Springsteen. On Broadway.
The first time I saw it, eight months ago, I felt that my cells had been rearranged.
by Holly Cara Price
It was a night in late October and I sat in the theatre with one of my dearest friends, one with whom I’d seen dozens of Springsteen concerts over many decades. We grasped each other’s hands in giddy excitement before the lights went down much the same way we probably did in our twenties. The seats were great; I’d been dubbed a Verified Fan for the on-sale (oh, the irony) and by the time I got through to buy them everything I could afford was gone.
No matter: I plonked down that $700 (x2) without a care in the world. It was Bruce! I conveniently erased the knowledge that I had insane bills hanging over my head and rejoiced. This took me back; it was how I’d lived a good part of my life between 1978 and 1999. Always flat broke. But somehow I always found the plane fare; the car fare; the ticket money.
During the performance I laughed, I cried, I mostly cried, I was completely and utterly cleansed by my tears. I walked out of there a different person. Not only had I now seen the world through a small boy’s eyes in 1950’s Freehold, New Jersey — I also saw my own childhood again, saw the love and agony of my own parents, saw my parents trying and failing to provide me with a perfect world. As Bruce Springsteen’s parents tried and failed. Because there isn’t one.
Everything I had seen and heard during the past forty years of observing this artist’s work now slotted into place through the prism of the unwieldy jigsaw puzzle that is real life. His memories; his dreams; his fantasies; his dreams and most of all, what he calls his Magic Trick. The Magic Trick: making something out of nothing. Making a boy a king, or a rock star. Pointing a guitar at the ceiling, and leaping up to catch the future.
It’s a catharsis for both performer and observer. He peels himself onstage like an onion, and there are many tears. Tears in his eyes, and tears from the audience. Woe betide you if you do not bring tissues; you’ll be a red-eyed sobbing mess in no time. That is my counsel and you’d be well-advised to heed it. That being said, it also felt to me like my body was in an ice bath, then licked by flames, then bereft, then euphoric. As with every Springsteen show I’ve ever seen, the euphoria does come and it makes it so you can walk out into the world afterwards with your own dreams intact and thriving.
The first time I saw Bruce Springsteen was in August 1978 as the Darkness tour had hit its stride (three months in). At that point, the tour was hurtling full throttle into Medicine Show Land. The Darkness Tour came to your town, availed you of potions and salves, and left you a happier, more fulfilled person who now knew the meaning of life. “Are you alive?” he asked the audience. They roared back assent. I was 23 years old and in the 19th row. I had been alive prior to that, but Bruce reminded me that I was. And through him reminding me, I became more alive than I had ever been.
This is his genius. It’s the same with the Broadway show. You’ll awaken to your aliveness, just as I did. If it’s your first Springsteen show, it can change your life. This has happened to many people I know; not everyone, but well over 95 percent. However, this show is different than anything else he’s ever done. Not because it’s a solo performance — he did that before, twice. It has little in common with either the Tom Joad or Devils & Dust Tours.
This show is fashioned all of a piece, and it has a consistent message throughout. We are assembled together to learn about Bruce Springsteen and why he has lived his life the way that he has. At which point I will note that he’s consistently been different from any other performer I have ever known. He made decisions based on his art; not commerce. This was the main reason it took so many years for his music to become an overnight sensation in 1985. 1985 was literally twenty years after he first took the stage with an electric guitar, in high school. It could have happened earlier, but Bruce was incredibly, indelibly stubborn. It was his way, or the highway.
And therefore his way is now the highway, because that is what happens when the world catches up with leaders and iconoclasts. He is now the bellwether, whereas when this all began he was merely a singer/songwriter and guitarist. A hell of a lot of magic stuff fell into place and, eventually, not only did he make his parents proud, he also changed the world. And many lives. Including mine.
Meanwhile, like everyone else in the hushed audience, who no longer need to be shushed a la the classic Shut The Fuck Up days because they’re older, wiser, and more respectful — and also they paid a hell of a lot of money to be there, more than they ever paid before to see Springsteen. Like everyone else there, I can’t stop looking or listening to every word and fall silently inside each song with my heart completely open.
I have never seen anything like his command of an audience and this has been true since 1978. Especially in this setting, it’s a finely honed art: the crowd might as well be a musical instrument he’s mastered, as he did the guitar, with lots of practice. Obsessive practice. The stories are personal but also universal and this is the case in every language and culture. He has always had this gift. This Magic Trick.
What has changed, as far as I can tell, with the publication of his autobiography and eventually this show, is that he has become, if anything, more blindingly honest with his audience. He tells it like it was, for him, and we hang on every word. Because what it does is bring us all the way around; more so even if you were there from the beginning; it makes sense of the last 35 years of this man’s life. To him, and by extension, to us.
And if we’re lucky, it also makes helps us make sense of our own lives. This, too, is his Magic Trick. There is literally nothing more magical.
