Is There Anybody Alive Out There?
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band at Key Arena, Seattle, Saturday, March 29, 2008
You're reading this, you know me, you know how I feel about Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band. My appreciation for this artist, his music, career, what he stands for, and the concert experience is a central part of who I am. I've seen the Boss in many cities and in many forms over the last 20 years, with and without the E Street Band and solo acoustic... in arenas, theatres, baseball parks, clubs, a convention hall on the boardwalk at Asbury Park... Ranking the shows isn't fair, but I will say that we experienced one of the great ones tonight. Song for song, it went like this:
Trapped
Are you f***ing kidding me? CRAZY. You know what I like most about this song? EVERYTHING. A Jimmy Cliff cover that Bruce never recorded, though a live version was included on We Are the World. A very rarely played song, one of my favorites. From the first note, there's no doubt we're in for a very special evening.
Radio Nowhere
An ass-kicking, up-tempo song with Bruce playing the guitar like he's sawing a tree in half.
No Surrender
A not often played gem from Born in the U.S.A., and here it sounds different enough that we don't recognize it until the Boss sings, "Well, we busted outta class, had to get away from those fools, we learned more from a three-minute record, baby, than we ever learned in school." My brother Ed turns to me and says, "Didn't see that comin'." This show is off to a mind-boggling start.
Lonesome Day
One of the good songs from The Rising, an up-tempo rocker.
Gypsy Biker
My favorite song from the new album (Magic), the first of a few breathtaking, superlative pieces of harmonica work to which Senor Springsteen would treat us. The song builds its momentum into a lengthy and captivating guitar solo by Little Steven.
Magic
Acoustic title track from the new album, introduced as "Here's to the end of eight years of magic tricks." Beautiful vocals by Soozie Tyrell. Patti is at home minding the teenagers, and I don't miss her much.
Reason to Believe
A heavy, bluesy, Metallica-meets-ZZ Top version of a Nebraska album track. Bruce just wails on the harp here, singing through a classic Unidyne mic for an effect that recalls something Tom Waits would do. Here, the band kicks it up many notches and blows the roof off the dump, something that will happen a few more times tonight.
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Another chestnut. The way Bruce delivers the lyrics, he becomes the voice of the song's subject, a guy contemplating his own ability to be enthused after enduring a post-divorce financial loss and suburban anonymity. This song always chokes me up, especially when delivered this well.
Because the Night
Get the f**k outta here! From the opening piano notes, the place is up for grabs over this seldom played, never recorded classic that Bruce wrote for Patti Smith in '78. Nils Lofgren plays a lengthy, relentlessly intense solo that has the crowd retrieving its collective jaw from the floor and cheering throughout. The way its tension builds, releases, shifts to a minor key, builds again, blows it up, and shreds makes it a very unique song that just grips you and takes you on a journey. Also of significance, Jessica and I caught a tremendous Patti Smith concert at the Showbox last year. As I've always been partial to Bruce's version and enjoyed a new appreciation for Patti's that night, Jessica has always been partial to Patti's version and enjoyed a new appreciate for Bruce's tonight. Also, on our first date three years ago, I recall putting a fairly well-rounded dozen or so CDs in the car, representative of my musical taste, and being interested to see which music she would choose to put in the deck. She chose Patti Smith. For these reasons, impressively beyond how powerful the song was on its own legs tonight, this was a special moment. Thank you, Nils, we owe you one.
She's the One
Whoa! At this point, I'm having an out of body experience. Within the architecture of Max Weinberg pounding a thunderous Bo Diddley beat, the band is tight and tough. Later in the song, Bruce ditches his guitar by throwing it in a brisk line drive toward the back of the stage, barely looking to see if anyone is there to catch it (his guitar tech flew out of the shadows and saved the life of perhaps the world's most famous Fender Telecaster - damn, that guy is good!) while simultaneously whipping a harmonica out of his front pocket and proceeds to blow a soulful, up-tempo blues shuffle to drive the song's closing couple minutes.
