A comment on Twitter early on Thursday morning: I usually leave a Springsteen concert feeling uplifted – not this time. You know what? That was kind of the point. This was not intended to be a feel-good show. The Boss made that very clear from his opening salvo. The man is – well, actually, it is not for me to say what he is – I’m guessing – I’m guessing that he is angry, disappointed, fearful, pained, - what he is not, and here I’m not guessing, is quiescent – what he is not, is complicit. The Boss believes in standing up and speaking up and using whatever gifts we have
for what we believe in.
His gift is music and an extraordinary talent for poetry. His gift is passion. His gift is the kind of sound business management and personal management that has generated one of the most
long-lived and successful bands ever, and along with it one of the most devoted community of fans. His gift is the ability to keep going when his art is, perhaps wilfully, misunderstood. His gift is to take the world seriously and himself and his work seriously while still being able to mock his own stardom. His gift is to know what matters.
“The Boss” – the term is used with affection now – I hope –but it was not originally a compliment. It was coined because of his total belief in what he wanted his band to be. My band, my rules. And even now, he is clear and other members of the E-Street Band have echoed this: the band is not a democracy. Everyone has their input, everyone is listened to, everyone is given their moment in the spotlight on stage, but then he calls the shots. Given how long these people have been playing together, and how they come back to play together even when they go off and do their own projects, there must be some kind of trust in the mix, some willingness to believe that the Boss knows what he's doing. There must be mutual respect. And respect is always earned.
I was in the Co-op Live arena on Wednesday for the opening night of the Land of Hope & Dreams tour. It was a very different Springsteen & E-Street Band show to those we have seen more recently. It was an unashamedly political, making-a-point, making-a-stand, show. As much as it was a rock gig, a star playing to the faithful, it was also a protest rally. It was heartfelt.
I don’t normally scroll social media immediately after a gig, but this time I did so in the hope that someone had captured and posted those moments that were the most explicit – as if the whole choice of set-list weren’t explicit enough.
They had, and I am grateful to be able to relive them, to hold on them and perhaps more importantly to share them.
Then I fell into the trap of reading the below-the-line comments. I don’t know why I do that, because when they don’t align with my own views, I am so tempted towards anger and the desire to reply – which would not be good on any level. I resisted. Except, of course I didn’t. This whole post is my response.
One of the first comments I read was that he should: shut up and sing. Apart from noting the logical impossibility of doing so, I feel the need to suggest that the commenter could maybe pay more attention to the words that they’re asking to be sung. I suggest that they bring a bit of thoughtful reflection and intelligence to understanding what those words are really saying.
Unfortunately, they are most likely among the many (non-fans) who do not grasp that, by way of example, Born in the USA is a song of shame, not of celebration. It is entirely about the downside of being born in that country.
He has a right to be political, was another comment that caught my eye – mainly because it sounded like some kind of ‘earned’ right, that maybe doesn’t apply to all artists. It also seemed to miss the point that he always has been. Go back again and listen to Darkness on the Edge of Town, Rainmaker, Youngtown. Even the apparently sentimental My Home Town. Hear the words these jobs are going son, and they ain’t coming back… that’s not nostalgia, that’s painful reality, that’s sadness about what we’re losing along the way.
That song makes me think about my own home town: the jobs that have gone, the soullessness of a semi-deserted town centre, where even the charity shops struggle to survive.
I can understand that there may have been a certain amount of shock in the audience on Wednesday night, especially for those of us who were around last year (and the one before) for the tour that was a perfect mix of joy and poignancy. This was not what we were expecting.
But it is not the job of artists to give us what we expect. The job of art is to shake us up and make us think. I, for one, am grateful when it does that.
I’ve always said that a Springsteen gig is “the best party on the planet” – well, the party is over and there is nothing wrong with him pointing that out. There is indeed some weird and dangerous shit going on out there, and while there is power in the music and in our coming together to listen to it, join in with it, dance to it, that power is diminished if it does not engage with said shit.
