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Springsteen Comes Alive

Two blistering evenings of rock 'n' roll at Chicago's United Center are as close to pop salvation as one might ever find.
By Matt Springer

"I cannot promise you life everlasting, but I can promise you life RIGHT NOW!"

Bruce Springsteen is screaming this to 22,000 of the faithful in his Temple of Rock, the E-Street band churning behind him during the middle moments of his rousing set-closer, "Light of Day." They and the crowd have just endured over two hours of the most intense, righteous, bad-ass rock music on the planet, and there are two meaty encores yet to come. The wear and tear of the evening doesn't show--every seat in Chicago's United Center is empty, the occupants on their feet wildly cheering, and Springsteen's energy hasn't flagged for a second. He leaps onto Roy Bittan's piano to taunt the crowd behind the stage, he gyrates in a dirty Elvis Presley impersonation at the lip of the stage, he slaps hands and flirts wildly with his wife, singer/guitarist Patti Scialfa.

If you didn't know better, you might think Bruce was twenty again. His fifty years don't show on his face, and they don't show in his performance. He's still flailing about in mad hysterics over the music, and he even manages to end one show with a running sommersault and leap that cues the band to their explosive conclusion for the evening. How many fifty-year-old guys can handle attending a three-hour rock show, let alone orchestrating one?

But it's not about Bruce's past on this latest tour--he's not trying to be twenty again. He's engineering a dynamic rebirth, born again from the ashes of acoustic folk into a Rock Star. He's back to tearing down rock's highway, that "thin white line" connecting his heart to the souls of millions of fans. And as he has so many times in the past, he's finally brought the E-Street band along again for the ride.

When Bruce began his career, I was not yet born. I was one year old during the Darkness tour of the late seventies, an eight-year-old as the Born in the U.S.A. phenomenon began. The first Boss record I bought on its release date was The Ghost of Tom Joad in 1994. His last shows in Chicago--two of which I attended, on September 28 and 30--were my first ever. And I've yet to see a child born or get married, but I have sacrificed my virginity and graduated from college. Given all that, so far I'd rank those two shows as the greatest nights of my life.

The reasons for that are purely personal--though the music was tremendous in so many ways, for me it was all about the emotion. I can still remember the first time I heard so many of his great songs...buying Darkness on the Edge of Town and blaring it in my dorm room during a time when all my friends had abandoned me just for falling in love (long story)...laying on my bed with the lyric sheet to Greetings from Asbury Park, listening intently like a good music geek and trying to decipher what the hell a "teenage diplomat" is...and of course, the sheer disappointment of picking up a used copy of Human Touch. Bleah.

Those who've followed Springsteen across the country or camped out for days to get tickets in the past have to understand where I was coming from. After memorizing all his records with no exposure to his live sets save bootlegs and the Live box set, that show was the first time that the music really came alive for me, the first time it stood up kicking and screaming and breathed hot fire on my soul.

So many tremendous moments stand out from both nights. The fist-pumping intensity of "Badlands," a song that never failed to bring every fan to their feet in ecstasy. Hearing "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and a blistering rock version of "Youngstown" featuring the E-Streeters, both of which revealed just how amazing Bruce could have made his acoustic Joad material if he had sought to bring it to life in a different way. The extended version of "Tenth Avenue Freeze- Out"...as Max tapped out the new extended band intro to the song, Bruce leapt on top of the piano and tauned the crowd for a solid five minutes as he took off his shirt. During a huge instrumental bridge section, he launched into his first preacher-esque speech of the evening, talking about being trapped behind a bush in a forest, and how he could see "the river of love, where you can find faith, salvation, and cold beer at an afffordable price." A touching version of "If I Should Fall Behind" with several of the band members each singing a few lines apiece in a demonstration of solidarity and unity behind the music they love and share each evening. Screaming every word of "Born to Run" with 22,000 other fans with all the house lights up and the band cooking as hot as they ever have.

But two moments stand out far beyond all those highlights as fiery, crystal memories that will not only stay with me forever but will shadow every future encounter I have with Springsteen's music. Both draw from his past; both point toward his future.

On Thursday night, Roy Bittan launched into a long piano intro near the end of the evening's main set, an occurrence that could have pointed toward a few older gems from Bruce's catalog--"Jungleland," for example, or the rarely-seen "Incident on 57th Street." Instead, it introduced "New York City Serenade," from Springsteen's 1974 masterpiece The Wild, The Innocent and the E- Street Shuffle. It's one of his most underrated records and one of his most moving and poetic songs, a majestic and bittersweet teenage romance. Though many of the "fans" in attendance didn't recognize this chestnut, it made a powerful impact on those who did really listen. It was a twenty-five year-old song living as vividly as anything Bruce has written since, made vital again by the passionate spark of live performance. One could imagine those same men performing that song in smoky clubs before Springsteen hit it big over two decades ago, and could realize in an instant how much everything had changed--and at the same time, how little.

Long after "New York City Serenade," after two breathless encores and the intense set closer "Light of Day," came the lone new song for the evening, "Land of Hopes and Dreams." It's been Bruce's major show-closer since the tour's first shows in Spain. It has a loud, mid-tempo rock feel to it--taking a cue from "People Get Ready," he sings of hopping aboard a train that might just be heading to his promised land. The vehicle won't discriminate in its passengers:

This train...carries saints and sinners
This train...carries losers and winners
This train...carries whores and gamblers
This train...carries lost souls

And when this train gets where it's going, "faith will be rewarded" and "dreams will not be thwarted." Salvation waits at the end of the line.

More than any of his other post-E-Street work, "Land of Hopes and Dreams" feels like a summation of his message, the closing of a chapter. It's as though he's ready to offer all the saving grace he can to the characters he's brought through life's bitter realities and desperate dreams in his songs over the past twenty-five years--Magic Rat, Spanish Johnny and Puerto Rican Jane, Mary, Rosalita and the rest can all climb aboard and ride off to the personal fulfillment they've sought for so long.

At the same time it culminates Springsteen's thematic journey, the song's stately beauty and its heartrending realization by the reformed E-Street Band speak to the opening of an exciting new chapter as well, a future newly forged, a prophet reborn in the sweat and glory of converting the lost in his Temple of Rock.