By Tom Siebert
Rock giant Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band tirelessly tore through twenty-six songs in an astonishing three-hour concert before more than 40,000 fans, ranging from Zoomers to Boomers, at historic Wrigley Field on Friday night.
In the second Chicago show of his mammoth ten-month tour of North America and Europe, The Boss, an age-defying 73, blasted off with “Nights” from 1975’s Born to Run, the album that landed his picture on the cover of Time and Newsweek simultaneously, while Rolling Stone prophetically proclaimed him the “future of rock and roll.”
The sold-out ballpark crowd variously stood, sang, clapped, danced, and flashed fists, index fingers, peace signs, and cell phones.
The next number, “No Surrender,” from 1984’s multi-hit Born in the U.S.A., boasted one of the greatest lines ever written: “We learned more from a three-minute record than we ever learned in school.”
Yes, we did. And another verse rang relevant to America’s current state of division: “There’s a war outside still raging/You say it ain’t ours anymore to win.”
Then Bruce and the band fast-forwarded to 2020’s Letter to You album with “Ghosts,” a rollicking ode to deceased E Streeters Danny Federici and Clarence “Big Man” Clemons, who passed away in 2008 and 2011, respectively.
Like late-inning shadows during a twilight baseball game, the theme of mortality eclipsed this emotional event, which Billboard has heralded as the “greatest show on earth.”
Springsteen and his 17-strong ensemble lived up to that out-of-this-world billing, seemingly channeling the “let’s play two” eternal optimism of Cubs great Ernie Banks and turning the concert into a celebration of life.
The first of several arena rock anthems performed was “Prove It All Night” from 1978’s masterpiece Darkness on the Edge of Town.
The Wrigley rendition featured Bruce’s gritty guitar solo, the Wall of Sound five-piece horn section, and a thrilling call and response chorus by Springsteen and soulmate Steven Van Zandt.
The core members of the E Street Band are celebrities in their own right.
There is the eternal rocker Van Zandt, 72, with his piratic bandana, psychedelic scarves, and scintillating guitar. “Little Stevie” or “Miami Steve” took a hiatus from the band to fight apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s, and from 1999 until 2007, played mob consigliere Silvio Dante on HBO’s The Sopranos.
Drummer Max Weinberg, also 72, has performed in studio and on stage with Springsteen since 1974, moonlighting as band leader on Conan O’Brien’s three talk shows from 1993 until 2021. His own band, Max Weinberg’s Jukebox, shook Chicago’s Park West the previous night.
Multi-instrumentalist Nils Lofgren, 72 too, replaced Van Zandt in 1984, stayed on when Stevie returned in 1998, and is the longstanding guitarist for another legendary rock group, Neil Young’s Crazy Horse.
And bassist Gary W. Tallent has been at Bruce’s side ever since his amazing debut album Greetings from Asbury Park in 1973.
The rest of these virtuoso musicians are saxophonist Jake Clemons, nephew of the late Clarence; vocalist, violinist, and acoustic guitarist Soozie Tyrell; Roy Bittan and Charles Giordano, who each play both keyboard and accordion; saxophonist Eddie Manion; trumpeters Curt Ramm and Barry Danielian; trombonist Ozzie Melendez; and singers/percussionists Anthony Almonte, Lisa Lowell, Michelle Moore, Ada Dyer, and Curtis King.
On this hot August night in the not-so-Windy City, Springsteen touched all the bases of his five-decade career encompassing 21 studio, 23 live, and 8 compilation albums.
Each number ran breathlessly into the next––one, two, three, bam!
Every one of the band members and backup performers got a chance to shine during the 15-minute jazz jam “Kitty’s Back” from 1974’s The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle.
“Wrecking Ball,” title track from the 2012 album, told the story of a struggling New Jersey steelworker representative of the blue-collar workers who survived the Great Recession brought on by greedy Wall Street investors.
