Brooce!

Jon Greer is a huge Bruce Springsteen fan — has been since 1977. Over the years, he has written extensively on Bruce’s music and influence. Recently, he has had the opportunity to contribute to Bruce’s official web site — a big honor. Below are the posts that have appeared on Bruce’s web site:

PHILADELPHIA, PA

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Meet Me at the Wrecking Ball

By Jon Greer

Early in his career, Bruce Springsteen had an open disdain for arenas. He said he would never play an arena and that someone should shoot him if he did. But then, he got popular enough that he had to make a choice: continue to play smaller venues and exclude some of his fans, or “sell out” and move up to playing arenas.

Bruce took his first tentative steps onto the arena rock stage on October 25, 1976 at Philadelphia’s Spectrum Arena, and the rest, as they say, is history. In many ways, Bruce redefined the arena rock experience, turning up the house lights to transform the shows into dance parties, venturing into the crowd to sing and be touched by his fans, and generally trying to wring every bit of intimacy out of rooms built for hockey and basketball games.

I saw my first Springsteen concert at the Spectrum at the beginning of the Darkness tour in 1978 and came away pretty impressed by Bruce’s command of the venue. But seeing him Tuesday night as he played his 31st and penultimate show at this “house of rock,” I was utterly blown away. Bruce knows how to create community even among sweating strangers in a creaky old arena that has a date with the wrecking ball. People danced, hugged, high-fived and generally screamed their way through the show, coming in as strangers but leaving as friends (A shout-out to my newest Bruce bud, Kathleen — rave on!).

After seeing Bruce open this tour in San Jose on April 1, it was educational to see him a month and 12 shows later. While the setlist is not dramatically different, at the Spectrum Bruce and the band looked completely comfortable with the show they were presenting, in contrast to some of the first-night missteps that were apparent in San Jose. For one thing, there were actually several short breaks in the main set (unlike San Jose, where he raced through virtually non-stop), allowing the show and everyone in the building to breathe.

The band sounded tight, hot and deeply in the kind of groove that comes with mastering your material. I was especially pleased to hear Curtis King and Cindy Mizelle singing their hearts out on many of Bruce’s classic songs — in San Jose, they took frequent breaks, having not yet been worked into the vocal mix. They add a richness and depth to Bruce’s sound that amplifies and deepens the gospel effect, and heck, they’re just great singers.

Since San Jose, Bruce has developed the new sign-waving “Raise Your Hand” segment, which I love for several reasons: it’s a great classic cover, it was originally suggested via sign a few weeks ago, and Bruce jumped on it as the perfect accompaniment to his sign-collection activities (“If there’s something you want, if there’s something you need, you’ve got to raise your hand.”).

In Philly, a group of fans sitting to the left of the stage not only raised their hands, but they raised the bar for the sign-waving set with a six-person sign requesting “Fire”: four people in the middle holding red F-I-R-E letters with flames shooting out the top, and two on either side holding flames. Bruce originally didn’t see it, but Steve pointed it out to him, causing Bruce to call for the spotlight on the group, praising them (“that’s a good sign!”) and saying those wished-for words (“we’re going to do that one!”). After “Fire,” he pointed to another group holding a huge “Fever” banner, and Bruce introduced it as the first of his “Philly Specials,” but it was a bit of a set-up, because Bruce himself had already setlisted the song. No matter. Bruce indulged in a terrific, searing guitar solo at the end of “The Fever,” taking what I normally think of as a ’70s soft-rock ballad and turning it into a barnburner.

Another Philly Special followed by request, Harold Dorman’s “Mountain of Love,” a song I’ve listened to a million times on the awesome Main Point ’75 bootleg (and a replacement for the setlisted “Thundercrack,” also featured on that boot). Bruce must too, because he name-checked that show before launching into a super-fun, rollicking version. A third Philly special came in the encores, when Bruce called for the sign “with that Dovells song” — “You Can’t Sit Down.” The Dovells were a Philly band, naturally.

In keeping with the Philly crowd’s legendary Bruce hipness, a fan to the right of the stage waved a “New York City” T-shirt at Bruce — you know, the one John Lennon is wearing in that famous picture of him — and Bruce acknowledged it and its reference to the December 9, 1980 show at the Spectrum the day after Lennon was shot and killed. That night, Bruce took the stage and said “It’s a hard world that asks you to live with a lot of things that are unlivable. And it’s hard to come out here and play tonight, but there’s nothing else to do.”

Bruce is not a fan of the new mega-arenas with their rows of luxury boxes that further detract from the intimacy he is desperate to create, and he made a reference at the end to how much he liked playing old arenas like the Spectrum that lack those modern amenities. Clearly, Bruce long ago got over those misgivings that caused him to think he should avoid playing such big venues. As he now knows, it’s not about letting the venue dictate how intimate you can get, it’s about making the venue you’re in as intimate as possible. Because there’s nothing else to do.

