Though I've been a music lover all my life, I've never really been a concert-goer. My general dislike of loud, crowded spaces has consistently overwhelmed my desire to see certain individuals perform live. Sure, I've been to Atlanta Symphony Orchestra events on a number of occasions (and enjoyed them a great deal), but that's a very contained environment where everyone sits, listens and behaves themselves. However, for a variety of reasons, I figured it was finally time to confront my inhibitions and dive into a full-blown rock concert. But where to start?
There were a number of options on the table which interested me. Radiohead was in town recently, and there's no telling how long it might be before they're back in the area. Elton John was playing in Augusta, but the drive was long, the concert conflicted with my work schedule and ticket prices were at least twice as high as everything else. After taking a look at the assorted options, the best choice revealed itself pretty quickly: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. I own nearly every Springsteen album and love the music ("Born to Run" and "Darkness on the Edge of Town" would both make a list of my favorite albums of all time), knew that Springsteen and the E Street members were still going incredibly strong as musicians and knew that their live show was held in very high esteem. There was no way that couldn't be a blast, right?
My wife and I arrived early - approximately two hours before the concert was supposed to start. Turns out that was probably too early, since we were in reserved seats and the doors didn't even open until an hour before the concert. Still, I was eager to be on the safe side. Alas, the only unpleasant part of the evening was waiting in line, as the gentleman in front of me was a surly, irritating fellow who kept turning around and blowing cigarette smoke in my face. After we got inside, I was alarmed to discover that this same gentlemen was sitting in my section. Fortunately, he was several rows back and would be too far away to cause me any additional grief.
The concert was supposed to begin at 7:30, but it was clear that wasn't going to happen. Assorted members of the stage crew fiddled with instruments, adjusted lights, climbed ladders and moved music stands as a selection of amiable golden oldies quietly wafted through the room. This continued at 7:40, and 7:50, and 8:00. Every now and then, the lights would start to go dim and the crowd would murmur with excitement for a moment before realizing that it was just another lighting test. Finally, around 8:05, the lights went down completely, and James Brown's "I Feel Good" started blasting from the speakers. The music was so loud that I could feel the ground tremble beneath my feet... or maybe that was just my own excitement for the show to begin.
After Mr. Brown's legendary tune was finished, Springsteen sauntered to center stage and provided his own tongue-in-cheek introduction, including a proud declaration of the fact that, "his new record has been number one on the charts for four straight days!" Without further ado, the band launched into a furiously energetic quartet of songs both outraged and outrageously catchy: the new tunes "We Take of Our Own", "Wrecking Ball" and "Death to My Hometown", with the classic "Badlands" sandwiched in-between. I thought the James Brown intro was loud, but that was soothing in contrast to the live performance - it was deafening, but it only sounded muddy for the first minute or so, as I adjusted to listening with shattered eardrums. After a short while, it was as if I had been listening to music at that volume all my life.
On his previous tour, Springsteen didn't play many songs from the album he was promoting at the time (the tuneful, upbeat "Working on a Dream"), opting instead to focus on older material and audience requests. This time around, he played nearly everything from the new album. I've been listening to "Wrecking Ball" quite a bit in the days since its release, and I like it quite a bit, but it quickly became obvious why Springsteen was placing such an emphasis on the new material this time around: these songs were meant to be heard live. They have a rowdy, infectious quality which encourages audience participation, sing-a-long choruses and massive orchestration which was meant to fill an arena. There are fleeting moments in which the album versions of the songs tentatively incorporate some run-of-the-mill adult contemporary effects (light drum loops, echo effects, etc.). These moments aren't terrible, but they often feel like an uncomfortable attempt to pull sprawling, rambunctious tunes into a more intimate setting. Live, the tunes are thunderous and instantly memorable. It's no wonder that the crowd responded with as much enthusiasm to the new material as they did to a handful of Springsteen's greatest hits.
"Wrecking Ball" has a very specific narrative arc, starting with bleak, angry tunes and slowly working its way towards optimism and hope. It's one of Springsteen's most blatantly political albums (a good deal of it was inspired by Occupy Wall Street, though Springsteen makes his points with more directness and elegance than many of the protesters), and also one of his most blatantly spiritual (references to God and Jesus abound, and the album's final section relies heavily on gospel influences). The concert as a whole offered a similar (albeit larger) arc, and touched on similar themes. While Springsteen kept his well-known political beliefs contained to the lyrics of his music and a passing comment on the economic crisis before playing "Jack of All Trades," he occasionally adopted the raspy tones of an old-fashioned evangelist during some sequences. "We're here to wake you, to shake you and to take you to higher ground!" he crowed while introducing the band.
Despite the weighty themes at work in many of the songs, Springsteen never seemed inflated with a sense of his own importance. Above all, he seemed interested in ensuring that the audience had a good time. After all, they had spent their hard-earned money to escape the troubles of the world, not to wallow in them. Early on, he vowed that everyone would get their money's worth: "We're gonna leave you with your hands tired, your feet tired, your voice tired and your sexual organs stimulated!" he joked. And he more or less lived up to his word, proceeding to deliver over two and a half hours of enthralling music.