Like many of The Boss’ songs, it measures the aching gap between the American dream and its elusive reality, all the while holding onto optimism and patriotism.
If American philosopher Henry David Thoreau was right, and most of us live lives of quiet desperation, American rock poet Bruce Springsteen turns up the volume of our despair.
And he did it with a vengeance during “The Promised Land,” with eyes wide shut, right fist thrusting into the balmy late-summer air, and howling the frantic lyrics:
“I’ve done my best to live the right way/I get up every morning and go to work each day/But your eyes go blind and your blood runs cold/Sometimes I feel so weak I just wanna explode/Explode and tear this old town apart/Take a knife and cut this pain from heart/Find somebody itching for something to start.”
And as is often the case in his song-stories of distressed protagonists, the hope for a better day comes in the chorus: “Well, the dogs on Main Street howl ‘cause they understand/That I could take one moment into my hands/Mister, I ain’t a boy, no, I’m a man/And I believe in a promised land.”
In songs, interviews, and his 2016 autobiography Born to Run, Springsteen has opened up about his years-long struggles with clinical depression, stating that music has been the best help and healer.
Perhaps that collective recognition of human sadness is the strongest connection that he has with his loyal fans. How else to explain hundreds of thousands of everyday people––from Denver to Dusseldorf––cheerfully singing along to what are mostly life-sucks songs, albeit brilliantly written and performed?
Soul music is also writ large in the Springsteen songbook. On Friday night, Chi-town became Motown as Bruce paid homage to his Black influences, performing The Commodores’ “Night Shift,” from his 2022 covers album Only the Strong Survive, and reggae artist Jimmy Cliff’s “Trapped.”
At one point during the marathon concert, Springsteen shouted out: “IS THERE ANYONE ALIVE IN CHICAGO TONIGHT?!” The roaring crowd indicated that, yes, there is.
The new Boss is not the same as the old Boss. He doesn’t stand up on piano racks, dive across the stage on his knees, or tell personal stories between songs like he did when I saw him perform at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1985.
But his fingers still fly up and down the frets of his guitar, his serrated singing voice remains vibrant, and his rapport with the audience is as tight as ever.
Throughout this enchanted evening, the bellows of “Bruuuuuce” drifted across the hallowed ballpark, which was built in 1914 and underwent a five-year $740 million makeover between 2015 and 2020.
“Maybe everything that dies someday comes back,” Springsteen crooned wistfully in 1982’s “Atlantic City,” one of many great tunes that did not make this night’s still-impressive setlist.
The COVID-19 virus, which has claimed nearly 7 million lives according to the World Health Organization, has darkly shadowed the 90-date tour that began in Tampa on Feb. 1 and is scheduled to conclude in San Francisco on Dec. 12.
The tour itself was postponed for two years and a few shows earlier this year were either postponed or put on without either Clemons, Lofgren, Van Zandt, or Tyrell––all of whom had tested positive for the coronavirus.
The tenuousness of touring––and the fragility of rock life itself––was movingly personified Friday night by Bruce’s eulogy for George Theiss, who died in 2018, the fifth and final departed bandmate from Springsteen’s teenage group The Castiles.
“Death gives you the clarity to think about the purpose and possibilities of living right now,” Springsteen mused. “So be good to yourself, be good to the ones you love, and be good to the world around you.”
Then he stood alone on the titanic stage and sang the acoustic guitar-accompanied “Last Man Standing” from Letter to You.
The big-sounding band was back for “Because the Night,” a 1975 breakout hit for the Patti Smith Group. Bruce’s version showcased the brilliant electric guitar skills of Lofgren, who twirled and whirled while shredding his instrument.
The velvet-voiced E Street Choir was featured in 2002’s “The Rising,” Springsteen’s tribute to the 2,996 people who perished in the four terrorist attacks on U.S. targets on Sept. 11, 2001.
