I can't argue with The Big Man
When Bruce Springsteen exhorts his audience, in the transcendent song he wrote in the aftermath of 9/11, to "come on up for the rising," you feel the incredible, redemptive power of brotherhood, love and rock and roll rising up from your very soul. The song literally tells of a fireman racing into one of the Twin Towers to save anyone he can; metaphorically, it serves as call to all of us to rise above our natural inclinations to "give in," to condemn, to walk away..and rather to find the power to reach out, hold onto, connect with.
Never have I been at a Bruce show, whether indoors or out, small venue or stadium, Northern California, Southern California, New Orleans, Pennsylvania and many points in between and in all the New Jersey-New York venues he has "owned" for more than 30 years, that hasn't left me feeling totally reaffirmed in that power, in the human condition and that all is - to borrow one of his favorite words - righteous with the world. That's what Bruce has always sung about and what he's always meant to his fans, to the E Street Nation - the unwavering belief in the power of music to cleanse the soul, reinvigorate it and then connect it with other souls in our shared human striving. It's what made "The Rising" such an essential album in response to our collective, shared emotions in 2002 and why it is, like every piece of music he has ever recorded, so relevant today.
I saw Bruce again last night, at Night 3 of The Final Shows, the series of concerts he is holding as the last ever at New Jersey's Giants Stadium before the wrecking ball comes to demolish it next year. It is one of the places Bruce "owns"; in fact, he has performed before more fans at Giants Stadium over the years than any music artist in history at one venue. They are shows fraught with poignancy and with the inexorable permanence of change. Bruce turned 60 just before the show, and the E Street Band, arguably the steadiest, most permanent band ever in rock, lost its first member last year, when keyboardist "Phantom" Danny Federici, succumbed to cancer.
But the band - the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, house-rocking, earth-shaking, booty-quaking, Viagra-taking, love-making, legendary E Street Band, as Bruce has taking to introducing them of late - remains the living embodiment of all that he sings about: the friendship, loyalty, joy, the meaning found in brotherhood (The E Street version of which, by the way, has been an equal opportunity society for 25 years, when Patty Scialfa became a member and was later joined by violinist Soozie Tyrell.) When you are in the audience sharing in this for three hours (yes, that is not a typo: 60 year old Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play balls to the wall, stadium quaking rock and roll for three hours a night and are coming up on the 15th month of the current tour), when you are singing along about dreams not dying in "The Promised Land," about pulling outta here to win in "Thunder Road," about making promises you'll always remember in "No Surrender," it is as sublime a moment of musical nirvana as you are likely to experience on this mortal coil.
So last night I was fortunate to have the opportunity to head backstage before the show. I was ushered into the bowels of the stadium, to a dressing room door marked, "Temple of Soul." I entered a moody den, with wispy scarves strung along the walls and ceilings and pastel lights of purple, green and blue casting ethereal shadows; turning a corner, I spied the Temple's occupant, lying on a massive massage table in front of an "altar" where candles flickered around a stereo playing "Born in the USA"...the occupant, E Street saxophonist and on-stage foil for Bruce for the last thirty six years, Clarence "The Big Man" Clemons, welcomed me in for a few minutes of warm conversation and a massive hug. As I prepared to leave to allow him to finish his pre-show ministrations, he offered his parting words: "Peace and love brother, that's what its all about." I couldn't argue with The Big Man.
Brian T. Regan