As ever, after a gig, I find individual lines echoing in my head – random connections between unrelated songs, sometimes heard differently because of the context. Human Touch is/was a song about human relationships, how they change, what we’re looking for, but sung this time it was about more than that:
"Tell me, in a world without pity
Do you think what I'm asking's too much?
I just want something to hold on to
And a little of that human touch"
I have no idea how the Band will respond (emotionally, or otherwise) to the twittersphere commentary, if they even bother to look at it, but I hope that the noise in the arena tells them all they need to know about how most people in that space feel about what was being said. We hear you, and we agree! And we do NOT want you to ‘shut up’, we want you to ‘sing’ – and play – and be as damn political as the world needs you to be.
Anyone who has paid any proper interest in the history of the man and the band and the development of the music, its shifts and returns, and particularly the lyricism that overlays it all, must surely ‘get it’. This is Bruce going back to his roots in folk music, in protest music, in early rock, in using story-telling sometimes just to tell a story, but usually to make a point. In fact, anyone with even a basic understanding of the whole point of folk music and rock music, and especially this intersection between them, must surely know that it was always intended to be rebellion, to point out the wrongs of the world – maybe not necessarily to offer alternatives, but at least to get us looking at it and seeing it for what it is. To get us thinking about it.
Some of the commentary talks about the Boss “bad-mouthing” Trump, but let’s be honest here: that is a literal impossibility. Whatever you say about the man, it is nowhere near as bad as the truth. If you need any kind of rationale, go listen to Rainmaker, which on this night was dedicated to ‘our leader’
"Rainmaker says white's black and black's white
Says night's day and day's night"
And the truth that plays on both sides – those who see Trump for what he is and those who put him where he is: We've been worried but now we're scared.
People do strange things when they’re scared. But when the people who are scared are the ones with the most power, the world becomes even more unstable.
It's hard to know how to describe the mood outside the arena walking back to the metro. It wasn’t the joy of Wembley Way a year ago. There was no music to follow us. People were not singing. I don’t want to use words like shock, or sombre, though clearly I’m tempted to do so. There was definitely a thoughtfulness, though, a quietness for the most part, which in forty years of going to
Springsteen gigs (with and without the E-street Band), I have never known before.
Maybe it was a need to process what we had just been part of, because I don’t think any of us – especially those who had been in on the 2023 and 2024 European tours – had been expecting it. The noticing of time passing, the losing of friends, the we’re-all-getting-older, kind of bittersweet melancholy has become an inevitable part of the mix in recent years, but it has generally been absorbed among the blast it out of the room time to grow young again we’re-still-here-ness.
This was different. This wasn’t acceptance of where we are in our lives – this was rejection of what the world is becoming. This was a call to action, to speak out for what we believe in.
But don’t let me give you the idea that it was a funereal procession that left the arena. Anything but. There was a lot of smiling, a little joking, that special-ness feeling you have after seeing Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, that knowing that you have at least this much in common with this many people, as you look around and see the age ranges, the class distinctions pretty much eroded, the invisible connections.
There is no pushing or shoving towards the platforms, there is giving way, and following the flow. Where a couple of guys started to dismantle the barriers to jump the queue, four or five more just edged in from our ahead-side to remind them that we don’t do that. No remonstrance, no anger, just a solid, gentle ‘no guys – come on’. They blocked the attempt simply and the offenders moved on with good-enough grace.
I suspect that if I had to come up with a word to describe the mood, it would be solidarity.
One young woman was carrying a banner asking for Sherry Darling but around the edge of it were the words thank you for your support of the miners. He didn’t sing the song, far too light-hearted a mother-in-law joke for tonight’s set – besides he wasn’t taking requests tonight - but she didn’t ditch the banner…maybe she’ll be at the next gig, still holding it up, still wanting that song, still being grateful for the support.
As for me, I didn’t come away on the high I would have predicted and yet, once I’d got back to my hotel (with more ease than I anticipated), it still took be a good ninety minutes to come down to a point where I could even contemplate sleep. I dreamed versions of the songs. I woke with random lines running through my head. They’re still doing that as I write this three days later.