The mother of all showstoppers was “Badlands,” with its immediately recognizable drum-piano-guitar gallop that echoed the themes from the Western TV shows and movies that Springsteen grew up watching. The opening lines of the soaring song are typically in-your-face:
“Lights out tonight, trouble in the heartland/Got a head-on collision smashin’ in my guts, man/I’m caught in a crossfire that I don’t understand.”
Thousands across the storied stadium sang along: “Talk about a dream, try to make it real/You wake up with a fear so real/You spend your life waitin’ for a moment that just don’t come/Well, don’t waste your time waiting.
“Badlands, you gotta live it every day/Let the broken hearts stand as the price you’ve gotta pay/We’ll keep pushin’ till it’s understood/And these badlands start treating us good.
“Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa, badlands,” the Wrigley Field fan club chimed in unison.
Practically every song was a sing-a-long of sorts. But The Boss let the audience serenade him for the first two verses of “Thunder Road.”
“The screen door slams, Mary’s dress sways/Like a vision, she dances across the porch as the radio plays/Roy Orbison singing for the lonely, hey, that’s me and I want you only/Don’t turn me home again, I just can’t face myself alone again.
“Don’t run back inside, darling, you know what I’m here for/So you’re scared, and you’re thinking that maybe we ain’t that young anymore/Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night/You ain’t a beauty, but hey, you’re all right/Oh, and that’s all right with me.”
“Thunder Road” was the would-be closer of the concert, but after a brief interlude of darkness, the houselights came on for “Born to Run,” one of six stunning encores.
The sprawling song ended with a bang, several actually, as Weinberg performed an explosive drum solo while Springsteen waved him on like a third-base coach sending a runner home.
The crowd-pleasing follow-up was the 1974 salsa-tinged rave-up “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” as fan favorite Jake Clemons led the powerful horn section.
Then came the Number One hit “Dancing in the Dark,” with Bruce doing a dad-dance parody of his famous video duet with actress Courtney Cox in 1984.
Springsteen and Van Zandt mugged for the cameras during the seriocomic “Glory Days,” their hammy faces projected on the three towering video screens, as the audience was bathed in red, green, and blue lights.
“Stevie, it’s time to go home,” Bruce shouted to Van Zandt, who may have retired from politics but showed his support for war-ravaged Ukraine by brandishing a guitar bearing the blue and yellow colors of that country’s flag.
“I don’t wanna go home,” cried Stevie, as the rock legends seemed to be having as much fun as they did playing sock hops and VFW halls in their native New Jersey during the late 1960s.
Near the end of this dizzying, dazzling concert, the crowd was singing “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” so loudly that anyone in the vicinity of Clark and Addison streets got a free show, not a bad deal when tickets for the mega-event ranged from $90 to $5,000.
Those who paid the highest legally scalped prices were treated to Springsteen walking down stage stairs and ramps into the front rows, shaking hands, posing for selfies, signing autographs, and tossing out guitar picks and even his harmonica to one lucky fan.
Bruce has lots of guitars, picks, and harmonicas––and as Seinfeld’s George Costanza might say, “He can afford them!”
In his incandescent career, Springsteen has sold more than 140 albums worldwide and been awarded 20 Grammys, two Golden Globes, an Academy Award for Best Song (1994’s “Philadelphia”), a Tony for his Broadway show, a Kennedy Center Honor, and MusicCares Person of the Year honors. He is a member of both the Songwriters and Rock and Roll halls of fame.
And unlike the recent tours of music immortals Paul Simon and Elton John, these are not farewell shows. Both Bruce and Stevie have said they would tour nonstop, a la songwriting king Bob Dylan, except for family commitments and the availability of venues, road crews, and band members.
Following Bruce’s full-throated introduction of the E Street Band and backup performers, he took the stage alone with an acoustic guitar and sang the final encore, a tear-inducing “I’ll See You in My Dreams” from Letter to You.
In “Badlands,” Springsteen asserts, “It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.”
And it wouldn’t be wrong to hope that his Chicago sign-off was not goodbye but au revoir. Until we meet again.