SAN JOSE, CA

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Runaway American Dream

By Jon Greer

In 30-odd years of going to Springsteen concerts, I’ve never had the opportunity to go to a tour opener, so it was a thrill to have Bruce open this tour on my home turf. But this was a tour opener like no other.

For starters, as Bruce noted from the stage, this was the quickest turnaround after a prior tour since the early ’70s, and on that score, the band was in mid-tour form, only still needing to work out the kinks of staging and presenting some of the new material. But more importantly, while it was the opener of a tour to support his new album, the show itself was not, and apparently could not, be about the themes that drove his new record.

To me, Working on a Dream is a very personal record, reflecting on loss (Danny’s death, Terry Magovern’s death), aging (approaching 60, starting to empty the nest) and the the celebration of meaningful relationships (20 years in a marriage and relationship with Patti). As an aging married rocker myself (albeit a bit younger than Bruce), these themes resonated strongly with me, and I love the new record. I don’t have a problem reconciling Bruce’s current music with the times we are living in — in fact, this record gives me something to think about other than the headlines and the pathetic state of my retirement savings. I would welcome a show featuring cuts like “Life Itself,” “This Life,” “Kingdom of Days,” and “The Last Carnival.”

But as a performer who has more or less staked his career on speaking up for those crushed in the wheels of our brutal economic system, Bruce clearly felt that a show based on his new album wasn’t the one he was called to perform.

So for the start of this tour Bruce chose largely to sidestep the thrust of “Working on a Dream” and build a show that is a musical response to, and reflection of, these scary economic times. “Badlands” moved from a set closer to a show opener (“lights out tonight, trouble in the heartland”) and “Born to Run” moved from the encores to a set closer (“In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway American dream”). While he did play six of the 13 tracks on the new record, the heart of the show was the recession-oriented four-pack of “Seeds,” a hard-rockin’ “Johnny 99,” a scintillating electric “The Ghost of Tom Joad” (featuring two blistering Nils guitar solos) and a downright bleak “Good Eye” from the new record.

Then, Bruce signaled the other major theme he wanted to present — release — with the golden oldie, “Good Rockin’ Tonight” (“Tonight I’m gonna rock away all my blues”), leading into a “party” trio of “Darlington County,” “Growin’ Up” (as requested by a couple of sign-wavers — yup, he’s taking sign requests again) and “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day.”

Even the inclusion of a gorgeous “Kingdom of Days” toward the end of the main set, with Patti coming to center stage to sing side-by-side with Bruce, seemed calculated to fit the “hard times” theme. Like it or not, these are our days, the days when we have to struggle side-by-side with the ones we love and cherish, because we have no other choice.

During different times, it might have been the natural segue into “This Life” and its key line, “We reach for starlight all night long/but gravity’s too strong/chained to this earth we go on and on and on.” But not this night and not in these times.

ANAHEIM, CA

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Prove It All Night

By Jon Greer

I arrived in Anaheim for my third Bruce show in five days (I know, lucky me!) planning to write a blog post focusing on “the gathering of the tribe,” the way that hardcore Bruce fans come together for a show and bring with them rituals such as sign-waving and chanting along with certain songs. But the performance put on by Bruce and the E. Street Band on Tuesday night put an end to those plans. The performance was simply breathtaking, astonishing, transcendent, even perhaps historic. Yes, it was that good.

You never know when you see a show in Anaheim whether Bruce is feeling like he’s playing Los Angeles (the entertainment capital of the world) or just another show in the suburbs. Tonight, from the opening strains of “Thunder Road,” there was no doubt. Was opening with “Thunder Road” a nod to his 1975 performance of the song to open his set at the Roxy in 1975, the version that led off the Live 1975-85 box set? Listening to that historic show (as well as the mind-blowing performance he gave at the Roxy three years later on the Darkness tour), you couldn’t miss Bruce’s sense of mission, his desire to prove to the assembled industry players that he was worthy of all the praise he had received.

Yet after “Thunder Road,” the set began in a pretty standard way. So maybe Bruce wasn’t feeling the need to prove anything?

Wrong. The next five songs were a tour de force of Bruce and the band at their best: “Atlantic City,” “Candy’s Room,” “Reason to Believe,” Prove It All Night” and then “Because the Night.” Showing his command of the moment, Bruce audibled by adding “Prove It” to the set (see, he was out to prove something), then audibled again in the middle of the song, whispering to Nils to keep his acoustic guitar and not switch to his electric for his usual incendiary guitar solo. That was because Bruce had determined mid-song (apparently) to also play “Because the Night,” and it would be during that song that Nils would do his solo.

