I Can’t Believe All Of That Belongs To You

So the other day, when I said that the September 1999 shows were my first Springsteen shows, I lied. Sorta.

For the occasion of the 1995 opening of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, a gigantic concert was held, and on the bill was Bruce Springsteen…and the E Street Band.

This was no small moment for Bruceheads; he hadn’t played with the full band live in a very long time, and some had given up hope that he’d ever reunite with the boys (and girl) for any further music. My girlfriend at the time lived in nearby Chagrin Falls, so I drove out to visit her and see the Boss for the first time…along with Dylan, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and what seemed like about seven hundred other bands over the course of a marathon all-day concert.

I recall 1995 for Bruce Springsteen mostly as the height of his “dirt-road troubador” phase, where he grew his hair long, wore it in a ponytail, and favored flannel shirts with the sleeves rolled up. He had just released The Ghost of Tom Joad and was touring solo with his acoustic guitar, his voice transformed to a Guthrie-esque mumble. He’d launch every show with a half-joking speech to invite his audiences to “shut the fuck up.” If you were lucky, he’d strip down one of his classic rockers and give it the folkie treatment in the encores.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC2bS2pwgwM?feature=oembed&w=459&h=344]

I don’t really know what the situation was surrounding the show; knowing Springsteen, it seems unlikely that the gang wouldn’t have met up at least briefly a few days before the show to rehearse. There had to be a bit of tension and hesitation.

But what I love about this cover of Big Joe Turner’s “Shake Rattle & Roll” is that you can hear the band learning to play together again, chomping at the bit to unload, slipping riffs into whatever opening they can find and stepping over each other occasionally in the process. Not in a sloppy way; this group couldn’t put on a sloppy show if their lives depended on it. It’s more of an unhinged exuberance.

Springsteen himself uncorks with a killer solo, but of course, only after giving Clarence Clemons a chance to skronk up the joint. Drummer Max Weinberg sounds like he’s trying particularly hard to maintain his composure through a fairly restrained blues shuffle beat; in fact, I’m almost certain you can hear him slowing the tempo down a bit about a minute into the tune.

The rest of the set would feature Springsteen and his band backing Jerry Lee Lewis and ending with a fiery if bleak take on “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” The only true nod to Springsteen’s own rock history is a version of “She’s the One” from Born to Run.

I was just coming into my own as a Broooce nutjob; even this small taste of the righteous firepower of the legendary E Street Band was enough to drive me bonkers with excitement. I was practically in the last row of the since-demolished Municipal Stadium, some shithole of a dump where the Browns used to play, and it was one of the finest musical moments of my life, like a family reunion you never imagined you’d be able to attend.