge.' It was watching Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show that the young Springsteen suddenly encountered both liberation from and affirmation of his surroundings. Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Hank Williams, he later said, 'told the story of the secret America'. It was this America, containing the lost and the forgotten, in which Springsteen felt at home. 'He's the original nine-stone weakling nobody took any notice of,' says Hepworth. 'He is his own greatest invention and he has great respect for that.' His parents moved to California when he was still a teenager, but Springsteen remained in New Jersey, launching himself as a musician in various bands. The move from playing small clubs on the eastern seaboard to filling sports stadiums around the planet has become justly celebrated. He started out with guitarist Steve Van Zandt (who went on to enjoy a second career as an actor in The Sopranos) and keyboard player Danny Federici, who died last week from cancer. The three of them would play together for 40 years. In 1972, John Hammond, the Columbia Records A&R man who signed Bob Dylan, took Springsteen on. Two years later, critic Jon Landau saw Springsteen perform and wrote: 'I saw rock'n'roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.' Landau would go on to co-produce Born to Run, Springsteen's third and breakthrough album. Three bestselling albums later, Springsteen released Born in the USA, the pinnacle of his commercial career. It coincided with the high-water mark of the Reagan presidency - indeed, the Republicans attempted to appropriate the title track - and, as a consequence, Springsteen's protest songs were misconstrued as a crude celebration of American patriotism. By now the nine-stone weakling was pumped up with bulging biceps and bulging record sales and he looked, on the surface, the embodiment of the American dream that the characters in his songs only glimpse from afar. And if that wasn't enough, the following year, 1985, he married model/actress Julianne Phillips. He could have been stranded on Planet Celebrity. Instead, his marriage broke up, he took up with his backing singer, Patti Scialfa, whom he married in 1991 (they have two boys and a girl) and he withdrew from the frontline of fame. He moved to California and his most notable album in the Nineties was the spare and solemn The Ghost of Tom Joad. It wasn't until after the events of 9/11 that Springsteen returned to the centre stage of the American drama. Relocated back on the east coast, living on a farm 15 minutes from Freehold, he released The Rising in 2002. It championed the firefighters who died at the World Trade Centre and sought to draw something of value and dignity from the debris. Patriotic without being bombastic or sentimental, it was his most successful album for more than a decade. As with many Americans, it was the Iraq war that brought an end to this vision of national unity. 'You don't take your country into a major war on circumstantial evidence,' he said on US television. The war made Springsteen a partisan in the 2004 election. But both Hillary Clinton and Obama say they will withdraw the troops from Iraq, so why has he taken sides now? 'You can be sure he's thought a lot about it,' says Hepworth. 'He's a very serious individual. And he has an agenda.' Perhaps he sees in Obama someone not unlike himself, a man who can talk without irony of dreams and visions, someone who's come from an unpromising start to pursue what Springsteen calls America's 'collective destiny', someone, in short, who has created himself out of the bones of his contentions. Or perhaps he couldn't leave his brother alone like this, on the streets of Philadelphia. ForYou |
(CNN) — Rocker Bruce Springsteen has endorsed Barack Obama for president.
“At the moment, critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships,” said the New Jersey native, in a statement posted on his Web site Wednesday. “While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man's life and vision… Over here on E Street, we're proud to support Obama for President.”
In February, Springsteen had resisted making a choice between Obama and Hillary Clinton, telling USA Today that "there are two really good Democratic candidates for president. I admire and respect them both enough to wait and see what happens."
But he praised Obama, who cited Springsteen as the person he would most like to meet in an interview with People magazine.
"I always look at my work as trying to measure the distance between American promise and American reality," he told the paper. "And I think (Obama's) inspired a lot of people with that idea: How do you make that distance shorter? …”
Springsteen backed Sen. John Kerry's unsuccessful 2004 presidential bid. The new Bruce Springsteen book.
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