The Church of Bruce

[WARNING FOR DAVID B: Note that the following review is not entirely positive. I hope my opinions on the concert do not harm our friendship or undermine the sales of your new book.]

I plunked down my $117 for a ticket (plus the $8.50 “convenience fee” for the privilege of making my purchase from Ticketmaster; plus a $2.50 fee to print my tickets at home using my own ink and paper) to Springsteen’s “solo acoustic” tour over the weekend, then found out that “Bruce rules!” has a new meaning.

As Colin and I walked through the doors of GM Place (which has been transformed into an “intimate” one-third of a hockey arena) we were handed a sheet of “rules” for the concert. No cameras or recorders, okay no problem with that. Shut off your cell phones, what is this the symphony? Everyone must be seated at the start of the first song. What? Concessions will offer a reduced menu starting 30 minutes before show time and will close 10 minutes before the show and remained closed throughout the performance. Huh? “Curtains and doors to the lobby will remain closed during the entire performance and latecomers will not be seated. Everyone should be in his or her seats before the start of the first song. What’s going on here? I thought this was a rock concert?

So I did the only thing a middle-aged rock fan could do, I made sure I went to pee before I sat down (and went again before the doors locked me in). Avoided the beer and wondered if there was an official “Devils and Dust solo acoustic tour” catheter (and if there was one would it come with Bruce’s photo and a list of all the cities on the tour…hmm).

Okay, so the stage is set. The 7,000 or so fans are all seated and waiting for The Boss to arrive. We wait and we wait. For 45 minutes we wait. Did I miss something in the rules? Perhaps everyone has to be seated and quite before we get the concert (like Mrs. McNeil used to demand of my third grade classmates and me before we could go out for recess).

Finally Springsteen arrives to a chorus of cheers and the familiar shouts of “Bruuuuuuccccee.” Heavy curtains lit in purple/red lights backed the stage. And before Bruce sits down at a pump organ and starts into a heavily re-arranged version of “Living Proof” he asks us all to be quiet, so he can give us “his best.” Then huge screens on either side of the stage then light up and alternately zoom in on his feet pumping away and super close-ups of his face as he starts the concert. (I hope everyone got seated!)

Before the first tune is over it starts to dawn on me, we have followed all the commandments and have entered into the “Church of Bruce.”

The second tune was an incredible reworking of “Reason to Believe”–done Sonny Boy Williamson style, with a harp and stomp board Bruce rages with his voice distorted in a weird and spooky way as he sings through the harp mic. Great stuff and a (the) highlight of the night along with “Thunder Road” and “The River” done at the grand piano; “Because the Night,” and “Fourth of July Asbury Park (Sandy)” on the harmonium and the encores of “Blinded by the Light” and “Promised Land.” The lone electric tune was a Chuck Berryesque cover of the blues “Ain’t Got You” (Colin’s favorite of the concert).

Bruce also played the obscure (?) “Janey Don’t You Lose Your Heart,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “The Rising” (btw, another highlight), “Matamoras Banks” (a real downer), “Lonesome Day,” and the “Real World” along with a bunch of other tunes in the 2 and a half hour show.

But, besides the worst closing song in the history of rock n roll (more about that later), what stood out the most about the evening was the religiosity of the concert. Bruce was chatty a various points in the concert, but the two primary monologues (sermons?) of the evening were about the centrality (geographically and culturally) of the Roman Catholic church to his neighborhood and family when he was a kid and a meditation on the meaning of the Garden of Eden (which was quite different from the snake’s version of the Garden of Eden, which I’d experienced at The White Stripes concert a few days before). Then there was the his performance of “Jesus Was an Only Son.”

I’ve been a Springsteen fan for a long while (and own every album of his, save the box “Tracks” and his latest “Devils and Dust”), so the religious references in his lyrics we’re really not a surprise, but the set list seemed crafted to highlight those references and give them added punch. And perhaps the solo acoustic performance, the pump organ and harmonium cast the myriad salvation references in a more literal context.

As is obvious, this put me off.

The performance as a whole was technically outstanding (kind of felt like being on the set of a well choreographed MTV Unplugged shoot). Bruce’s voice was in fine form (though he insisted on closing too many songs with his lonesome wail, in fact the power of that trope was greatly diminished by the fifth or sixth time it was used).

I left a bit irritated by the rules, the evangelistic impact of the set list (which was heightened by the Bruce’s unconvincing throw away comment that he could not remember the last time he went to church when he wasn’t “under duress”).

Then there was that closing song. One of the worst set closers ever, a cover of The Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream” done on the pump organ that lasted at least 10 minutes, but it seemed like thirty. Here are the lyrics,

dream baby dream
dream baby dream
dream baby dream
dream baby dream
forever, and ever

dream baby dream
dream baby dream
dream baby dream
dream baby dream
forever

(repeat ad nauseam)

You get the picture.

Colin, in a very politically incorrect moment, rated the concert “R for retard.” We sang “Dream Baby Dream” the rest of the night and into the next day whenever the moment called for father son ridicule.

Ironically, I left GM place with an unsatisfied rock n roll soul.

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