After his thunderstorm of an opening section, Springsteen proceeded through more eclectic territory - the moving "My City of Ruins" (from his 2002 album "The Rising", which was also featured prominently throughout the evening - appropriate, given that its exploration of a nation's attempt to heal in the wake of 9/11 fits nicely with his new album's exploration of a nation's attempt to heal in the wake of economic collapse), the wildly entertaining "E Street Shuffle", the moving ballad "Jack of All Trades", the rough-n-tumble obscurity "Seeds" and the stomping "Easy Money."
Catchy as it may have been, the front half of the show was loaded with darker material. It was a good time for a breather. The audience received precisely that in the form of the chipper "Waiting on a Sunny Day" (in which Springsteen did a great deal of back-and-forth with the audience and even allowed a female audience member to sing a few lines), followed by a dazzling performance of "The Promised Land." Things then took an unexpected turn as Springsteen decided to take a musical trip to Motown - after all, he had a brass section with him. He began by rattling off a cheerfully corny speech about the education the music gave him during his youth: "We got geography from The Drifters, who told us where the #$&! Broadway was. We got math from Wilson Pickett, who told us that 99 1/2 won't ever do. And we got sex education from Marvin Gaye!" Bruce and the band then proceeded to deliver a soulful take on The Temptations' "The Way You Do The Things You Do" and a wildly enjoyable cover of Wilson Pickett's "634-5789" (during which Springsteen went crowd-surfing).
The concert then proceeded to its final "official" segment, which offered an increasingly hopeful series of tunes. "Shackled and Drawn" was yet another "Wrecking Ball" tune which killed in its live incarnation, and the one-two punch of "Lonesome Day" and "The Rising" was enormously moving. "We Are Alive" played like the world's greatest campfire song; an affirmation of the human spirit delivered with hushed excitement. Finally, Springsteen tore into the great "Thunder Road," which was as spectacular as ever.
These days, an encore isn't really an encore, but the encore portion was thrilling nonetheless. In fact, the final six tunes may well have been the highlight of the entire concert. Springsteen provided the entire crowd with a magnificent Sunday evening service with the pairing of two new songs: the tender "Rocky Ground" (featuring a surprisingly touching and effective rap interlude courtesy of Michelle Moore) and the soaring "Land of Hope and Dreams." The latter in particular was such a moving experience live, and its (admittedly simplistic) chorus was awe-inspiring when accompanied by thousands of additional voices:
This train
Carries saints and sinners
This train
Carries losers and winners
This train
Carries whores and gamblers
This train
Carries lost souls
This train
Dreams will not be thwarted
This train
Faith will be rewarded
This train
Hear the steel wheels singin'
This train
Bells of freedom ringing
This train
Carries the broken-hearted
This train
Thieves and sweet souls departed
This train
Carries fools and kings
This train
All aboard
It was the performance which deviated the most thoroughly from the album version, with a new introduction, a richer arrangement, a terrific interlude featuring Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready" and an extended conclusion. "Let me see your faith!" Springsteen yelped late into the song, raising his hand in the air.
From there, it was an adrenaline-filled sprint to the finish light. The lights came up and the band powered through "Born to Run" and "Dancing in the Dark," then jigged their way through the foot-stomping, hand-clapping and very Irish "American Land". By this point, everyone in the crowd had let go of their inhibitions. People who had simply politely observed were dancing, clapping and singing - sometimes rather badly - but they were dancing, clapping and singing nonetheless.
There was a bit of a shadow hanging over the evening from the beginning. It was the start of Springsteen's first tour since Clarence Clemons' death. Of course all of the members of the E Street Band are talented and essential (Max Weinberg's drum work is a remarkable thing to behold), but no supporting member shaped Springsteen's sound quite so memorably as The Big Man. Would the band be the same without him? Of course not. But the subject was addressed in simple, touching fashion early on. After introducing the members of the band, Springsteen quizzed the audience: "Are we missing anybody?" Lights came up on both Clemons' traditional spot onstage and on the organ once played by Danny Federici (who passed away in 2008). After a while, Springsteen leaned on his microphone stand and said, "All I know is that if you're here, and we're here... they're here."
Filling in for Clemons was Clarence's nephew Jake, who received an enormous amount of support from the audience on his first night. The crowd roared with approval as Jake tore through the sax solos on "Badlands", "Land of Hope and Dreams", "Thunder Road", "Born to Run" and others. The evening concluded with a tremendous performance of "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out." When Springsteen arrived at the song's passing reference to Clemons ("When the change was made uptown / and the big man joined the band..."), he paused, allowing the crowd to clap, shout and express their love for Clemons for nearly two minutes. At long last, he and the band dove back in, finished the song, thanked the good folks of Atlanta for being so supportive and enthusiastic on their opening night and departed.
Rebekah and I were in something of a daze as we left. We could barely hear ourselves speak, or even think. The reaction from the crowd was unanimous: we had all just seen something incredibly special, and despite the show's considerable length, it was over far too soon. Any concerns I had about being stuck in the midst of a rowdy crowd had been obliterated; once the music started, nothing else mattered. I don't know how much longer these guys will be touring - Springsteen is 62, though he performs with the reckless energy of a 25-year-old - but if you get a chance to see them, don't pass it up. Thanks for an experience I'll never forget, Bruce.
Back at ya later
