BRUCE IS BORN TO RUN ... AND RUN
Superb souvenir of Springsteen’s epic stint in theatreland
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: Springsteen On Broadway (Columbia) Verdict: The Boss hits the bright lights ★★★★✩
The past few years have seen a quiet revolution in live music, with artists seeking fresh ways to present themselves.
Some have recreated classic works with orchestral backing, as Roger Daltrey did with The Who’s Tommy on his American solo tour this summer.
Others grant exclusive backstage access or open up pre-gig soundchecks to fans.
For Bruce Springsteen, it’s been a season in New York theatreland. As a man who made his name singing big, blue-collar anthems at the helm of the e Street Band, the move to Broadway was unexpected, but his natural performing instincts help him to pull off a dramatic transformation.
This live album is the soundtrack to his Tony Award-winning stint at the Walter Kerr Theatre.
The residency, which began in October 2017, finishes tomorrow when the curtain comes down on the 236th performance of a show that was, inevitably, born to run. A film to accompany the album airs on Netflix from Sunday.
Watching a preview of the picture in a London screening room, there were moments when I felt like jumping up to applaud his brilliant acoustic versions of Dancing In The Dark and Born In The USA.
On the record, shorn of director Thom Zimny’s visuals, the equivalent of a frontrow seat, his tendency to ramble becomes more apparent.
his scripted monologues still paint a revealing picture of the man, though, and he wastes no time in debunking myths. Recalling his smalltown upbringing, he opens with an admission: ‘I come from a boardwalk town where everything is tinged with just a bit of fraud . . so am I. .
‘ I wasn’t any race cardriving rebel or street corner punk. I was a guitar player on the streets of Asbury Park.’
he goes on: ‘I was born to run, not to stay. My home, New Jersey, is a death trap. Listen to the lyrics: “I gotta get out, I gotta hit the highway. I’m a roadrunner, I’ve had enough.”’
The punchline? ‘I live ten minutes from my hometown . . . but Born To Come Back? Who’d have bought that?’
Springsteen, 69, has staged one-man shows in the past. I caught his 2005 Devils & Dust tour in London, a lo- fi production featuring him playing pump organ, banjo and percussion. But he’s never done anything like this, revelling in his skill as a raconteur with a stand-up comic’s timing
PReFACINg
each song with a long introduction, and drawing on his 2016 memoir, he speaks fondly of his mother and frankly about the troubled father he calls ‘my hero and my greatest foe’.
A tale about retrieving his dad from a local bar — ‘his sacred place’ — is told with a brilliant eye for detail.
The music is more revealing, if less colourful, in acoustic form. My hometown benefits from elegiac piano — Bruce’s musicianship is often unsung.
But Tenth Avenue FreezeOut — so reliant on the late Clarence Clemons’s soulful sax work — loses something.
On Tougher Than The Rest and Brilliant Disguise, the singer is joined by his wife, Patti Scialfa, but the most enduring moments come from his stories.
‘I’ve never held an honest job in my entire life,’ he admits.
having spent four years taking stock on 2014’s high hopes (unreleased songs, gathering dust), 2016’s Chapter And Verse (an adjunct to his memoir) and now this, he is probably ready to move on.
SPRINGSTEEN On Broadway is out today on CD and streaming services. It is available on Netflix from 8am on Sunday.