The next surprise came on “Brilliant Disguise,” when Bruce paired with Sister Soozie on the duet, the first time in memory that the female vocal wasn’t handled by Patti Scialfa. Considering the relationship issues driving that song, it was a curious decision. But perhaps the message wasn’t about male-female relationships this time. Maybe it was the Bruce-audience relationship he was alluding to, as in, “you think you know me but maybe you don’t. Maybe it’s all a brilliant disguise.” (Or maybe he just felt like playing it.)

Or maybe it was a request from Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, who was waiting backstage to once again join Bruce and the band for a words-can’t-describe electric version of “The Ghost of Tom Joad.” This is such a great electric song, something like “Seeds”-meets-”Youngstown”-meets-”Murder Incorporated.” Bruce and Tom spit out the lyrics, highlighting the injustices detailed in the song in a way that the acoustic version doesn’t convey. And Tom’s guitar virtuosity cannot be understated. The man is in a league of his own, as he demonstrated during his two solos.

The surprises continued when Bruce skipped both “Devil’s Arcade” (which wasn’t even setlisted) and “The Rising” (which was). That let him go straight into “Last to Die,” which kept the show’s tempo and volume high. I adore “Devil’s Arcade,” but I have to admit it is starting to sound a little stale and static, which may be why it got a rest. It’s such a well-crafted song that perhaps it defies reinterpretation, but Bruce may want to add a guitar solo or some other element to bring it more to life in the concert setting. Another shocker to close, as “Out in the Street” again followed “Badlands,” the well-established main set closer until Anaheim. (It was great fun, though I’m not convinced it’s a main set closer.) During the encores, Bruce then kept the surprises coming, pulling out “Meeting Across the River” before “Jungleland.” Any Bruce concert with that pairing is one for the ages.

And that, perhaps, was the point of the evening. Let there be no doubt: Bruce Springsteen is an artist for the ages.

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

Friday, April 4, 2008

Party Time!

By Jon Greer

Driving up the interstate to Sacramento from the San Francisco Bay Area, it was hard not to think about the last time we made this trip — almost exactly five years ago, on April 9, 2003. The day Baghdad fell.

Bruce had just returned from two weeks of shows in Australia, and the war had started in his absence from American soil. That historic day was his first chance to comment, and he did so with a passionate opening trio of songs: “Born in the U.S.A.” (acoustic, just Bruce on the 12-string, angrily pounding out the tune), followed by “Who’ll Stop the Rain” and “No Surrender.”

It was a classic artistic reaction to current events, and it left little doubt where Bruce stood on the decision to go to war and its consequences.

The first leg of the Magic tour also left little doubt about Bruce’s point of view. I felt that the setlist and his furious performances reflected an intense anger about the current state of affairs and his sense of powerlessness. Gone, for instance, was the prayerful “Land of Hope and Dreams,” replaced as the show closer by the ironic “American Land” with its false hopes and foolish dreams.

Bruce’s apparent loss of hope was a big shock, and it left me conflicted about those shows. I’d always turned to Bruce for his unyielding message of hope amid despair, but on the first leg, he seemed to have precious little hope to offer. And if Bruce Springsteen had lost hope, I wondered, what hope was there for the rest of us?

So as much as I would have never missed an opportunity to see Bruce perform near my hometown, I approached Arco Arena with some trepidation. I wasn’t sure if I was prepared to live in a world in which I couldn’t count on Bruce Springsteen to lift me up.

It was clear that things had changed with Max’s opening snare shot, the beginning of the playful teenage love song, “Spirit in the Night.” Right from the start, Bruce was much more of his old, loose self — mugging for the audience, shaking hands, smiling and laughing and generally having a blast.

During his intro to “Livin’ in the Future,” Bruce briefly signaled the likely reason for his better mood, making reference to “eight years coming to an end” — clearly meaning the two terms of the Bush Administration. Bruce Springsteen, I thought, had found something new to hope for: better days in a post-Bush America and world.

Bruce also clued us in that this show would be about partying as much as anything when he explained Patti’s absence. She was home guarding the house, he said, where “beer kegs were rolling up the driveway, pot brownies were in the oven and a Girls Gone Wild bus was pulling up” as he was headed to the plane that would take him to California. Ah, youthful innocence! That was just the elixir for a rocker who’d seen too much. So it was no surprise when Bruce pulled out another classic party song, the frat rocker “Sherry Darlin’” (during which, in a performance decades before, he had told the guys in the audience that it was okay to throw up in their girlfriends’ purses if they needed to). During the encores. he also happily took the suggestion from a sign-holder to “let Rosie come out tonight” and subbed the cathartic “Ramrod” for the setlisted “Glory Days.”

