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Michael Dorf presents
The Music of the Who
Carnegie Hall, March 2, 2010

The tribute show is an odd duck in some ways; who’s the audience supposed to be? Is it fans of the artists performing, or fans of the artist being feted? Fans of the artists performing don’t automatically have context or even knowledge of the music being played, while fans of the celebrated artist can be a tough audience. They can be terribly critical. And they can be outright demanding sons of bitches.

The latter statement would accurately describe your average Who fan. We were ridiculously demanding OF THE ACTUAL BAND. There was no way anyone coming on the Carnegie Hall stage was getting off easy tonight, not in front of this crowd.

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It is always hard for me to try to explain what is it, exactly, that moves me so hard with the old soul singers. It was the stuff I was the most drawn to back when I first turned on the radio and listened to the signals floating in from Chicago or Detroit. The stuff I love the most has its heart, its roots, in it. I would kill or die for a good horn section. I could not have fallen in love with someone who didn’t appreciate Otis Redding. I am closest to people whose idea of dance music is Stax or Motown. It is why I find it hard to resonate with most anything new, and have come to terms with that fact. It is why Greg Dulli can almost do no wrong (if you’ve never heard him singing “Having A Party” solo piano, go find it on the internet now).

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Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
HSBC Arena, Buffalo, NY
22 November 2009
Greetings From Asbury Park

I am still trying to find the words to talk about Buffalo. I walked out of the venue Sunday night feeling drained yet exhilarated. I wasn’t bouncing off the walls, dying to start processing and analyzing and taking the show apart, the game of connect the dots, the simple act of keeping the feeling of the show alive by talking about it. It was a quiet, solemn walk to the parking lot, a complete contrast to the emotional explosion that happened inside the HSBC Arena. Two days later, I am wistful and nostalgic and ruminative. I am also over-sensitive, exhausted and emotional. Greetings played on the iPod on the way to work has me unexpectedly crying down 7th Avenue.

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My writeup of The River from Sunday night is now up at brucespringsteen.net.

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Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
Madison Square Garden, 8 November 2009
The River

As I will tirelessly remind everyone, the key to success with the album shows is with how Bruce frames the rest of the show around the album. Saturday night we had a stunning, monumental album performance, with a second half that kept me wondering when it was going to start to get interesting. If I thought I couldn’t forgive him for “Sunny Day” after “Jungleland,” that was nothing compared to enduring “Sunny Day” after “New York City Serenade” on Saturday night (although to tell you the truth I was so stunned that it took me a few minutes to recover and he could have been playing the Mexican Hat Dance - although the Mexican Hat Dance would at least be novel and amusing, unlike - oh, nevermind). I had already gone on record saying that I would be willing to forgive him “Sunny Day” after “Wreck On The Highway,” except that last night he picked up A DIFFERENT GUITAR and was about to play something else completely different, only to call the entire band over for a conference after which they ALL have to switch guitars in order to play - “Sunny Day.”

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Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
Madison Square Garden, 7 November 2009
The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle

The title of the record tells you the story: The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle. It is the story of Sandy, Kitty, Billy, Rosie, Spanish Johnny and Diamond Jackie. It is an album of epics. It is not an album of half-measures.

This is why there was both a full horn section and a string quartet onstage this evening. Walk tall, or don’t walk at all, as the song goes.

These were the songs you always wanted to hear, the big legends, a million words spilling out. It was an enormous album to wrap your head around the first time you heard it. It was equally enormous to sit there and take it all in as it was being played in front of you.

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Pearl Jam playing the last song (well, second-to-last) at the last show at the Spectrum, 10/31/09. More here.

I will miss that room.

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Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame Benefit
30 October, 2009
Madison Square Garden
Featuring: Aretha Franklin, Jeff Beck, Metallica, U2

In 30 million years, I honestly never expected it. Everyone was blah blah blah Mick Jagger, blah blah blah Bob Dylan, blah blah blah. We knew how early the Bruce setlist had leaked out the previous day and so stayed far, far away from the internet. Seeing Bruce with U2 was on the bucket list, but we didn’t know how it would ever actually come to pass.

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More later.

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Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame Benefit
30 October, 2009
Madison Square Garden
Featuring: Crosby Stills and Nash, Simon & Garfunkle, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band

I am not particularly monogamous when it comes to rock and roll loves. I like a lot of things, I am diverse, I have varied tastes. I can debate you favorite Chuck Berry songs (”Nadine”) as hard as I can debate you favorite Ramones songs (”Here Today, Gone Tomorrow”). I am not someone who walked into last night’s show planning to file my nails or watch the ballgame until Springsteen walked onstage. I might not have loved everyone in the lineup but I fully intended to participate with intention.

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