Dear Readers,


I now consider this blog to be my Juvenelia. Have fun perusing the archives, and find me at my new haunt, here.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Bruce at Madison Square Garden 10.18.07

BRUUUUUUUUCE.

That was one of the most amazing two and a half hours ever. Thanks to Bruce, Patti, Stevie. Clarence and the gang for making it so.

more tomorrow.

the voiceless, ringing-eardummed fellowette


UPDATE on 10.20

So maybe my regular readers (hi all three of you!) are wondering about why this swaggering, soul-patch having, guitar-strumming dude fits in with Egalitarianbookwormchickism, and why I'm so excited about him. I'll try to explain why the Boss fits in as an EBC while discussing Thursday night's concert at the very same time. To wit:

Bruce Springsteen concerts are not like other concerts---this is my third, and I'm definitely getting into the swing of how they work. They're essentially rock-concerts meet tent revivals, a sort of secular spiritual camp meeting if you will. The crowd of thousands and thousands stands on its feet close to the entire time, and has coordinated rituals, starting with the low-pitched shouting of "Bruuuuce" before the band shows up, singing an "oh oh oh oh oh" chorus at the end of Badlands that doesn't exist in the actual song, punching fists in the air in time to various choruses, and standing in awed admiration/ecstasy with cellphones (what happened to the good old days of lighters?) aloft during "Jungleland."

But there are plenty of bands that invoke that kind of following. What sets Bruce apart from the pack, I've decided, is what makes him an honorary egalitarian bookworm chick. First of all, he;s accessible to everyone, and I mean everyone. His rockin' tunes only exclude uber-snobs. That makes him egalitarian. Secondly. his lyrics are deceptively complex--see previous post below--and allegorical and evocative and beautiful. That makes him a bookworm, and a poet. And thirdly, by going to his concerts, lots of macho beefy dudes get to shout in unison to lines like "I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face" and "take a knife, and cut this pain from my heart" without losing face--a brilliant juxtaposition that I think partly explains the holy popularity of the Bruce concert ritual. So that makes Bruce an honorary chick, in my book anyway.

So I know that despite the transcendent heights that the concert reached. the Boss seemed a little subdued on Thursday. And I think it's because if you listen to his new lyrics and analyze them, Lit-major style, they may in fact be the most political he's ever written. He's very angry and ashamed of our country for falling asleep for the last six years, and disheartened by what our government has been allowed to do. I felt that in particular when he chastised the audience for cheering louder for cheeseburgers than for the Bill of Rights. But therein lies the irony of political art to begin with--people want art to simultaneously awaken them to reality and help them escape that reality. So even if people didn't know how to react to his policy-patter, he did have like ten thousand souls simultaneously singing "Who'll be the last to die for a mistake?" and he also had us affirming our belief in the promised land, or the land that was promised to us, anyway. And that is a great accomplishment in and of itself. Bruuuce.



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