Springsteen in Hartford

From the desk of Ned P. Rauch:

Two nights ago I was sleeping on an island in East Penobscot Bay, off Deer Isle, in Maine. Last night I was at a Springsteen concert in Hartford, Conn. Following are observations about the latter (and maybe a few about the former thrown in):

1. Springsteen’s still got it. His latest album had me worried, and with good reason: the thing is awful. But he and the band are on fire. Twenty-eight songs with no set break. Even the two songs from the terrible new record came across well, no mean feat. Somehow his voice is in terrific shape, and his guitar-playing sizzles.

2. E Street Glam: Clarence Clemons, the sax player, paints his fingernails gold (I know because I brought my binoculars with me). And Garry W. Tallent, the bassist, wears sparkly silver shoes. Who knew?

3. In the middle of every show these days, Springsteen solicits requests from the audience, who oblige by writing their fave tunes on clever signs and passing them toward the stage. In Hartford, Springsteen sifted through the signs and chose to play “Mountain of Love,” an old 1960s pop tune he used to play in the '70s, “Be True,” an original that got left off “The River,” and “Sha La La,” by Manfred Mann. That last tune the band had never, ever played before. They just took a few minutes to scratch their heads, recall the main riff and work out the bridge. Does anyone else, anywhere, do that? And the thing is, the band nailed all three songs. Hats off to them.

4. Just in case you’d forgotten, Bruce, Nils Lofgren and Steve Van Zandt are ridiculously good guitar players. I mean, they can rip. And while they’re not showy about it, every now and then they fire off a lick or solo to remind us that they can stare down the gunslingers. And drummer Max Weinberg has found all sorts of new fills, which isn’t easy when you’ve played many of the songs about a billion times.

5. The show opened with Nils, pianist Roy Bittan and organist Charlie Giordano playing accordion. Any other rock band you can think of that begins a show with an accordion front like that?

6. A few songs before the end of the show, Springsteen plugged a local charity that distributes food to homeless shelters and soup kitchens. Then he fired up the old Stephen Foster tune, “Hard Times, Come Again No More.” Though he gave his all to each song, he really cut into that one.

7. Two guys sitting behind me—mid-40s, concert t-shirts, lots of beer—worked really, really hard to charm the two women sitting next to them. We were in the lawn (this was a SPAC-like venue) and when one of the guys said he was going to get more beer, his friend asked how he’d be able to find his way back. “Easy,” the beer-getter said, “I’ll just look for the two most beautiful girls in the place.” One of the women held up her hand to show her ring. “Sorry, married,” she said. Later, when I looked back during “I’m on Fire,” they were all slow dancing, one guy with his shirt off, the woman guiding his hands all over her body. Points for persistence, gents.

8. The show’s most chilling tune was “Something in the Night,” one of three songs from “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” If you don’t know that record, get to know it. It will cut you to pieces and sew you back together.

9. Springsteen brought nearly a dozen women from the audience up on stage for “Dancing in the Dark,” a la Courtney Cox in the video. Some of them were crying.

10. Nils and Steve play through Fender amps; Springsteen plays through a pair of Marshalls. Just sayin’.

11. Clarence flubbed his first solo, which came in the first song, but he was aces for the rest of the night. Of all the guys, he seems to have  suffered the effects of aging the most. He’s also seven or so years older than everyone else in the band.

12. Springsteen didn’t do a whole lot of preaching or storytelling, but he did say this, “Tonight we’re going to build a house of music, of spirit, of noise. And we need you to make the noise.” It worked. We made a lot of noise. Plus, it’s a nice sentiment, isn’t it? A house of music, spirit and noise? Sounds like a nice place to live.

13. During the closer, “Twist and Shout/La Bamba,” Springsteen stumbled around the stage, grabbed hold of his mic stand and fell to the ground. Steve ran over, fanned his face and poured water on his head. Then a guy in a white lab coat came out and strapped an oxygen mask to Springsteen’s face. Finally, after much ado, Springsteen staggered to his feet and finished the song. It was great. Who does that? No one. Of course it’s kitsch, but it’s such committed kitsch that it works.

14. He played “41 Shots,” a song he wrote about a shooting in New York City in 1999 or so. White cops shot an unarmed black guy 41 times, killing him. They thought his cell phone or wallet was a gun, if I remember correctly. A family who before the show had been kvetching about Obama’s health care proposals left during that song. Their loss. It’s a great tune.

15. Interested in which albums were represented at the show? Thought so. We had three from “Darkness,” two from “The River” and two from its outtakes, one from “Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ,” one from “The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle,” two from “Working on a Dream,” one from “Nebraska,” two from “Born to Run,” two from “Born in the USA” and two from its outtakes and three from “The Rising.” Throw in a few covers and you have a nice little spread.

16. As for Maine, two great friends and I spent a few days canoeing from island to island. What a beautiful place to be. If you ever find yourself pushing off from Stonington, make your way to Gooseberry Island (it helps to buy a chart in town). A little spot of paradise is what that place is. We ate periwinkles. Good if you’re starving, I suppose; a bit chewy otherwise.

(Photo of Springsteen playing Comcast Theatre, in Hartford, taken by Cloe Poisson and lifted from the Hartford Courant's Web site. The Courant is the country's oldest continuously published paper, and it's a good one. Like a lot of metro/regional papers, it's had an awfully rough go these last few years, which is too bad, as Hartford, like all communities, needs strong, courageous, knowing and resourceful journalism. Remember: buy your local paper. It's important.)