Bruce Springsteen on Broadway

I got news for you, you don’t get to tell the “working men” who their hero is.
They chose Bruce, and they stuck with him. You can write all the essays you want, nothing’s going to change that.

 

Bruce never had a regular job, and yet the struggle of the working man is usually what he writes about. I think he even jokes about this in this broadway show?

Bruce is no working man - but does anybody really believe that? I don't think so. Even though the last time he had to worry about money was about 1982, his image has remained that of a regular guy, and someone who might be easy to identidy with for your average man/woman.
However, I don't think you can deny the sincerity in his lyrics and delivery.
I know Bruce is worth x amount of millions/billions - but when he sings about the everyday problems I have experienced at various stages in my life, he comes across as genuine in my ears. I sincerely think he means it. I don't think that when nobody's looking he laughs about his stupid gullable audience.
Of course he knows that he or his family will never have to struggle in certain areas of life. But read his very honest book. His parents struggled with many things. As did his older siblings. Bruce himself opens up about this mental health, too. All in all; even though money hasn't been a problem since Born in the USA, his life has had struggle too, many of which made and continues to make its mark on him. His channel of communicating this is very often his music. Had he not been genuine, I think people would have called his bluff a long time ago.

As far as the music goes; yes, his two first records are nothing like what came after. But people, their influences, and consequent directions / focus change.
Apart from Ac/Dc and to a degree Iron Maiden, I can't think of a major band/artist that have remained in the exact same vein as their debut album?

 

Hardest working man still in show business.

 

What about Bob Dylan and his never ending tour?

 

When is the last time Dylan played 4 hrs without a setbreak?

 

Or 80 shows in 4.5 months?

 

Hardest working man in rawk'n'roll? Surely Warren Haynes.

 

Great review by my friend Jim Beckerman of Bruce on Broadway! Springsteen on Broadway reviews: A newer, more somber Boss

 

Springsteen has never stayed in one place. His music changed (whether you want to say matured or not). He tried something different from the E Street band for a bit. He did the solo acoustic thing. He did a tour where they played a different album each night. This is just another thing he is trying out (it kind of goes hand and hand with his autobiography).

I don't know if anyone has done anything similar before. I don't know if others will try it and if they do whether it would work for someone else.


Actually, I don't know if I would really want to see the show, but I would rather see it than a broadway version of an album (e.g. Tommy).

 

Tommy was a real show and the first time anyone made a version of Tommy with a close to intelligible narrative thread through the end.

 

I grew up with baseball. My mother was in a group that had season tickets 20 rows behind home plate. In 1988, I missed the series when my company sent me to Tokyo. That was a lifetime ago.

The only musical equivalent I can think of is seeing Paul McCartney for the first time on the Flowers in the Dirt Tour.

 

Baseball games were fun when they were 50 cents for a kid under 14 in the yellow seats at the Vet.

 

Dodger prices are high, but you can still get top deck tickets for $10 on StubHub on game day. There are also usually a decent number of tickets for playoff games (Division and League series, World Series is a different matter but they never get there) in the $50 -$100 range, on Ticketmaster. This year was an exception - demand is very high.

 

I get it, a large faction of Springsteen fans love that he plays 3-4 hours a night. That does not automatically qualify Springsteen has the "hardest working man" in show business. The point is that there are many artists who work consistently hard and frequently. Bob Dylan has been touring non-stop, every year since 1988, often averaging over 100 shows a year.

 

I have to paraphrase one of the New York Times commenters in the review of the show: Springsteen on Broadway, Bill Murray at Carnegie Hall. This is truly the bizarro world we're living in.

 

FYI, the first boot is starting to circulate.

 

Being a Giants fan you could Kay me to see a Dodger playoff game

So off office topic but the rivalry still continues.

 

Curious,what is the proper way to Kay you?

