Jack Munger, Kevin Harris, and Dale “Guitar” Harris waiting on The Boss
When I heard my brother in robes, Dale Harris, talking about getting tickets to the Bruce Springsteen concert in St. Paul early in the summer, I had to butt in.
“You’re taking Kevin?” I asked, referring to his 14 year old son, a kid I’ve coached in soccer and who’s played both soccer and hockey with my son, Jack.
“I am.”
“If you can get two more tickets, I’d love to take Jack.”
Now, some folks might view my intrusion as being a bit pushy. But Dale knows that, by nature, I’m always pushy so the request didn’t strike him as untoward.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Dale came through and we made arrangements to stay overnight so as not to duplicate the foolishness of younger men: Driving from St. Paul to Duluth at o-dark-thirty after three hours of The Boss was something we’d both done in our twenties. A long drive in the dark with two teenagers asleep in the back seats wasn’t something we were interested in attempting. We checked into the Embassy Suites in downtown St. Paul (you know, the one with the cute little wood ducks floating in the fountain) early enough to have a brew and dinner, and then, along with several dozen other fans, the four of us waited for the shuttle to take us to the X.
The X Begins to Fill
While we waited in the lobby of the hotel’s faux Irish pub (any place that runs out of Guinness and tries to claim it’s a pub is a pretender in my book!), Dale and I speculated as to which of the hundreds of Springsteen hits the band would select to start the concert.
Dad and Son Listening to “My City of Ruins”
“”We Take Care of Our Own'”, Dale suggested.
The choice made perfect sense. Springsteen had worked tirelessly, between his horrific concert dates, to show up in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Iowa to sing songs of protest in support of President Obama’s re-election. The populist message of Springsteen’s songs of broken dreams, shuttered factories, and folks trying to get by fit in well with the message of the Prez. Pulling the first song off Wrecking Ball, an album that drips of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan and Neil Young at the height of their collective political consciousness; well, that just seemed so damn logical.
“It’s Veteran’s Day,” a guy who had no connection to us and certainly wasn’t in on our conversation, interjected. “He’ll honor men and women in uniform by playing ‘Born in the USA.'”
Dale and I looked at each other but the shuttle arrived before we could disagree with the stranger.
The Band in Full Flight
My partner was right on the money. The audience burst into screams as the opening chords of “We Take Care of Our Own” shredded the cobwebs that had settled in during the near hour wait. What followed was a display of musical excellence. Many new cuts from Wrecking Ball (as fine as album as Bruce has crafted in years: see my review of the same under the “Reviews” tab of the dashboard above) made the playlist as did some old favorites. A few chestnuts, like “Atlantic City” from the sparse and lonely Nebraska (one of my all-time favorite Springsteen efforts), were completely remixed to bring freshness and originality to the songs. Other classics, like “Born to Run” and “Rosalita” were played straight, as if decades of time hadn’t passed between laying the tunes down on vinyl and wandering onto the X’s stage on a cold November night after the 2012 election.
The five-piece brass section, the three-fold E Street Gospel Choir, the percussionist, and the present E Street standard bearers (Tallent, Van Zant, Lofgren, Weinberg, Bittan, Giordano, Tyrell) worked together in perfection whether the piece was a rocker or a soft ballad (such as “If I Should Fall Behind”). Bruce strutted. He played guitar. He belted out standards, crooned gospel, and dialed it down to sing lovely, lovely slow songs of angst and longing. He crowd surfed. He grabbed a pre-teen boy and dragged him onto the stage in the midst of the pit and had him slap hands alongside The Boss. He sang a duet with a young girl. He brought an 88-year-old birthday girl onto the stage during “Dancing in the Dark” because the sign she waved above her gray head said she wanted to dance with Stevie Van Zant. And, thankfully, after all the mud and slime that was slung by politicians over the past 18 months, there was not one word, despite Bruce’s obvious political leanings, about the election. Not one.
25 songs. Three hours aboard a musical steamroller. Not a break. No warmup band. Just the man and his pals, playing their music. Man, what a night!
“Born to Run” as an Encore
When a musician has written some of a generation’s most memorable tunes, penned some of its most poignant lyrics, and cut dozens of quality albums, and is still learning his craft and evolving as an artist at age 63, how do you pick one song out of a performance and claim it was “the moment” during the show? There’s never going to be uniformity in such an endeavor. Each fan will have his or her view of what was special, which song soared and tugged at their heartstrings, what struck him or her as the most memorable portion of a very long but very enjoyable ‘coaster ride. For me, when Bruce grabbed a placard bearing a request and spent time with his band, singers, and the horns figuring out what key to do “Savin’ Up” in, well, that blew me away. I’d never heard the song and when Springsteen worked the kinks of the unrehearsed tune in front of us and explained that he’d written it for Clarence Clemons (whom everyone knew as The Big Man, the glue behind the E Street Band and its dynamic, unusual sound: what other rock band from the 70s features a sax player the size of Jupiter?) , well, you just knew something special was about to happen. And it did., especially with Jake Clemons (Clarence’s nephew) blowing the sax in honor of his late uncle.
I sat, I stood, I yelled, I sang, I cheered. And so did my fifteen-year-old son. After a marathon of great music from America’s hardest working musician, the smile that began with “We Take Care of Our Own” was still there when the last chord of “10th Avenue Freeze Out” had faded and The Big Man’s face on the overhead screen disappeared.
Peace.
Mark
You can watch footage of “Savin’ Up” from the concert at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdIwe4XPUks
Apparently, it’s the first time he’s ever done it with the E Street Band!
