Brrrruuuuucccceeee!!!
Last night, I spent my evening with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in Dallas. Now, I know some of my conservative readers are less than enamored with Bruce’s politics – but I’ve long learned to separate political views from having a good time. And a Bruce show is ALWAYS a good time. This was my sixth show, I think, dating back to 1985 in the Cotton Bowl on the Born in the USA tour, and it was a ton of fun.
Here’s the set list, then a glance from YouTube.
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Radio Nowhere
Lonesome Day
Gypsy Biker
Magic
Trapped
Reason To Believe
Prove It All Night
Because The Night
She’s The One
Livin’ In The Future
The Promised Land
Girls In Their Summer Clothes
Independence Day (Tour Premiere)
Devil’s Arcade
The Rising
Last To Die
Long Walk Home
Badlands
Encores:
Meeting Across The River
Jungleland
Born To Run
Glory Days (w/Jon Bon Jovi)
Dancing In The Dark
American Land
I’m soooo jealous –
There was a guy I grew up with that was offered the keyboard job with the E Street Band in the early 1970’s and turned it down. I guess he thought Bruce wasn’t going to go anywhere.
I’m leaning further and further right the older I get. So who are my ALL-time favorites? Brooooce. Bonnie Raitt. Jackson Browne. I *still* haven’t figured out how that happened.
I’m jealous, too.
Well, I guess he can have a drink with Pete Best and debate who was dumber…
Wow, I’m with Peter on this one, jealous as all get out.
Music is visceral to me, I either like it or I don’t. Bruce’s songs about life and love speak to me more than his political ones do, but I don’t choose to like or dislike them because of the explicit or implied political message. Likewise all other musicians.
I regard Bruce as a modern day Woody Guthrie — whatever you think of his politics, you can’t deny that he is a true blue American who really loves this country and its people.
Or you could argue that the rise of civilization can be traced in a straight line from Aristotle to Thunder Road –
There is only one Bruce Springsteen song that I simply can’t abide listening to: Born to Run. I know, I know, apostasy, but that song has always rubbed me the wrong way, I think because it was so stupidly popular in 1975. I will listen to every album, every song, except that one.
Oh, but Born to Run in concert is transcendent!….
Ah, yes. But then, all music is best experienced live, imho. Studio music is second best; something of the humanness is lost in the process of studio recording.