I left Arco Arena feeling much better about Bruce’s state of mind regarding our country and the world. Bruce had found something new to hope for: a fresh start for our country and the world. Party on!

******

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

December 31, 2007

Magic in the Night — 30 Years Ago

By Jon Greer

Bruce is taking a break from the Magic tour, but I got my first taste of Springsteen magic 30 years ago — a taste that has had me coming back for more ever since.

It was New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1977. Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, at the peak of their popularity, were playing a sold-out concert at the legendary Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ. The show would be broadcast live on the radio. There was a rumor that Bruce might show up. And I had a pair of tickets.

I was a new Springsteen fan. Earlier that fall, a college classmate in Philadelphia had turned me on to his collection of bootlegs from the early ’70s, and I was hooked. We spent many a night (when we should have been studying), sitting in his darkened dorm room, blasting live Bruce. We considered the second side of the Wild and Innocent album (“Incident on 57th Street” into “Rosalita,” then “New York City Serenade”) the spiritual equivalent of a church service. To this day, the first strains of “Incident” trigger those memories.

As the fall semester ended, I found myself in the position that many Bruce fans will find familiar: yearning for new Springsteen music and a slate of new concert dates. Young as I was at the time, patience didn’t seem to be a virtue. To us, it seemed like forever since Bruce had released Born to Run! (Actually, it had been a little more than two years.)

For his part, in the fall of 1977 Bruce was finally back in the studio after settling his legal dispute with his former manager, Mike Appel. It would be another five months before he would release Darkness on the Edge of Town and begin his historic 1978 tour.

So there we were on that cold December night in New Jersey. Me, the Bruce newbie, and the New Year’s Eve crowd in the theatre and listening on the radio, all wondering the same thing: would he show up?

Sure enough, at midnight, out came Bruce to join the Jukes for “Havin’ a Party,” followed by “The Fever” and “I Don’t Want to Go Home.” My first Springsteen in-concert experience!

I have to admit, it was pretty anti-climactic. Our seats weren’t great, and from where we were, he just looked like another guy on stage. Oh well, at least I could say I lost my Springsteen virginity and “saw” Bruce.

Southside finished his encores, and the show seemed to end. Okay, I thought, that was cool. Southside put on a great show, and I even got to see Bruce. It was something to talk about back at school.

Out in the lobby, I bought a T-shirt to commemorate the night. As we stepped outside and headed to the car, I heard a roar from inside the theatre. We rushed in a side door and saw Bruce and the Jukes coming back on stage! We ran toward the stage and wound up dead center, about 15 rows back.

Then I realized the stage was more crowded than before. It wasn’t just Bruce, Southside and the Asbury Jukes coming back on stage. There was Steve, Garry, Max, Danny, Clarence, Roy — the entire E Street Band!

Was this a dream, I wondered? Is this really happening?

It was fairly chaotic at first, with about 20 musicians trying to figure out what to do and what to play. At first, the entire group (Jukes, Miami Horns and E Streeters) ran through “Higher and Higher,” “Little Latin Lupe Lu” and “You Can’t Sit Down.” Bruce prowled the stage like a caged animal, taking command of the show and giving stage directions, clearly relishing the opportunity to play live after so many months in the studio.

But the magic was just starting. There was a bit of delay, which I later learned was to get the radio people to end their live broadcast. After that, the Jukes and Miami Horns retreated to the side of the stage, Bruce took center stage, and he and the band launched into “Backstreets,” complete with the first-ever live version of the “Drive All Night” interlude. “Born to Run” followed, with Bruce stumbling through the words and pointing the mic to the audience for us to help him.

The show seemed to end, but wait! There was one more: “Quarter to Three,” the Gary U.S. Bonds classic that was Bruce’s trademark show closer in the 70s. The song went on and on — no one, especially Bruce, seemed to want it to end. Finally, someone (was it Southside?) came up and literally walked Bruce off the stage. Max threw his drumsticks in the air and the song — and this dream show — ended.

I staggered outside and handed the car keys to my friend to drive us home, because I was too numb to drive. Bruce! The E Street Band! “Backstreets”! “Born to Run”! It had really happened! Not only had we seen one of those fabled Bruce walk-ons, but my first Springsteen show turned out to be, as far as I can tell, the only walk-on E Street Band performance in Bruce history. Wow.

I’ve since been to many Springsteen shows, of course, including such special events as the 1986 Bridge School Benefit and, more recently, the VH1 Storytellers show. But nothing will ever come close to that New Year’s Eve. Thanks, Bruce, for the magical memories.