Then how do you explain the fact that last summer’s tour was the first time he’s played “Rosalita” in YEARS?
Explain the popularity of “The Rising” or “Waiting on a Sunny Day” or “Mary’s Place.”
It’s easy to dismiss Springsteen’s newer work because it’s not all over “classic rock” radio or whatever Clear Channel and Infinity are feeding the masses, and so it’s easy for a member of said masses to assume that it’s not as good.
But the difference between a fan, a discerning listener, and a drone is that a fan is more likely to accept everything, a discerning listener is likely to give evrything an equal shot in context, and a drone is likely to dismiss whatever hasn’t been vetted by five hundred thousand other drones on the say-so of a program director with a twenty-song playlist.
I don’t care what category you fall (or anyone falls) into.
But to say that “people endure” certain segments of Springsteen’s (or anyone’s) music is an absurd overgeneralization.
Again, though, I don’t mind.
The fewer people that interrupt my appreciation of the diversity of Bruce’s concerts with their whines of “why won’t he play the hits?!?!?” the better. Not that there are many of those at Springsteen concerts to begin with.
You want a Springsteen concert with only the songs YOU want? Buy the live records and skip the tracks you don’t like.
Me? I’ll be at every show, hoping that THIS will be the one where he pulls out Gary U.S. Bonds.
To put it more succinctly…
Astorian, you’re making an ass of yourself; you really have no idea what you’re talking about.
I saw Springsteen Friday night in St. Pete. I paid $110 for two tickets, and was glad that he did stuff off Devils and Dust.
He did not play a single “Hit.” Not Rosalita, not Born in the USA, not Glory Days, not Hungry Heart, not a single friggin’ song from Born to Run. The quasi-hits he did do – Atlantic City, Promised Land – were radically redone. The biggest cheers were for “Cynthia” and “Devils and Dust,” and he closed with “Dream, Baby, Dream.”
Here’s the current tour setlist. Read it. Doing “Growin Up” on a fucking ukelele?! Yeah, that’s a nostalgia act. Just coasting, he is. :rolleyes:
As to the OP: No, I don’t share his politics, but that’s not a problem as #1, I share his concerns (we just have different ideas about how to address them) and #2 I’ve never for a second gotten the feeling he’d hold my politics against me. In other words, he was not a preachy “Bush is an idiot and so is anyone who votes for him” type. He just supported his guy and let it go at that. Anyone that has a problem with that is pretty thinskinned IMO.
And as to his music changing, I think it’s one of his best traits. Granted, I’m a younger fan (got into him seriously with Tunnel of Love, believe it or not), so I don’t have the emotional ties to the late 70s that some do. But to me, there would be nothing more pathetic than a 50-something dad still writing songs like “Ramrod,” or even performing them without a certain self-awareness of the irony. He’d be Mick Jagger; and I think Mick Jagger is an idiot.
He’s grown and, yes, aged, and that comes out in his music. But that’s why his fans love his new music, because they’re growing and aging, too, and you feel like you’re moving along with him. He’s quite comfortable with not being 25 anymore, with being a married guy with kids, and that’s why he resonates with his fans. He’s not a “rock star” – we feel a certain kinship with him.
I love the fact that he’s addressed his own fame and wealth and the ironies of that – “It’s a sad funny ending, to find yourself pretending/ A rich man in a poor man’s shirt.” It would be almost disingenuous for him to keep writing stuff like “Badlands” in the first person, so he doesn’t. His songs are much more plainly about characters other than himself and drawn from things other than his personal experience; again, another thing that happens as you grow up.
I had a long post thought out, then saw that furt beat me to it.
Astorian, you have no idea what you are talking about. Every time Bruce rolls through SoCal I usually see at least half of his concerts. Multiple nights means multiple set-lists. He has evolved and grown as we have.
Time for me to put *Live In New York City * on the stereo and crank it up.
You may notice that there is a minor gap in the fabric of reality in this thread. We had a “sock puppet” who had posted several times, and who has had several different identities on our boards. We have therefore caused his posts to disappear.
This is our standard practice with trolls and sock puppets. If they see that their efforts vanish into smoke, we hope that they will go away and stop pestering us.
Unfortunately, this causes a bit of a hiccough in the logic of the thread. That seems a small price to pay, but sorry about it anyway.