Livin' in the Future
I really like this new song, although sonically it does bear a resemblance to 10th Avenue Freeze Out, the lyric is brilliant, tastefully topical and it feels good. This is where Bruce issues his politics, as an intro with the band playing behind him.
The Promised Land
Not much you can say about this tireless classic.
Waitin' on a Sunny Day
A girl in the first few rows has a sign requesting this one, she hands it to Bruce, and the request is honored. The crowd sings along in full force, challenged by the Boss in between choruses ("C'mon, Northwest, show some pride!" and "That was pathetic!"). When the song is over, Bruce writes a note on the sign as he walks across the stage and then hands it back to the girl. Classy move. That's why he's the Boss.
Your Own Worst Enemy
"This is for Ed" - presumably Eddie Vedder. Not one of my favorite new songs, but when the dude from Pearl Jam makes a request, even the Boss will comply.
Point Blank
Yet another "holy crap" moment, a very rarely played fan favorite, album track from The River. Sung from the shadows with a delicate and earnest vocal, complemented perfectly by the Professor's lush piano and Max's exacting percussion, Bruce's narrative takes you into the song's dreary landscape.
Devil's Arcade
I don't know where the set list could have gone from Point Blank, but as this new song doesn't do too much for me, I take the opportunity to sit and rest my sore back.
The Rising
This anthemic gospel/pop fusion shows that while it was the foundation of the 2003 album and tour of the same name, five years later it stands tall as a highlight on a set list that's full of them.
Last To Die
I like this new one, which hums along at a moderately rapid clip and is well sequenced to follow The Rising.
Long Walk Home
Another new one, it starts on the slower side and gradually builds a good tempo, the best part being when Bruce shouts, "C'mon, Steve!" which we Boss Geeks only know as the failsafe cue that the next song will be Two Hearts, only tonight it means that Bruce will relocate himself to Clarence's side while Little Steven slides over to front and center to take the lead vocals on the song's second half, which ends in a nice place to be spingboarded into...
Badlands
This staple was as great as you better imagine it was and always is. The crowd roared on every Clarence Clemons sax solo all night long, but he got a particularly loud ovation on this one.
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10th Avenue Freeze Out
The encore begins with a request, as Bruce takes a sign from someone in the front row, faces the band and waves his hands like a conductor to start it off. Classic E Street, from the sound of it to the showy on-stage swagger. The long intro features Bruce strutting back and forth across the front of the stage, counting the intro-to-song transition with "a one! two!" while dropping to his knees and bouncing back up on the four count, and working the (bolted to the stage) mic stand like a stripper's pole. With his left hand gripping the pole and the rest of his body leaning to about an impressive 30-degree angle from the stage as he motions to [do I have to say his name?], enter the line we've all been waiting for, "When the change was made uptown and the Big Man joined the band" you could barely hear the sax hook over the roar of the crowd. Chilling.
Rosalita
Another request. Someone up front hands Bruce a sign for it, he promptly holds it up to show us what's coming, and the place goes bananas. He's only played it a handful of times in the last 20 years, and he only plays it when he's really feeling it. If there is a single song that singularly defines what Bruce Springsteen is all about, this may be it. It's got epic length, a few dramatic tempo changes, there's a dual guitar solo, a sax solo, a dual guitar-sax solo, it's verbose, it tells a romantic story with references to public transportation, defying parental authority, ethnicity, geography from the swamps of Jersey down to San Diego way, car trouble, the power of rock and roll, characters with nicknames from Jack the Rabbit and Weak Knees Willie to Sloppy Sue and Big Bones Billie... There's call and response!
Bruce: "We're gonna!"
Crowd: "Play some pool!"
Bruce: "Yeah!"
Crowd: "Skip some school!"
Bruce: "Yeah!"
Crowd: "Act real cool!"
Bruce: "Yeah!"
Crowd: "Stay out all night!"
Bruce: "It's gonna feel all right, Oh Rosie come out tonight!"
After the line, "Now I know your mama she don’t like me 'cause I play in a rock and roll band" Bruce uses the mic stand as a slide guitar mechanism and scrapes his Telecaster across the pole. Then, a couple verses later, the crowd hijacks (with permission) the body-rocking line,
"Papa says he knows that I don’t have any money!"
