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11/19 blog on brucespringsteen.net

From our correspondents at backstreets.com: my piece on the second Boston show is now up on brucespringsteen.net.

amazing journey (the new who doc)

I'm so out of Whoville, I only found out about this film because I'm (somehow) on the mailing list for the Museum of Theater and Television. I missed the premiere there because I was laid off when the tickets went on sale, and, well, the whole being out of Whoville thing. The boyfriend found it in the VH1 listings and DVR'd it.

It's funny how I slip back into it, though. You know the story, you know the legends, you know the players, you know what's coming next. The boyfriend made a comment about something and I snapped, "That's because this is Roger's thing," without even thinking, as though - how could you NOT know that?

I wish it had been six hours. Nine. And I appreciated that we saw things we hadn't seen, and there was latitude for Pete to ramble, and enough footage of John (but not enough of Keith talking, and I say that realizing that Keith was not always the best interview, but, C'MON, this was Roger's thing so he could have gotten whatever he wanted, Roger who's been embargoing any story about Keith because HE wants to do it - sorry, digressing)

More than anything, I appreciated the segment on John, and the honesty, and the anger, and the sadness and the regret. It wasn't that long ago, and the wounds are still the tiniest bit raw, still.

By the end of it, I was committed to seeing them the next time they roll through, ticket prices be damned. Because - recent blog posts from Pete aside - the truth is that it's a question of IF they roll through again. I have always felt that I had my run, and it was good, and nothing was ever going to top that week in 1999 when I was in the first 10 rows of Shoreline for both nights of Bridge and then flew to Chicago not long after for one HOB show, which I said at the time was one of the best nights of my life and I'd still say that.

It's such a mix of emotions with this band, ones I've never been able to walk away from. I'm very zen about not seeing the Stones again (because, again, having had my run, I don't see the need to be greedy).
But Townshend and Daltrey don't get out from under your skin that easily.

the boston tea party: magic, part 3

Springsteen in Boston
11/18 & 11/19/07

So let's get a few things straight: Sunday was not the epiphany that people made it out to be. I know a lot of people who had fun on Sunday because they were with friends, or hadn't seen a show in a while, but let's call a spade a spade. Bruce was not feeling well, his voice had very little power, and the E Street Band was playing on different frequencies for more than a few songs. He mumbled the "Living In The Future" rap and forgot a key line (the one about "your circumstance") and then he trivialized (I thought) the end of it.

But, the good things: "Tunnel" was amazing to hear and "Jackson Cage" also a nice visitor, and it's hard to find anyone sane that's going to argue about "Jungleland," ever. The big difference that made the show for me was the crowd. The crowd is what made "No Surrender" into a goosebump experience instead of a shrug of the shoulders. MSG night 2 may have been a better show, and maybe a better "Jungleland" in terms of pure musical performance, but the crowd was flat and empty. In Boston, the crowd elevated the band, and Clarence nailed the sax solo with incredible power and precision.

But if I had had to fight for tickets to this show (they were put in our hands by yet another wonderful ticket fairy) I would have been pissed. There, I said it. I know, I know, every show is a wonderful gift and if I don't like it I don't have to go. This is an argument I am so tired of having. Going to multiple shows gives you the perspective of being able to differentiate between average and outstanding. Night 1 in Boston was average. Average in the Springsteen world is still better than many bands' soundchecks, but still a disappointment. It made me feel that the tour had not progressed one iota past the last time we saw the band, and made me wonder if the band being on what can only be termed "long rest" (to be tiresome and use a baseball analogy because I am lazy, and because it is the only other comparable thing) between shows is a very very bad idea.

And then we had night two, which came out of nowhere. The band was tight, Bruce was focused, and the setlist brought you shock after shock - to people who take a lot to shock at a Springsteen show. You want to think you're going to get some tour rarities at the last night of a leg, but no one expected every goddamn organ song in the world to make its way onto the setlist and be played with love and joy and energy befitting 10 or 20 years earlier. "10th Avenue" was a shocker but then again it shouldn't have been, not this night. But "E Street Shuffle" *and* "Kitty's Back" in the same show? And then "Sandy" for good measure?

(Astounding to me sometimes that I can say "20 years earlier" and be speaking from experience.)

There are other things to note, that "Working On The Highway" is retaining the water spray from Reunion, and I still like it as much as I did on Reunion, and that the redeemable thing about the performance of that song is that Bruce is channeling Elvis on the Louisiana Hayride, which can never be a bad thing.

We have decided that even with the Joe Torre benefit and Steinbrenner seats aside, that Bruce Springsteen is a fairweather baseball fan. No self-respecting Yankees fan would have given the Red Sox that kind of moment. And to bring back the Fenway shtick about "that team from - from- from - New - HAVEN" was silly. Except, of course, the Red Sox fans will cheer anything they can right now, and good for them to. MMmmmphf. (That's the sound of righteous indignation.)

There were about 20 enormous BIG MAN or CLARENCE banners behind the stage on Monday. Was there an anniversary I was unaware of? The winning signs were the person in the front row of the upper deck with the florescent "Be True" sign (that said "Thanks Bruce" on the other side), and the big bedsheet THANKS BRUCE, WE [heart] YOU that appeared during the encore, also in the upper deck.

And I know I am finally old, because the waving of the cell phones during the encore break just breaks my heart. The boyfriend blames Bono, but it is not entirely his fault. On the one hand I am glad we are not smoking so we do not have lighters in the profusion we did even 10 years ago, on the other hand I will go grumble about the good old days and go put on my first pressing of Wild & Innocent (with the yellow title). I will accept my curmudgeon-dom with good grace. Let me know if I am making room for you there.