For me the best part of the night was not the diatribes, though I salute him for them. It wasn’t the crowd-pleasing lift-the-mood encore of some of my favourite songs, though I was on my feet for them. It wasn’t Jake doing his bloody brilliant best (and it is brilliant by-the-way) to keep Uncle
Clarence’s spirit alive and soulful, though I feel every note as a memory. It wasn’t Nils or Little Steven doing what the hell it is they can do with a few strings and their fingers, though I whoop
and scream like a teenager when they stop, as though I were those strings and still vibrating. My favourite part of the night, was Bruce Springsteen with an acoustic guitar, and no band, and a
dark set, proving that he can still sing. House of a Thousand Guitars is melancholy and mournful, with a sad sweet edge of hope.
And it is that sweet edge of hope that we have to carry with us…because the rest of the shit is too real to ignore. The party may be over, but we’re not going home, we’re staying, to get through this, together.
Sometimes, nothing anyone can tell you about how it was, can give you any idea. So if you’re interested…check out a few things below, including the set list, the full transcript of the message & a link to his delivery of it.
The set-list
For those only familiar with the upbeat songs – that just maybe you’ve misunderstood – check this out.
Land of Hope & Dreams (with an outro of People getready)
Death To My Hometown
Lonesome Day
My Love Will Not Let You Down
Rain Maker (on this occasion dedicated to “our leader” – you need to check the
lyrics to see why)
Darkness On The Edge of Town
The Promised Land
Hungry Heart
My Home Town
Youngstown
Murder Incorporated
Long Walk Home
House of a Thousand Guitars
My Cit of Ruins
Letter to You
Because The Night (Patti Smith cover)
Human Touch
Wrecking Ball
The Rising
Badlands
Thunder Road
Encore:
Born in the USA
Born to Run
Billy Jean
Dancing in the Dark
Tenth Avenue Freeze Out
Chimes of Freedom (Bob Dylan cover)
Even if you know nothing of any of them, just reading those titles should send something of a shiver.
If you can, listen to them again and really listen, not just to the music, but to the words. The poet Springsteen is quite often overlooked, because of the sounds that he wraps around his words. Admittedly I’m biased – it was the words that drew me in, and largely – despite the parties and the gigs and the feel-goodness of being part of the E-street extended family – it is the words that have kept me here.
Something I’d never really calculated before, in four decades of going to Springsteen gigs, is quite how many songs he gets through. I know that he rarely does exactly the same set twice in a row and often mixes things up during a tour, but hadn’t thought much about what that means. While we were queuing for entry, one of the guys behind me was marvelling at how on one particular tour they did 29 different songs. How awesome is that?! Yes, it is…until you realise that a single show comprises 27. Mixing in and out a few more over the run, seems somehow like less of a feat, than being able to put on a single show.
What he had to say between the songs...
Welcome to the Land of Hope and Dreams Tour! The mighty E-Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock ‘n roll in dangerous times.
In my home, the America I love, the America I've written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.
Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring.
~ ~ ~
The last check, the last check on power after the checks and balances of government have failed are the people, you and me.
It’s in the union of people around a common set of values. Now that’s all that stands between a democracy and authoritarianism. At the end of the day, all we've got is each other.
~ ~ ~
There's some very weird, strange, and dangerous shit going on out there right now.
In America they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now.
In America the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death. This is happening now.
In my country they're taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers. They're rolling back historic civil rights legislation that has led to a more just and plural society.
They are abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom. They are defunding American universities that won’t bow down to their ideological demands.
They are removing residents off American streets and without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centres and prisons. This is all happening now.
A majority of our elected representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government.
They have no concern or idea of what it means to be deeply American. The America that l've sung to you about for 50 years is real and regardless of its faults is a great country with a great people.
So we'll survive this moment.
Now, I have hope, because I believe in the truth of what the great American writer James Baldwin said. He said "in this world there isn't as much humanity as one would like, but there's enough.” Let’s pray.
As for all those unhappy twitterers, they are entitled to their opinion. Freedom of speech and all that. Their president's response has been to attack the persona and talent of Springsteen rather that dissect the truth of what he said. Maybe that tells us all we need to know.
The music gods willing, I'll be back in the audience next month, still shouting my support.
