I wasn’t supposed to be at this concert. A conscious decision was made not to spend money on a ticket to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band when they landed at the L.A. Sports Arena in support of Springsteen’s new album, Working on a Dream. No, I wasn’t supposed to be there, but Springsteen’s outstanding Super Bowl halftime extravaganza occurred the night before tickets went on sale. When that show concluded and I’d informed Sophie that I wouldn’t be in attendance at the April 15th show, she looked at me with pleading eyes and said, “But you have to go, Daddy, you just have to.” The next morning, after tickets were nearly sold out, Julie called me up to see if I’d purchased a seat. Upon informing her “no” she simply said, “Dude, you can’t miss Bruce.” It’s as if they both could see that maybe my soul needed some uplift and that maybe I would get that injection of life from the heart-pounding, soul-stopping E Street Band. While I still had Julie on the phone, I bit the bullet and bought my ticket.
As a general rule, when seeing Bruce Springsteen in concert, I do not check out the setlists from any show leading up to the one I’m attending. The thinking is that I don’t want to ruin the surprise of what Springsteen will be playing. However, I’ve been to enough of his shows to know that the Boss is constantly calling an audible, and lately he’s been taking requests from the crowd and pulling out rarities on a nightly basis. I decided to approach the evening differently. Instead of blindingly entering the venue without any idea what would be played, I decided to be informed — to embrace the ritualistic aspect of Springsteen’s performance, and offer an objective review for the Basement Songs a mere seven hours after the show wrapped. Going into last night’s show, I was well aware of the standard setlist and which songs would probably get played.
Still, I expected a different feel from the Bruce and the band on this night for they are a different E Street Band than the one I saw in Anaheim in April of last year. (more…)
In the Seventies, New York’s music scene was largely downtown in the Village area. Aside from all the traditional West Village clubs like the Village Vanguard, the Village Gate, Gerde’s Folk City and the Bitter End, two of the mainstays were the Bottom Line and Max’s Kansas City. Allan Pepper and Stanley Snadowsky opened the Bottom Line in 1974, and it quickly became an adjunct to the New York record business – the premier showcase spot for both new and veteran acts. The owners of the club worked closely with the major labels, and if you worked for one of these labels, you could walk into the Bottom Line on any given night, and you’d know enough record executives there to literally work the room for 30 minutes before showtime, meeting and greeting both your competition and your colleagues.