(I am aware there are things I may not have touched on but I have another piece I wrote for Backstreets and until I know if it is to be published I do not want to recycle the ideas here.)

this says it all, really

"Because Steve Perry's cover story for the October 1989 issue of Musician magazine called them "The Last, Best Band of the 80s," and the next month, Jon Bon Jovi wrote a letter that asked, "How can the Replacements be the best band of the 80's when I've never heard of them?"

from all over but the shouting, review forthcoming

joe strummer: the future is unwritten

So I've been waiting to see this for I don't know how long, and it HAS been a long time. This was supposed to be it, this was supposed to be THE definitive documentary about Joe. I bought tickets in advance, we got to the theater early and stood in line for half an hour to get a good spot. That kind of obsessive.

On the one hand I loved the unconventional approach taken, not yet another boring documentary with hours of headshots and voiceover gravely intoning the details of the subject's childhood. And I knew who the players were, so it was fine for me. But all I could think was, what about the people who haven't read every word written about John Mellor and the Clash? We're documenting Joe's legacy and we can't be bothered with a small unobtrusive caption identifying who the person was? I mean, ya know, I *think* that was Bobby Gillespie, but I wasn't sure, and would it have not been punk rock to let people in on the secret?

And maybe that was it, but the whole "punk is a secret world only for the insiders" ended a long time ago, especially for Joe. The whole point of the campfires was inclusion, and Joe was INCLUSIVE. Wouldn't it have been meaningful for people to know that Mick Jones was doing the interview from the same counsel block (if not the same apartment) that his grandmother lived in, with its view of the Westway, the ledge he purportedly wrote "London Calling" on? Why deprive someone of that if they don't know it? People weren't born knowing punk rock legends, they learn them. Why not teach a whole new generation and the generations after this one?

Even if the film wasn't meant as definitive, but more of an oral history, I'll point out that none of the major players are getting any younger. It's hard to get them all in one place and it may never happen again. Just the most basic of conventional documentary standards would have served Joe's legacy well, without choking on conventionality.

The campfires. They became so important to Joe, but we don't learn this until the end of the movie, which is filmed from the vantage point of someone looking into the campfire, not as a member of the campfire, another thing that seemed exclusionary and foreign and, well, not Strummer, ya know? I felt excluded, and I consider myself a distant member of the tribe, the girl who skipped her senior prom to see the Clash at Bond's Casino. The boyfriend, who values Joe's place in the rock pantheon, felt that even more strongly: "Okay, I get it, we're not invited."

Maybe I'm reading too much into it but for two different people approaching the movie from the two places people are likely to approach this work, it seemed a valid sample size.

I don't know why Simonon wasn't part of it. If it was his ego, get the fuck over it already. If it was the ego of the filmmakers, I don't even know what to say. Even Mick showed up and was, I felt, reasonably honest about things. Not, of course, that I pretend to really know what went on - only the men involved will ever truly know - but I felt like he stood up and honored his friend and their band and their work with his honesty.

Finally, a touch of brilliance to overlay Joe's BBC broadcasts. It was like he was there, and had never left.

It just could have been so much more.

bruce at the joe torre benefit

(for those who don't know: it's not a benefit for joe torre himself, it's for his charity, which is a very worthy cause)

Bruce rewrites "California Sun" in honor of Torre going to manage the Dodgers.

There's a serious case of denial in this house.

the petty documentary

I have to say that when I heard about a 4-hour documentary about Tom Petty, even if it was directed by Peter Bogdanovich, the last thing I wanted to do any night was sit down and watch it. But it was taking up 4 hours on the DVR and it was either watch it or not, so I agreed to watch an hour.

And watched all four. Avidly.

It will probably sound ignorant in the extreme when I offer that on one level it amazes me that there was a significant enough story to comfortably fill four hours without feeling thin. It's not so much ignorant as myopic, I think; I was never an *enormous* fan and kind of stopped following his career around Wildflowers. And probably ignored some of the commercial releases after Damn The Torpedos, because, well, it was everywhere and you didn't have to work for it or look for it.

But I liked Petty, even if he struck me sometimes as an absolute bastard. He was definitely one of the good guys.

The documentary is priceless for many things (including the fact that someone around Petty had a video camera since the band's VERY FIRST TRIP TO CALIFORNIA, not to mention every single other moment after that), but the winning footage to me is the evolution of the Wilburys. What luck to have such great interview footage with George. What serendipity that the camera was there the whole time. How sad that they never got to tour. The footage of him working with Johnny Cash - even more breathtaking than Petty and Orbison.

I sat there the entire time going, "Oh, yeah, *that*, I forgot about that." The tour with Dylan. The fight over the $9.98 album price. Filing for banktruptcy, which at the time I didn't even begin to understand. How good the videos were, and how many of them were so iconic and still hold up today. The unsung talents of people like Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench.

I also felt that the coverage was fair but not fawning. Howie Epstein's death, Stan Lynch's departure - these were the things that were not ignored, not glossed over.

Even if you think you don't care about Petty, if you are at all interested in the history of rock and roll, this is worth the investment of your time. And for Petty, it's a dignified representation of his legacy; there's no other word for it. Would that other artists of his stature use this as a model. (Hint, hint.)

those romantic young boys

I don't think I'm selfless enough to spend nine minutes holding a video camera 1) in the pit 2) through THIS song, but I'm awfully glad this person did. Incident from St. Paul.