Up until my late 40s I was never a Bruce Springsteen fan. Oh, I was aware of him, because it was impossible not to be. In the 70s my only recollections were that he co-wrote “Because the Night” with Patti Smith which was her biggest hit and that he wrote “Blinded by the Light”, a hit for Manfred Man. Then of course there was the anthemic “Born to Run” and the album cover that helped sell millions of Fender Telecasters. My preference at the time was Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Lou Reed along with old traditional blues. Much of my choices were coming from an angry teenager rebelling against some of the rubbish Molly Meldrum was promoting to number 1 in the charts on Countdown. Anyone remember Pussyfoot and “It’s not the way that you do it?” or Christie Allen’s “Goosebumps”? I rest my case! (I still love Molly though! Go Saints!)

When the decade turned, I was in the army and discovering punk and post punk music, in particular Australian heroes such as The Saints, The Go-Betweens and The Triffids. At the time Australia was dominated by Liberal state and federal governments with the added ignominy of Qld, where I spent 4 years under the borderline fascist rule of the Bjelke Peterson government! It wasn’t until the late 80s through the Fitzgerald Inquiry that the true scale of the corruption was exposed which meant more anger from us youth at the time, accompanied by a soundtrack of some fantastic music.

Unfortunately I had become such a belligerent music snob that I did something I regret to this day. In 1985 I was playing football in Brisbane (I lived 2 hours away in Toowoomba) and one of my team mates couldn’t attend a Bruce Springsteen concert after the game and needed to sell his ticket. There were a few players going so I bought it and joined 60,000 others at QE2 stadium I think it was. Unfortunately I got so wasted after the game that I literally stood there like a zombie and justified it by challenging Bruce’s perceived pro-nationalism given it was the Born in the USA tour. If I’d actually listened to the lyrics of that particular song I might have realised the anti-war message and stopped behaving like an ignoramus.

Fast forward 30 years and I meet Lynda, a devotee of Bruce, The Beatles and Dylan. She seems surprised that I wasn’t into Bruce and throws me his 1982 album, “Nebraska” and says something like, “try this you miserable bastard”. It’s dark, brooding and beautiful. I’m hooked. A few years later Bruce and the E Street Band come to Melbourne and he delivers an incredible 3 and a half hours of sheer joy. This is a man who can sing to a stadium but make it feel like he’s directing it solely at you. He puts so much into a show that it’s impossible for him to leave the stage and return for an encore because he would seize up! I’ve been a big fan ever since. If you haven’t been to an E Street concert, this is what you can expect. They are rumoured to be back in Australia in 2020.

Lat month we saw “Blinded by the Light” a film inspired by the true story of a couple of London born Pakistani kids who idolised Bruce. It was fun and layered with Bruce’s songs of course. I went home afterwards and read Bruce’s 2016 autobiography that Lynda owned called naturally, “Born to Run”. It’s a 500 pager but it didn’t feel like it as it’s so well written that you can hear Bruce’s Jersey drawl  coming off the pages. 

He had a tough upbringing in the New Jersey suburbs and had some serious Dad issues which he worked on over the years. He suffered homelessness and was broke a few times even when he’d made it to a recording artist. He’s been successful due to an insatiable work ethic, a genuine love of music and hunger to improve all the time.  He’s open and honest about his ego and his failures and like us all, there’s been plenty. 

There’s also plenty of self-deprecation like the time he allowed his Dad, an alcoholic, chain smoking, 280 pound man to organise a fishing trip in Mexico just after he hit the big time with “Born in the USA”. Having just finally made some money, he feared he was going to drown with his old man on a dodgy boat in the Gulf of Mexico! Then there was the infamous “Dancing in the Dark” film clip. His first foray into MTV and the director chose a young girl, Courtney Cox from an agency in New York to dance with Bruce on stage. Bruce had no idea who the girl was or whether she would go on to be a star on the tv show Friends. He just struts out a standard cheesy 80’s dance complete with “white man overbite” and gets it done. Years later Bruce reckons every time that clip would come on tv, his kids would yell out from the loungeroom, “Hey dad you’re dancing with Monica again!” followed by a huge guffaw and a collective slapping of thighs!

