I’ve alluded several times to the Springsteen show I saw last weekend without going into detail. Well, after a long day working on grad school applications and watching my Royals lose the game deep into added time I’m finally ready to try and explain just how amazing the show really was.
First things first, let me just say the the Boss (and the whole E Street Band) can still rock. It helps that the new record is chock full of songs that fit well into a stadium atmosphere. Of course, one of the brilliant things about Springsteen has always been that he is able to cloak introspection, subtlety, and character sketches in the guise of full-bore rock and roll. Still, Magic does it better than any of his albums since Born in the USA – and might very well be his best record since the days of Reagan, too. So it was no disappointment that close to half of the songs (9 out of 23, actually) were from the new album.
Sure, in a perfect world, I’d probably trade out, say, “Last to Die” for “The River” and “Gypsy Biker” for “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” But there’s something vaguely depressing about going to a show just to hear a band play a bunch of 20 year old songs. Instead, we were treated to a nice set of the old favorites, but also got a strong sign that The Boss is no relic. Magic is a significant record not (just) because it’s the from Springsteen, but also because it’s got a bunch of flat-out great songs.
All that is to say that the show was worth every penny of the 80 bucks or so we spent. They had as much energy as anyone I’ve ever seen, which would be pretty impressive even if they weren’t all pushing 60. And sure, they’re not playing four-hour sets anymore, but they did fill out a good two hours and fifteen minutes, with virtually zero filler time.
The highlights are almost literally too many to list, but a quick summary has to include a bruising take on “The Promised Land,” a version of “Girls in their Summer Clothes” that melted my heart, and a blistering “Badlands” which got all 20,000 people singing. And, when they left the stage immediately after, the calls for an encore took the form of the entire crowd humming the refrain together.
And then that encore. When, out of the cheers and screams I heard that opening piano line from “Jungleland” I was almost floored. I mean, it’s only my fourth favorite song on Born to Run, but there’s just something magical about it, a grandiosity that only the Boss could ever pull off. And where I could have imagined hearing almost any other song, I simply never would have guessed this one. It was pulled off to perfect effect, and ten minutes later we emerged from the haze, breathless and firm in the belief that there was simply no way he could top it.
And then, of course, we were proved wrong as they burst immediately into the opening riff from “Born to Run” that virtually defines rock and roll. And when he sang “together Wendy we’ll live with the sadness / I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul” nothing has ever felt more true.
I could go on and on. But suffice it to say that it was a truly amazing experience, and one I hope to be able to tell folks about when I’m old. If you love music, you owe it to yourself to get out and see this show while you’ve still got the chance.
So what about the record itself? As I said above, I think there’s a strong argument to be made that it’s his best since Born in the USA, with the only serious competition coming from The Rising. The main reason for this is that he abandons most of the pretenses that interfered with his other recent work. It’s strong from top to bottom unlike The Rising, it rocks unlike Devils and Dust or Tom Joad, and it’s delightfully grim.
My biggest complaint is that it all sounds a little bit too unexpected. There are no bad songs, but there’s also nothing that absolutely slays me (like “My City of Ruins” for example), and not enough songs which break character.
By that I mean that everything fits a little too perfectly into the mold – it’s a album about platitudes and grand concepts, not one about individual people and complicated lives. Too many of these songs feel like they could have been written about anyone. And while I love the everyman thing, an everyman story is only interesting because of the details. You want
something specific to hang your hat on so the similarities have a background against which they can reveal themselves against.
Girls in Their Summer Clothes – Bruce Springsteen
Given that, it’s no surprise that the two best songs are the ones that feel the most personal. “Girls in Their Summer Clothes” may be one of his finest efforts at establishing a setting in decades. I’m generally a sucker for this type of song anyways, and few can do it as well as Springsteen when he’s on his game. You can almost feel the years slipping by. It’s full of pain, and plaintive beyond words. It’s also one of the prettiest songs I’ve heard in years.
“Long Walk Home” is easily the best example of what I think he was trying to do with this record. The underlying theme on a Springsteen album is always redemption (or the lack thereof), but even in his best songs, he has rarely been able to meld the personal story into the broader political manner in such an unforced manner. The section where he says:
You know that flag flying over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone
Who we are, what we’ll do, and what we won’t
…
It’s gonna be a long walk home
I’m not sure there’s anything more to say than that. It’s about coming home and finding that everything has changed. It’s about a country asking itself how we got where we are. And it’s a perfect summation of a message that I think progressive folks should always be talking about: the thing that makes America great has very little to do with our power or our guns or our
ability to sell widgets. It’s really just about “who we are, what we’ll do, and what we won’t.” And we’ve lost our way, which just means it’s time to start acting how we know we should. It seems simple, but that doesn’t make it any less important.
He also strives to make this point on “Living’ in the Future” but here the delicate subtlety is replaced by bombast. It’s by no means a bad song, but it’s also just a little too obvious for comfort. Similarly, “Last to Die” packs a big punch but lacks the subtlety necessary to transcend simple sloganeering.
Still, these are minor complaints. If you haven’t picked up an album from Bruce in a few years, this is definitely the one for you. And if you have, well you’ve probably already got your copy.
FYI: here’s the full setlist of the show, for anyone interested…
Radio Nowhere
No Surrender
Lonesome Day
Gypsy Biker
Magic
Reason to Believe
Jackson Cage
She’s the One
Livin’ in the Future
The Promised Land
I’ll Work For Your Love
Tunnel of Love
Working on the Highway
Devil’s Arcade
The Rising
Last to Die
Long Walk Home
Badlands
* * *
Girls in Their Summer Clothes
Jungleland
Born to Run
Dancing in the Dark
American Land