Ghosts of Concerts Past
Oct. 1st, 2002 06:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davidschrothI saw the Bruce Springsteen concert in St. Paul last night. Also in attendance (that I know of) were ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lsanderson, minnehaha, Barb Jensen, laurafish, and Rachel Fish.
The plan was thatlaurafish and I would pick up lsanderson and Rachel Fish in time to make it to Grand Shanghai by 5:30. We made it to Grand Shanghai some time after 5:30. Had what I thought was a pretty nice meal. A fair amount of time was spent discussing Rachel's upcoming trip to Europe, with lsanderson supplying a number of dated, but probably useful, tips on visiting Amsterdam and Munich.
We left the restaurant just before 7:00, and were parked and in our seats by 7:30 (the nominal starting time for the concert). And there we sat, and tried to chat, and sat, and sat. At some point, we established that I'd been to more than ten Springsteen concerts in my life - three in the Twin Cities, one in Houston, one in Frankfurt, one in Munich, at least three in Phoenix, and at least three in Los Angeles.
Around 8:30 the band finally came on stage and started to play. This was the latest I'd ever seen the band start playing in all the time I've been going to their concerts - they rarely start on time, but I've never known them to start more than a half-hour after the nominal starting time.
This is the second concert I've gone to this year (the first was Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. With most of Booker T and the MGs acting as the band). It's definitely the better of the two concerts I've been to. Even though it was a good concert, I'd have to rate it as maybe the third worst Springsteen concert I've ever been to (the concert in Frankfurt was probably the worst. The one in the L. A. Coliseum was probably the second worst).
Over the years, I've come to expect several things from a Springsteen concert. He'll do several songs with totally different arrangements than I've ever heard before. He'll do one or more covers that will either be a lot of fun, or they'll be extremely moving. He'll do several between song monologues that will add immensely to the experience. The music, live, will be better than what I get from the records. The band will be crisp and tight.
The arrangements of the new songs hewed pretty closely to their arrangements on the CD.
The arrangements on his old songs were all arrangements I'd heard before. Worse, they weren't even the best arrangements of the songs I've heard (No Surrender is much better as a solo, acoustic piece, IMHO).
There were no covers, at all.
The between song monologues were AWOL, for the most part.
The new songs seemed better off the CD than live.
And the band, for much of the evening, seemed just a little off.
In the past, IIRC, he has opened shows with several songs back-to-back in a Spectorish "wall-of-sound" sort of arrangement. And so he did on this show. But my memory has the opening set sounding very clean. This opening set sounded a little muddy to me (perhaps this is a function of where my seats were in the Excel Center).
In my mind, much of the "problem" results from Roy Bittan's infatuation with synthesizer sounds. The songs where Roy stuck with piano only worked better, for me.
Overall, throughout the concert, I kept thinking of the E Street Band as the musical equivalent of the Portland Trailblazers of recent vintage - an assemblage of talented performers that never quite jelled into a cohesive team. I like the new violin player - I think she added a lot to the sound. And there were times during the concert when each musician seemed to stand out (it was fun seeing Danny playing the accordion again in concert. I wonder if I'll ever again see him playing the tuba?). But there was, in my opinion, when it wasn't quite right. Times when having three guitar heroes playing on the same song just didn't seem to work for me.
There appeared to be some forethought in the set list. The political remarks he made (sounding rather more intelligent than our Commander-In-Thief) led, very nicely, into Born in the USA.
Despite all my carping, I had a good time. And I enjoyed the show. Really I did.
It's just that I've enjoyed so many other of his past shows so much more than this one. And I wonder if I've reached the point where no future shows can ever match up to the memories I carry of past shows.
lsanderson, minnehaha, Barb Jensen, laurafish, and Rachel Fish.The plan was that
laurafish and I would pick up lsanderson and Rachel Fish in time to make it to Grand Shanghai by 5:30. We made it to Grand Shanghai some time after 5:30. Had what I thought was a pretty nice meal. A fair amount of time was spent discussing Rachel's upcoming trip to Europe, with lsanderson supplying a number of dated, but probably useful, tips on visiting Amsterdam and Munich. We left the restaurant just before 7:00, and were parked and in our seats by 7:30 (the nominal starting time for the concert). And there we sat, and tried to chat, and sat, and sat. At some point, we established that I'd been to more than ten Springsteen concerts in my life - three in the Twin Cities, one in Houston, one in Frankfurt, one in Munich, at least three in Phoenix, and at least three in Los Angeles.
Around 8:30 the band finally came on stage and started to play. This was the latest I'd ever seen the band start playing in all the time I've been going to their concerts - they rarely start on time, but I've never known them to start more than a half-hour after the nominal starting time.
This is the second concert I've gone to this year (the first was Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. With most of Booker T and the MGs acting as the band). It's definitely the better of the two concerts I've been to. Even though it was a good concert, I'd have to rate it as maybe the third worst Springsteen concert I've ever been to (the concert in Frankfurt was probably the worst. The one in the L. A. Coliseum was probably the second worst).
Over the years, I've come to expect several things from a Springsteen concert. He'll do several songs with totally different arrangements than I've ever heard before. He'll do one or more covers that will either be a lot of fun, or they'll be extremely moving. He'll do several between song monologues that will add immensely to the experience. The music, live, will be better than what I get from the records. The band will be crisp and tight.
The arrangements of the new songs hewed pretty closely to their arrangements on the CD.
The arrangements on his old songs were all arrangements I'd heard before. Worse, they weren't even the best arrangements of the songs I've heard (No Surrender is much better as a solo, acoustic piece, IMHO).
There were no covers, at all.
The between song monologues were AWOL, for the most part.
The new songs seemed better off the CD than live.
And the band, for much of the evening, seemed just a little off.
In the past, IIRC, he has opened shows with several songs back-to-back in a Spectorish "wall-of-sound" sort of arrangement. And so he did on this show. But my memory has the opening set sounding very clean. This opening set sounded a little muddy to me (perhaps this is a function of where my seats were in the Excel Center).
In my mind, much of the "problem" results from Roy Bittan's infatuation with synthesizer sounds. The songs where Roy stuck with piano only worked better, for me.
Overall, throughout the concert, I kept thinking of the E Street Band as the musical equivalent of the Portland Trailblazers of recent vintage - an assemblage of talented performers that never quite jelled into a cohesive team. I like the new violin player - I think she added a lot to the sound. And there were times during the concert when each musician seemed to stand out (it was fun seeing Danny playing the accordion again in concert. I wonder if I'll ever again see him playing the tuba?). But there was, in my opinion, when it wasn't quite right. Times when having three guitar heroes playing on the same song just didn't seem to work for me.
There appeared to be some forethought in the set list. The political remarks he made (sounding rather more intelligent than our Commander-In-Thief) led, very nicely, into Born in the USA.
Despite all my carping, I had a good time. And I enjoyed the show. Really I did.
It's just that I've enjoyed so many other of his past shows so much more than this one. And I wonder if I've reached the point where no future shows can ever match up to the memories I carry of past shows.