"Papa says he knows that I don’t have any money!"
"Papa says he knows that I don’t have any money!"
"Papa says he knows that I don’t have any money!"
But wait! There's more! When the time comes, Clarence makes his way over to center stage, Bruce gives him the mic and in his deep-ass voice, the Big Man takes the line,
"Some day we'll look back on this and it will all seem funny."
My head might explode. After a foot-stomping, fist-thumping,
hey! hey! hey! hey! hey! hey! hey! hey! hey! hey! hey! hey! hey! hey! hey! hey!
Rosie has been whipped up to a frenzied climax, and while the final chord is freshly rung...
"a one-two!" badabadabadabada
Born to Run
All the house lights go up and the greatest song ever recorded is in full effect. Ever seen 20,000 people fully engaged in a full-blown rock and roll bacchanalia?
American Land
An elongated ending to Born to Run has Bruce shouting "Seattle!" over a repetition of power chords and frantic drumming, eventually breaking into this raucous showstopper, a highly up-tempo Irish jig arrangement inspired by HE LIES IN THE AMERICAN LAND, a poem by Andrew Kovaly, a Slovakian immigrant steelworker, later set to music by Pete Seeger. With the Professor Roy Bittan and Charlie Giordano on accordion, lyrics scroll on the video screen (and at the bottom of this blog entry). At the song's climax, Bruce closes the show by introducing the band and then, "You have just seen the heart-stoppin', pants-droppin', earth-shockin', hard-rockin', booty-shakin', earth-quakin', love-makin', Viagra-takin', history-makin', legendary…" and then the Boss slides away from the mic and lets the crowd finish the statement: "E…STREET…BAND!” The band takes its bows and Bruce quickly reminds us to support the food bank whose people are set up in the concourse.
Context: the Big Man is 66 and had a hip replacement last year. Danny Federici is sitting out part of the tour while being treated for melanoma. Everyone else in the band is in their late 50s. We're aware of these conditions, aware that while Bruce Springsteen will probably continue to make music and tour until he's pushing up daisies, we're very close to the end of the line for E Street proper. This is not a farewell tour, a greatest hits show, a victory lap, or any other kind of cheap nostalgia. But it may well be our last time on E Street. With this in mind, everyone, audience and band alike, just spent two hours and twenty minutes savoring every moment. The result, a concert for the ages.
American land
What is this land of America, so many travel there
I'm going now while I'm still young, my darling meet me there
Wish me luck my lovely, I'll send for you when I can
And we'll make our home in the American land
Over there all the woman wear silk and satin to their knees
And children dear, the sweets, I hear, are growing on the trees
Gold comes rushing out the river straight into your hands
If you make your home in the American land
There's diamonds in the sidewalks, there's gutters lined in song
Dear I hear that beer flows through the faucets all night long
There's treasure for the taking, for any hard working man
Who will make his home in the American land
I docked at Ellis Island in a city of light and spire
I wandered to the valley of red-hot steel and fire
We made the steel that built the cities with the sweat of our two hands
And I made my home in the American land
There's diamonds in the sidewalk, there's gutters lined in song
Dear I hear that beer flows through the faucets all night long
There's treasure for the taking, for any hard working man
Who will make his home in the American land
The McNicholas, the Posalski's, the Smiths, Zirillis too[1]
The Blacks, the Irish, the Italians, the Germans and the Jews
The Puerto Ricans, illegals, the Asians, Arabs miles from home
Come across the water with a fire down below
They died building the railroads, worked to bones and skin
They died in the fields and factories, names scattered in the wind
They died to get here a hundred years ago, they're dyin' now
The hands that built the country were all trying to keep down
There's diamonds in the sidewalk, there's gutters lined in song
Dear I hear that beer flows through the faucets all night long
There's treasure for the taking, for any hard working man
Who will make his home in the American land
Who will make his home in the American land
Who will make his home in the American land
Notes: [1] Zirilli is the Italian maiden name of Bruce's mother Adele.