It was interesting to read that Bruce has been racked with anxiety all his life to the point where around 2014/2015 he could barely get out of bed. He’s recovering now which leads into Western Stars, but it’s been a hell of a ride. He’s eternally grateful to his wife Patti and his 3 kids. Behind every great man there is an even stronger woman, no more evident than in Neale Daniher’s case having read his book in the past 2 days.

Whether you’re a Bruce fan or not this book is a fantastic insight into a great artist. 

Western Stars is an album Bruce recorded earlier in 2019, and this film was on limited release in cinemas and will go to Netflix shortly. It is filmed in a massive, 100 year old, spectacular barn on the Springsteen property in New Jersey. There are 30 odd musicians including an orchestra and about 50 lucky bastards in the audience! Bruce and band play the album and interspersed between the songs is gorgeous cinemaphotography of Joshua Tree National Park. Bruce takes us through each song, of the why’s and how’s they came about. Much of the imagery is beautiful but we would have liked to have seen some of his own photos and vision from his earlier years. As a young man he ventured across the USA, precariously I might add, in dodgy station wagons or pickups in search of fame a few times and that’s where he discovered his love of the country. He describes those adventures magnificently in his book.

All the Bruce themes are there in his songs, cars, roads, unrequited love, regret, lies, hope and lots of metaphors. The camerawork is very intimate and he may be the “Boss” but it’s very clear who Bruce knows is the Boss! Patti is a fine musician and singer in her own right, mother to their 3 children, so therefore Bruce knows where his bread’s buttered! There are some lovely moments throughout the film of them coming together particularly during the track, “Stones”. At 82 minutes, the film left us craving some more. 9/10

It would be remiss of me not to mention the E Street Band. The connection Bruce has with the artists who make up the E Street Band goes beyond anything professional. It’s love, and together they became the greatest live act on earth. After ‘Born in the USA” in 1985 and a gruelling worldwide touring schedule they had a break of 11 years. In 1996 they regrouped in New York to put together a greatest hits album and record a few new tracks. The occasion was recorded on video as “Blood Brothers”. It’s a ripper and shows both why Bruce is called The Boss and just how gifted the musicians are to enable him to fulfil his vision. They have been touring together ever since, only stopping to occasionally record and for Bruce’s recent solo Broadway show which was originally planned for 8 weeks and went for 14 months, grossing $113 million dollars at the box office.

Another recommendation if I may, would be a recording of the E Street Band playing in front of 120,000 fans in Hyde Park London in 2009. It’s terribly cliché but I love the fact they start with The Clash’s “London Calling”. Naturally the crowd goes beserk, but as Bruce points out in his book it was a huge thrill as he was a big fan of the Clash and their singer Joe Strummer. Bruce admired his courage and felt he had a bit in common in terms of not having the greatest voice but plenty of determination and energy to offset it and deliver.

Finally, a regular part of any E Street concert is the requests. Audience members bring in song requests painted on any manner of things, cardboard, paper, seat covers! and Bruce collects them. At some stage in the next 3 hours he will select some, but I thought this an example of the skill of the E Street musicians. The song is ‘You never can tell”, the original by Chuck Berry is synonymous with the film “Pulp Fiction”. Clearly it was a long time since Bruce had played it and I’m not sure many of the band had either. Fumbling around in front of 80,000 fans?, not a problem for the E Street Band when you reach an outcome like this.

Bruce Springsteen is a proud family man and lives away from the paparazzi in his home state of New Jersey with Patti. They have 3 children, Evan a musician based in New York, Jessica a world class equestrian and Sam a firefighter in New York. He has overcome significant adversity to achieve what he has today and fingers crossed it continues. Bruce isn’t the greatest singer, nor is he the greatest guitarist. Hell, he can’t even read music! He just get’s it done and that’s why he’s adored by so many. Lynda gave me this quote in order to sum up The Boss:

A diamond doesn’t start out polished and shiny. It once was nothing special but with enough pressure and time it becomes spectacular.