Le Interviste del Boss

Stirring the Faithful
By Jim Farber
New York Daily News, April 01, 2001

Stirring the Faithful

Springsteen's new live set's as good as they get.

Let's be honest. Any Bruce Springsteen fan must, by law, own every one of his albums, including the two live records he recorded prior to this one. With Springsteen, either you have no interest in the guy or you live in a perpetual state of awe, ever-kneeling at the Church of Bruce.
This begs the question: Why would anyone in the latter group (to which, you should know, I belong) buy a third Springsteen concert album that features 17 songs we all own in at least one, if not two, incarnations?
No less than five reasons spring to mind:

• It's been nine years since Bruce put out a concert record ("MTV Unplugged") and - can you believe it? - 16 since his last live LP with the E Street Band.
• There's significant sentimental value to these original blood brothers coming back after more than a decade apart. There's also the local connection, since the set was recorded at Madison Square Garden. Moreover, this represents the guys' first full release together in 13 years (not counting the five songs they cut for the "Greatest Hits" album in 1995).
• A pair of terrific new songs appear on the two-hour set, including the headline-grabbing "American Skin," which raised a commotion for addressing the Amadou Diallo shooting.
• Lots of these performances feature far different arrangements than the originals.
• C'mon. Are you gonna ignore a concert disc by the most electrifying live rock solo performer of the modern era?

Springsteen re-establishes that he's exactly that on the very first track, "My Love Will Not Let You Down." It may have been an obscure choice to open the show, since it was plucked from the boxed set of cast-offs, "Tracks." But as delivered here, it's as rousing as a national anthem. Steve Van Zandt's killer guitar solos could mow down the entire cast of "The Sopranos."
The band's guitars often star in these takes: Nils Lofgren turning "Prove It All Night" into an aural equivalent of Viagra, for example. In "Two Hearts," the arrangement pushes the guitar higher in the chorus, bumping up the whole song, while "Badlands" proves so stirring it could lead people into battle - or out of it.
COMPELLING
In general, the slower numbers contain the most unusual twists. "Mansion on the Hill" goes hillbilly, with the help of a pedal steel. "The River" has an artier feel as Clarence Clemons' sax-playing turns mournful. "Born in the U.S.A." gets the Dust Bowl treatment, becoming a Woody Guthrie-style protest, while "Atlantic City," enlivened by a Celtic chorus, skews toward the optimistic.
Live, the new cuts catch the ear the first time you hear them. "Land of Hope and Dreams" earns its windy title, offering an alternative to "Mystery Train." While the Elvis classic saw the locomotive pulling people toward the grave, here a loco lifts them to freedom, buoyed by a hugely encouraging guitar line.
"American Skin," meanwhile, lives up to its subject through a compelling melody and skewering lyric. In one moment, Springsteen assumes the role of a black mother warning her child not to mess with the police for fear of tragic misinterpretation. In another, he presents racism as a central tenet of American culture - a view that carries genuine weight coming from the country's great white rock poet.
Would that the set included more of the new songs Bruce offered on the tour. Three others turned up on the year- long event. But it's hard to carp given the quality of what's here and given the spirit that drove the reunion. Countering pop music's normal view of romantic love as paramount, Springsteen and the E Street Band's show centered on the power of friendship. In the album's best moments, you'll feel the relationship extends not only to the people onstage but to everyone who listens.

by Jim Farber

New York Daily News, April 01, 2001

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