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Last summer, a good friend of mine played a clip from Springsteen’s “Live in Dublin” DVD to illustrate a point he had been making about Springsteen’s skill in tapping different influences in American music from Gospel to the blues.
The song he played “Eyes on the Prize,” a traditional folk song based on a hymn, a song that carried many a soul on its back during the Civil Rights movement. I was stunned by what I heard. The performance wasn’t something a semi-talented pop culture relic would have been capable of recording.
When my friend asked me to go see Springsteen on his latest tour, I thought “Why not? Let’s see if the guy can do the same thing working with his own material instead of USDA-certified Prime American folk songs.”
What I do know is what good music sounds like and what it can do for people who need some kind of support or (re)affirmation in a troubled world.
With Springsteen’s Dublin album, I had gotten a huge, savory bite of that musical sustenance. My expectations were set high — perhaps unreasonably high.
At first, I was let down. If you’ve gotta experience some pain to know and value pleasure, then that night in Milwaukee was sulky sour-turned-heavenly sweet. The day had gotten off on a bad foot and had not improved much by the time I set foot on the floor of the Bradley Center. Even worse, a 15-minute late start turned into a half-hour, then doubled again until finally the band came out on stage.
No explanation was offered to the many working stiffs in the audience who shelled out $100 per ticket to see the show. If one legitimate, irrefutable criticism of the evening could be offered, it was that Springsteen’s tardiness was out of touch with and inconsiderate of the blue-collar fans who have been so faithful to him over the years — people who are likely facing some tough financial times ahead.
It took me the entire first set before I could even begin to feel an interest in the music, but as I became more attuned to the performance, I began to feel a bit better, more connected to the people around me.
My mood clearly needed an adjustment, and that’s exactly what I was given that night, an adjustment from some kind of latter-day spiritual, heartland Gospel music tinged with the blues nearly everyone in this country seems to have been feeling lately.
Springsteen’s concert turned into a sort of transcendental experience not religious, but deeply spiritual, both an affirmation of the unstated fears over possible economic disaster and a
positive, uplifting expression of communal spirit.
As the Cream City crowd sang along with the band and waved lit cellphone screens in the dark, it reminded me, in tone and spirit, of a weird candlelight vigil for working-class America.
A critic from one of Milwaukee’s newspapers commented on Springsteen’s ability to, as a performer, “take themes that are serious, even somber, and craft them into music that is upbeat and, against all odds, exhilarating.”
If Springsteen’s somber, serious themes are his sermon to his audience, then the dynamic and inspiring music he plays is his benediction.
Coming out of the concert, I was in a completely different place than I was when I walked onto the floor in a sullen, closed-minded mood.
The message I took away with me from Springsteen’s blue-collar revival meeting was a resounding “We’re hurting, but we still believe.”
Mindful of the lonesome valley we’re passing through as a nation, the performers and crowd joined in a statement of faith in the American people’s ability to turn things around, and the anticipatory hope in, as Springsteen put it that night, “the end of the eight ugly years of magic tricks.”
To crib a few lines from the great Cab Calloway, if you write off Springsteen as a aging pretty-boy, heartland rocker without much of message beyond soft-focus romance and patriotism as I once did, or if you need an injection of faith in your fellow Americans, then you could use a little churching up. Slide on down to the local arena-turned-amen corner and catch the Rev. Springsteen and listen to what he’s got to say.
Winona native Wyl Schuth was recently honorably discharged from the United States Marine Corps. He has returned to civilian life and is now double-majoring in English and Slavic languages at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He can be reached at swedish. rhapsody@gmail.com.
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