 

I am having a hard time reckoning Bruce will be doing 'the same show' so many performances in a row. I know in essence each show is different. It's the nature of live performance. Words in the text may have some different shades of meaning from one performance to the next, whether spoken or sung. I keep wondering though if he is going to be able to maintain, or want to, LIMIT himself to one set of songs one night after another and within the confines and around the context of one set of spoken text as well. I think this is what interests me the most, outside of the narrative and performance itself. On a lighter note, seems Bruce didn't have to change his wardrobe much

 

But songs, by definition, are about melodies and Bruce never wrote great melodies. It doesn't mean he didn't write great songs - lyrics and passion and performance can elevate songs to levels that transcend their individual elements. But he had the one great theme - the leaving, breaking away, hitting the road, and he expressed it from the second half of Wild, the Innocent through the first half of The River as well as anyone, from Hank Williams to the Sex Pistols has ever dealt with adolescent alienation, but after that it was marketing and reliance on the same type of live schtick that got Elvis crucified.

The Landau/Marsh marketing team created a commercial monster and he's ridden the wave well, but when was the last time anyone asked Julianne Phillips how she feels when she hears "Come Tomorrow"?

There are a bare handful of Springsteen songs that are as important to me as any songs I ever heard, but there is so much marketing involved with his post Born in the USA career that, honestly, I'd rather hear Neil Young sing "Johnny Magic" a hundred times (and I think "Johnny Magic" is one of the worst songs I ever heard,)

End of late night hyperbolic rant. Just get so sick of the mythology surrounding an artist who hasn't written a memorable (hummable) song in thirty years.

 

You may have a point, but the Elvis part not so much. Elvis was crucified (?) by turning into a joke on stage. Bruce has, like it or not (and I don't like all of it) never become a live joke when performance is rated. He is a living live performer of legendary status. If marketing played a part, it was after he already proved his worth, and I don't see any huge decline into crucifiable schtick at this point. Besides that, Elvis nailed himself to whatever cross he was on.

 

And I believe a good portion of that isn't about him per se, it's about both who he is and where he came from. I mean, given his father's fitting the working man who didn't always work to a tee, he put that situation and the realities of it into words over and over again, as it clearly was a central part of how he defined himself and others in his music.

 

Playing the longest shows seems like a sign of being the hardest working to me.

Playing completely solo is another.

And while these shows are shorter, can you think of any other famius rock artist that has done 80 solo shows (or shows period) in a 4 month period?

 

Back at home now, I'll see if I can address your questions. What makes it unlike anything I have ever seen? I come from the rock n roll world, while I've seen a tiny bit of theater/musicals this was different. As @Rfreeman stated above, it was a whole-cloth performance, the spoken passages weren't simply stories of "How I wrote this song" they were prose approaching an almost poetic presentation. It was a script which I suspect varies very little from one night to the next. I haven't read Bruce's book but I understand that some of the spoken passages are lifted from it.

Why is it so unique and allegedly impossible for any other artist to pull off? My comment was "...I can't think of anyone else who could pull this off." I'm not saying that it's impossible for anyone else, merely I am not aware of anyone who could do it. Here again, I'm from rock n roll, there certainly are performers who execute dramatic soliloquies much more complex night after night. But in most cases those performers didn't compose the work, not to mention the writing and performing of the music. the only person I can think of who might be able to do this would be Dylan, but he doesn't seem to have much to say on stage these days, and has let the music do the talking for most of his career. Maybe there are others who could do it, I just can't think of them (having thought a bit more --Elvis Costello?)

The show evoked a wide range of emotions, Bruce told some very funny and self-deprecating stories. He also told some stories about his parents which ranged from poignant to amusing, stories of growing up in NJ, and getting the band together. When he came to the tribute to Clarence Clemons there were few dry eyes in the house.

Before seeing the show I was hoping for a sanctioned download to be made available but with so much of it being spoken word I don't think it would stand as an audio-only concept. I'm not sure even a home video would be effective.

Hope I answered your questions.

 

After 50 years of proving himself I have to guess that Springsteen came up with a unique and satisfying aproach to this show and your descriptions sound like he has.