For Bruce Springsteen, it was just another night in the middle of August, under the stars out in the belly of Pennsylvania.
Thirty-thousand screaming people had been on their feet for hours, singing, swaying, beaming uncontrollably--their heads on other planets, hearts firing out of their chests. Hardly just another summer night, for most.
I confidently tell you that, on this night, Hersheypark Stadium was
the brightest, loudest little corner in the whole wide universe to be in, if only for the 3 hours or so that the 58-year old Springsteen and his mighty E-Street Band banged around on stage before the tidal crowd. It was the first time The Boss had played the outdoor stadium in America's 'sweetest' town around in his long, winding career, and it didn't take him long to warm up to the venue.
"Well, I'm gonna raise a fuss, I'm gonna raise a holler!" Bruce howled, launching appropriately right into Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues," strumming the fuzzy hell out of his trademark telecaster guitar. Followed immediately by "Radio Nowhere," the first single from last year's release
Magic.
His gruff delivery of the call-to-life chorus rang out throughout the wide-open farm fields of central PA the way he must have envisioned it when writing it. "Is there anyone alive out there?"
Even if you were alone in the stands, you were suddenly apart of something. I was in attendance by myself, but was quickly adopted by some fellow Bruce fans. "Are you alone?" said the woman behind me. "Uh... yea. I'm here from a newspaper to write about it and they only gave me one ticket," I said. "No, you're never alone at a Bruce concert!! You can be an honorary member of our family tonight," she said before introducing me to her husband and two kids.
From the get-go, it was no nostalgia act. Though the stands were plenty full with aging baby-boomer couples wearing Polo shirts tucked into khaki shorts and semi-retired sports car driving businessmen, the entire set was a magnetic celebration of life, love and music. Not a jaded reminder of "The Glory Days" or any of that, but an opportunity to create a new glorious day, with fresh performances of old songs and new.
Young children sung classic choruses into Bruce's microphone as he held it in front of their shy faces. Older kids danced with red, white and blue banners wrapped around them like blankets, dancing with one another to E-Street beats. Rabid fans shouted every word to every song. And hardly any one sat down through the music marathon, from the front of the stage to the very back of the stadium. It was every bit as intense as most say. From crowd reaction to band delivery.
The first thing you'll notice about a 58-year old Bruce Springsteen is how full of electricity he is. Soul patched, loose buttoned black shirt and jeans, pierced ears, frenetic brown hair, guitar slung to his side. He doesn't look like he's wrinkling to dust as your average aging rock star typically does. Nor does he look like he's clinging to some jaded image of youth. He just looks like a guy who is as ripe with life as he did 4 decades ago. Genuine, authentic, grateful, inspirational.
Even at his age, the music, the energy, and the fiery unfettered joy that beamed from Bruce on stage is that of a man possessed. And I'm told it's been this way for decades (Sadly, us 24 year olds can't talk about the good ol' days when Bruce played bars.) Whether it's by success, rock n' roll, God, or some magic spell, I can't say. It's like he summons the intensity of Joe Stummer, the thick rusty guitar strokes of Johnny Cash, the glowing mind of John Lennon, the traveling songbook knowledge of Bob Dylan, the charisma and soul-depth of James Brown and wields it all as his very own. He truly is a plugged in jukebox and is on all night long. There is no doubt this man lives for music, and for building connections with it.
Mid way through the set, the band got a special request to dig a reggae-flavored rarity, "Part Man Part Monkey," out of the vault--and they played it spot on, even though the band was learning it as they played it. Solid musicianship all around (and who doesn't love saxophonist Clarence Clemons?)
Of course, there was a brief flash when Bruce paused to chat politics, which the crowd seemed to find unfounded. "Oh here we go," said the guy next to me. "He's gonna blab about Obama now, isn't he?" But all Bruce really said was how we're sleeping through the erasing of our civil freedoms as Americans. "It might not seem like it has an immediate impact on you," he said. "But it's an attack on our Constitution, and so it's also an attack on our very souls as Americans." Not so ironically, that soul of Americans part is the same thing he's loosely been singing about since
Greetings From Asbury Park, so if anyone is gonna talk to me at a concert about the state of the nation, I'm down with Bruce.
But aside from that, there is no line between Bruce and the crowd. Dozens of times throughout the night, the singer tumbles himself into the crowd, rolls around in them, wrapping himself up in all the life and love he can brush shoulders with. Sharing the mic, shaking hands, disappearing from the the distant viewers into his sea of fans. Fans sing and dance as if they're the ones on stage belting out "The River" and "Darlington County." It's one big, gigantic family all hanging out.
But a big chunk of the magic comes from the brass, ivory, strings and drum skins of "the world's best little bar band, " the E-Street Band. Phenomenal. They flexed their boldest muscles on "Waiting On A Sunny Day" and Patti Smith's "Because The Night" (which Smith wrote with Bruce). Not to mention the excellent Irish-jigged out "American Land."
Of course, what's a marathon concert without a marathon encore? The band followed up their breakneck performance with 7 more songs, including the gun-powdered "Thunder Road," a joyful "Tenth Avenue Freezeout," and a barn-burning "Born To Run," full of fists in the air and screaming voices gone horse.
And how does such a volcanic night end for America's jukebox band? Joe Grushecky ("
rock n' roll's best kept secret", and is basically Pa's Bruce Springsteen) shows up out of nowhere and joins the band to play the classic Them song, "Gloria."
As midnight neared, every soul in that stadium rang their heart dry with the final song, even if they didn't know the words to the classic Van Morrison-penned song. "She comes here just bout midnight! She make me feel so good. Lord, she make me feel all right! Her name is G, L, O, R, I, A."
As glorious as glory gets.
If I haven't underscored the point enough, the spectacle of seeing a Bruce Springsteen concert with his E-Street Band--whether you own an album, think he's old or overrated or whatever--is something you
must behold in your lifetime, while you still can. It's not about him. It's not about selling tickets. It's not even about music. It's about life, freedom, and a glowing love to be alive.
Labels: Bruce Springsteen, E-Street Band, Hershey Stadium, live review
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My pen, truly, is mightier than the sword.
But the truth is I wrote a preview story about this show last week, thus tarnishing your Sunday evening plans before the weekend even started.
