Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

otm

he is incredible live, you'll be totally won over. He played a mammoth 4 hour show in Limerick a few years and i went out for a pint once

like, he's giving 3+ hour shows on the regular when a lot of acts have to push to do 2+ hours as a special treat ffs

dude is cognizant of his role as an entertainer & he has made it his life's work to try to live up to that for every audience at every show

it's pretty great

More impressively, the last couple E Street tours (well, maybe not The River Redux tour) they ended up playing some 170 songs or something. Yeah, tons of covers, and yeah, teleprompter, but who the fuck cares about that? Any band that could be so on the ball that they could play dozens of different songs at the drop of the hat is something awe inspiring.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/arts-post/post/nils-lofgren-defends-bruce-springsteens-use-of-teleprompter/2012/04/03/gIQAOWS6sS_blog.html

From Nils:

Your teleprompter article left out some important points. Last E Street tour, (”Working On A Dream”) we played 192 different songs on that tour alone. Dozens of those songs were from audience-request signs Bruce would collect and dump in front of the drum riser. He would then rifle through them, sailing them around him until he found a song to attempt — much like the college kid rummaging through the pile of dirty laundry in search of one clean shirt.

Many of those audibles were Bruce songs unrehearsed or played in years or decades. With our collective musical memory, hand signals and teleprompter, it allows for those ambitious, ad lib moments and an inspired, musical recklessness I believe is unique to our shows. These points might have brought some additional perspective to your article. In our case, the teleprompter has a much more ambitious use and purpose than your article indicates.

nice

i really really hope bruce's teleprompter tells nils exactly when to do a backflip. i can see how a guitarist could forget to do that otherwise!

I guess this explains why when the band struck up "Thunder Road" Bruce just started reciting Clinton's 1994 State of the Union address.

I'm finding I'm enjoying all of his records for different reasons: the big production and heart-on-sleeve emoting of Born to Run, the leaner and meaner Darkness on the Edge of Town, the sprawl of The River, the quieter, more intimate and in places quite unsettling Nebraska, and the "I'm going to go for a huge commercial blockbuster" vibe of Born in the USA...

Like, each of his so-called classic albums has its own distinct feel/vibe/approach that it's become apparent to me that "stadium rock'n'roll preacher" is just one side of what he does, and realising this is what's opened me up more to his music.

I'm guessing Bruce's live schtick is much better when you're in the thick of it.

He's pretty undeniable live.

I agree, though, that I think of his albums as pretty distinct from one another. Obviously the guy left behind or gave away dozens of great songs, and he's said he regrets not releasing more albums, but I wonder if doing so would have robbed what he did release of their self-contained (and semi-mythic) qualities.

Yeah, I think it would have done. Springsteen's classic-era catalogue is strange in that there's not really any record that feels "transitional", they all feel so distinct. I suppose there would have been if he'd put out more records. I like that he was able to be picky with his material.

The gap between his breakthrough with Born to Run and the follow-up could have been potentially career-killing back then. If people back then were putting out a record every year, and these days it's roughly three years on average between records, then in 2017 terms it would be like an artist breaking through this year and not putting out the follow-up until 2026.

i hate almost everything about tracks and as a general rule i find his outtakes to sound distinctly like ... outtakes. i think he's a really good editor and selector of his own material, and i therefore think he has put out exactly the correct amount of albums, especially during that long initial run of consistent greatness.

(i've always wondered, on the other hand, what he might have produced if he wrote/recorded/worked more in the '90s. but he was raising his kids, and if that's what he most wanted to, um, produce, more power to him for that.)

The Ghost of Tom Joad is really good even though its kinda Nebraska Revisited

Well, if Human Touch and Lucky Town are any indication...

Those albums have the odd good tune in fairness. The title tracks of both are great. Came out in the grunge era and Bruce just felt redundant at the time

I do like Tunnel of Love, though!

it took me a long long long time to come around to tunnel of love but yeah it's pretty damn great. the title track of human touch is way up there in my bruce pantheon but the mediocrity ratio is pretty high on that one and lucky town. i've always penalized ghost of tom joad for not being nebraska, which is #1 bruce for me.

Always preferred the Fun Boy Three "Tunnel of Love" myself, but maybe it is time to give this one another listen.

So many lovely songs on Lucky Town. Like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0lUziFlU7E

Or:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5spsKjK7j4

So simple, yet so Springsteen. I think it's the performances/production that ultimately lets the songs down on these albums.

Ghost of Tom Joad is amazing, has a very eerie feel to it

I think that's a very good example of an album perhaps unfairly underrated for not being something it never tried to be (Nebraska II). But that period was absolutely essential for his rebirth as Mythic Bruce. The 90s albums (and band) just rubbed people the wrong way. Then Bruce comes back with "Tom Joad" (and with a goatee), a spare reboot, and embarks on a really important and very personal solo tour that allowed him to reconnect with his catalog and fans unencumbered by band and baggage. That tour also, iirc, showed how funny and colorful he could be, which is ironic, given that it hinged on such a not funny album. Either way, right after that reboot he restarts the E Street Band and things turn around. I forget when he apparently started treating his depression, but it might have been around this period, too.

i fully acknowledge that my "sorry tom joad, but you're no nebraska" prejudice is unfair. but i can't help hearing it that way.

