The ghosts of our pasts

I laughed, I cried, I danced (in my awkward white guy way) with ghosts on Friday night.

Someone once described a Bruce Springsteen concert as being 1/3 political rally, 1/3 spiritual revival, and 1/3 house party. That was definitely my experience Friday night as I attended my eighth Springsteen concert since 2003.

My passion for the music of Springsteen knows no bounds. Before I found religion, I had Bruce Springsteen. I probably pray more to The Boss than to God. 

It is as much about the quality and meaning of the music as it is about a strong connection between me and my parents, especially my father. I grew up around his music. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of his songs.

By 7:00pm I was practically bouncing with excitement as we entered the arena. With me were my father and a couple of friends of ours – all diehard Bruce fans.

Bruce took the stage at 8:26pm accompanied by his mighty E Street Band. A band that started out in 1973 with just five members, but now features 15 onstage – plus Bruce but not including his wife Patti, who was absent for this show.

Absence was a major theme of the concert. This tour is the first Bruce and the E Street Band have conducted without Clarence “Big Man” Clemons – Bruce’s closest friend and the best damn saxophone player I’ve ever heard. Clemons died last year, making him the second band member to pass away in recent years. Organ/accordion player Danny Federici died in 2008. Both men had been with the band since its inception. More on this to come…

The show kicked-off with “Land of Hope and Dreams,” sort of a modern rock version of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready.” With spirits high, Bruce and the band took the audience into a set of intense songs early in the show: the pleading “Cover Me” (featuring solos by all three guitar players onstage), “Adam Raised a Cain” (lots of Bruce guitar work, a personal song about his love-hate relationship with his father), and the rare “Something in the Night.”

After “Hungry Heart” became the first audience sing-along of the night (plus Bruce crowd surfing, and the audience refusing to take him back to the stage at one point), we hit a trio of new songs off his latest album: “We Take Care of Our Own,” the title track “Wrecking Ball,” and the Irish-march “Death to My Hometown.” 

The first and third songs focus on the tough times our country has faced the last five years, bemoaning the lack of cooperation and goodwill within our society, the advantages held by upper class, and the lackluster, divisive political leadership we’ve seen in response to the economic crisis.

“Wrecking Ball,” while ostensibly a song about the destruction of the original Giants Stadium in New Jersey, at its core is a song about Bruce and the band. They have been together for so long and endured many hardships along the way, losing beloved band mates and dear friends, but still they persevere. The song is a challenge to stand up against everything that might tear you down in life.

Then we reached the emotional highpoint of the show – for the audience, for Bruce and the band, and for me personally. 

“My City of Ruins” is a song Bruce wrote in 2001 about his beloved Asbury Park, a once popular tourist town sitting along his native New Jersey shore that has hit hard times in the last 30 years. Before starting the song, Bruce reminisced about Asbury Park’s glory days and how it had just started thriving again, only to suffer catastrophic damage at the hands of Hurricane Sandy a few weeks ago. So Bruce dedicated the song to “the ghosts of our past…the ghosts of people and places that remain with us today.”

Halfway through the song, Bruce stopped to introduce the band members, allowing them each their own solo. After the band intros, all the lights went out save for three spotlights: one on Bruce, one on the organ that Dan Federici used to play, and one on the spot where Clarence Clemons traditionally stood. I had tears in my eyes as Bruce repeatedly sang, “I’m in a sad mood tonight,” before asking the audience, “Are you missing anybody?” After a moment of silence, the band jumped back into the song as I wiped away tears before they started streaming down my face.

Following all that emotion, Bruce lightened things up with “The E Street Shuffle” and by wading into the audience to take sign requests. The first he granted was a request to “Dance with a Hungarian girl.” After the sign holder was identified, she was brought onstage to dance as Bruce played the intro to “Pay Me My Money Down,” a folk classic he covered on a 2006 album focused on the roots of early American music. That album and musical styling heavily influenced his latest album and current format of the band. The lucky fan then got to waltz with Bruce as the band kicked in – the horn section especially stood out, a recurring theme on the night.

Three more sign requests followed (all song requests this time), most notably an intense rendition of “Devils & Dust” – sounding much better with a couple guitar solos and backing horns thrown in than the original album version.

The crowd really erupted for the last two songs of the main set: “Badlands” and “Thunder Road.” Two absolute classics from the 70’s that get even the more laidback West Coast crowd up and moving (Bruce has always been more popular on the East Coast, although now Europe is apparently the place to see a Springsteen concert). 

Jake Clemons, nephew of the late Clarence Clemons and a great sax player in his own right, led the horn section in the concluding solo to “Thunder Road” that his uncle played for so long. All night, whenever Jake stepped up to the plate, the fans showed their appreciation for the nephew of the E Street Band’s most popular member.

With barely a break in-between, the encores began with the jazzy “Kitty’s Back,” an early Bruce song that allows the band to improvise with plenty of solos going around. 

After the iconic “Born to Run” and “Dancing in the Dark,” Bruce pulled a Santa hat off a fan he had brought onstage and led the band through a rendition of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Three more Santa hats were thrown onstage to also be worn by band members. I’ve been waiting a long time to see this holiday classic played lived at a Springsteen show.

To close the show, the band fittingly played a song Bruce wrote about the formation of the band. “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” features the classic line, “The change was made uptown, and the Big Man joined the band.” This time around, following that line, the band stopped, and on the giant screens above the stage images of Clarence and Danny in their prime appeared as the crowd positively roared in response. After Bruce egged on the crowd for more, the entire horn section played the usual sax solo that follows and Bruce and the band finished off the song and the show.

It was 11:30 by this time. Another successful 3-hour show. 27 different songs. Impressive considering he and most of the band are 63 years old (they played a 4-hour show earlier this year).

I was drenched in sweat, arms and legs tired, but my spirit was soaring. It was my spirit that had to carry me home from there, because my legs certainly couldn’t carry me by that point. Still, as I wearily returned home, I couldn’t help but hope to do it all over again next year – hopefully he’ll come to Seattle this time around!