Well, it's no "Nebraska" ! But I think a lot of its attributes came out during the subsequent tour and the "Devils & Dust" solo tour. Which was awesome, and introduced spooky surprises like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4WKYtS4JDk

Rehearsing “Cuts Like A Knife” with its author:

https://instagram.com/p/BZsyFysgQc5/

I think that may be the only Bryan Adams song he knows. He covered it several years back for a benefit, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZZgzF0g9lU

Anyone got tickets for the Broadway run? Sounds incredible:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/oct/13/bruce-springsteen-review-walter-kerr-theatre-broadway-new-york

Hmm. I'm sure it's great, but I don't know about that. Like I noted earlier, he's done solo tours before, behind Devils & Dust and Tom Joad, each with stories, jokes, one-offs, impulsive setlists. This is a set setlist, apparently, with scripted bits from his book and elsewhere. Again, I'm sure it's good, he's an incredible performer, but not sure how this is necessarily better than the aforementioned. If it makes him and others happy ...

True, but I think it's possible to overemphasize how unscripted those earlier solo concerts were. Knowing Springsteen's approach to stagecraft, I'm pretty sure that the stories and jokes in those were fairly well rehearsed. Plus, the review I linked to above makes the point that the bits from the book take on a new life when performed. Finally, this theatre is a lot smaller than any place he played on the D&D/TJ tours, so it'd be worth seeing for that reason alone. Not that I've got tickets...

Earlier in his career, the skinny, junk-food eating star would become so exhausted that trainer, Phil Dunphy, once claimed “they used to have to carry him offstage”.

On this same stretch of 99, I once wrote a story about farmworkers who moonlighted as meth cookers to make ends meet. Bruce Springsteen turned it into a song on his Ghost of Tom Joad album. More than one ballad was about the valley, so he came to Fresno. The William Saroyan Theatre was packed that October 1996 night. Halfway through his solo performance, he interrupted his set to tell us a piggy bank had been set up by the exit to donate money to the “hardworking men and women in the fields.’’  When the concert was over, I took my wife and children backstage to meet him. As we sat down to chat, one of his assistants leaned over and whispered into his jewel-studded ear. Springsteen shook his head and smiled a thin, ironic smile. Then he turned and faced me. “Tell me,” he asked, though it wasn’t entirely a question. “What kind of place is this? Not a single penny was put in that piggy bank.”

Anyway, Broadway run extended to Dec. 15th! I'm seeing it in a couple of weeks.

who’s the quote from?

It's from some epic (but worth your time) reported piece:

https://story.californiasunday.com/resnick-a-kingdom-from-dust

So Springsteen On Broadway was as corny/inspiring/rousing/entertaining as any of his shows, but I was really surprised how big a roll mortality plays in the narrative, as well as the overall sense of sadness. It's a really moving show that hinges a lot on intimacy and vulnerability.

Ugh, role.

saw it too, back in Oct I think. I am not a Bruce obsessive by any stretch, and was pretty unfamiliar with his on-stage schtick. Loved it and was repeatedl struck by the artifice he acknowledges in himself. Thought it was cool that he did that while at the same time making some moving points via the spoken sections. I assume those were lifted from his book?

Some of them are. Some of them were different, some of them were expanded. Also, he's made a few slight changes since then. For example, there is a brief section about the March for Our Lives movement. I was struck by just how personal it seems, even for him. There is a weird balance, between an admission of artifice and what seems to be painful, really close to the bone honesty, a fear of the unknown, but also this strange fatalism. I can't believe he does this every night.

I was really surprised how big a roll mortality plays in the narrative

my friend who i saw it with last week asked me, as we were walking out, "is he dying?"

as corny/inspiring/rousing/entertaining as any of his shows

agree completely with this. his stories about his mother and especially his father, who looms enormously large in this show, left me in puddles of tears. also, in case anyone forgot, dude is an amazing storyteller.

my two nitpicks:

he and patti are terrible harmonizing together. it's astonishing how not-together they still are, more than a half year into the run. it's weird.

about two-thirds of the way through the show, he kind of gives up on the narrative. like he didn't quite finish writing his own play.

but it really is a tremendous performance.

There's an undercurrent of therapy coursing throughout the entire thing. I agree his harmonies with his wife are pretty not good, but given the song selections it feels and looks like two people working through some stuff in real time, in public. The fact that this is a one man show ... except for two (of his best, but still thematically awkward) songs with his wife, who otherwise doesn't even play a small part in the narrative, says a lot. But yeah, after that he drops any real pretense of narrative at all.

yeah, that's the exact point where the narrative ends. the other thing my friend said as we were walking out: "did he mention his kids?" answer: no. which also seemed weird, especially in a show that devotes so much time to processing his memories abnd feelings about his father and mother. but then again, this is his therapy, not mine.

Huh, I'd never seen this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4P9mU0E374

Still releasing fantastic official versions of all those legendary bootlegs - this time, The Roxy '78

http://live.brucespringsteen.net/

One of my faves. Love the shows that open with a cover.

Yes, and it's a great set. Parts of it used for the 1975-85 boxed set from Back In The Day. Very much worth buying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXvGbWO_DIk
classic!

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/watch-bruce-springsteens-surprise-three-song-set-with-social-distortion-731579/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6xQGjE6Hdk

mommy's little monster's hair is blue, problem is her collar is too?

Not a Bruce guy but Dancing in the Dark is so great

http://live.brucespringsteen.net/live-music/0,20734/Bruce-Springsteen---The-E-Street-Band-mp3-flac-download-10-18-75-The-Roxy-West-Hollywood-CA.html : where that fabulous piano version of Thunder Road on the Live 1975-85 box set came from