Walk like a Man (25 page)

When Finn tells the audience that “there is so much joy in what we do up here,” this is what he's talking about.

There really is so much joy. That's what it's all about.

Let's face it—life can be pretty shitty. Often, at best, mind-numbingly routine.

But there are moments . . .

Some of them you see coming. The birth of your child. The sight of your soon-to-be-wife walking toward you on her father's arm. The first copy of your first book.

Other moments you just go with. You find the joy you can, and you hope it will sustain you through the dark.

That's why I'm here, pressed up against the stage, ears throbbing, hands sore from clapping, just about ready to fall over from drink.

This moment, right now.

The moment in “Your Little Hoodrat Friend” where Craig hits the lines “she's got blue black ink and it's scratched into her lower back. it said: ‘damn right i'll rise again.' yeah, damn right you'll rise again,” and everyone in the audience hits them with him.
¹⁹
I'm part of a sea of voices, a feast of friends. A Unified Scene.
²⁰

The moment when Craig sings my favorite lines from the new album, from a song called “
The Smidge
”: “Make the sign of the cross with your cigarette. Come on, smudge a little smoke up in the night.”

It's the moment that they finish the show with “
Stay Positive
,” as if they knew it was exactly what I needed to hear.

Yes, there is so much joy.

In this moment, for just this moment, I'm out of my own head.

I'm feeling the music in my soul. The kick drum is catching the light and it looks like the beating of my heart. For this moment, for just this moment, everything is all right.

It's grace in 4/4 time, with a back beat and a guitar solo.

. . . the kids at the shows,

They'll have kids of their own,

And the sing-along songs will be our scriptures.

“Stay Positive,” THE HOLD STEADY

1
. I suppose I should say something about “
Atlantic City
,” shouldn't I? Considering the way this chapter is going to go. Well, “Atlantic City” is one of Springsteen's strangest singles, and one of his best known songs. Drawn from the
Nebraska
album, it uses the crumbling excess of the Jersey waterfront gambling mecca to chronicle two lives of desperation and possible salvation. It's one of Springsteen's most covered songs, having appeared in versions by Pete Yorn, The Band, and Counting Crows, among others. The version by The Hold Steady appears on
Heroes,
a benefit compilation of covers raising funds for War Child.

2
. Also helpful in this sort of trainspotting is to look at the covers Springsteen has chosen to perform over the course of his career, from warhorses like the “Detroit Medley” (made up generally of “Devil with a Blue Dress,” “Good Golly Miss Molly,” “C.C. Rider” and “Jenny Take a Ride”), The Beatles' “Twist and Shout,” and Elvis Presley's “Can't Help Falling in Love,” to more rarely performed numbers like The Animals' “It's My Life,” Bob Dylan's “I Want You” and “Chimes of Freedom,” Buddy Holly's “Rave On,” and Chuck Berry's “Carol.”

3
. The respect is clearly mutual: at the Grammy Awards in 2003, Springsteen and an ad hoc group that also featured Paul Simonon and Topper Headon of The Clash, Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters, Elvis Costello, and Miami Steve Van Zandt, performed the band's “London Calling” as a tribute to Joe Strummer.

4
. There's a great video at
countingcrows.com
of a 2007 performance of “Rain King” that includes “Thunder Road” in its entirety. The band segues effortlessly into the Springsteen song, incorporating it into the musical setting of their original with a deftness that makes it seem as if “Thunder Road” had been there all along. The opening line, in singer Adam Duritz's voice, is surprising and heart-stopping every time, and the moment the band shifts from the climax of “Thunder Road” back into the climax of “Rain King” only ups the ante.

5
. Yes, they're both car songs—I call 'em like I see 'em.

6
. That bridging of the gap between performer and audience is one of many, many dazzling moments in the 1978 Houston concert video included in
The Promise:
The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story
box set.

7
. Two of my three major musical regrets for 2010 are my failure to venture across the strait to Vancouver to see shows by The Gaslight Anthem and Arcade Fire. The bruises I have from kicking myself may be permanent.

8
. The tension between influences in The Hold Steady's work is addressed, with typical flair, in “Barfruit Blues,” a track from their first album
Almost Killed Me:
“half the crowd is calling out for born to run and the other half is calling out for born to lose. baby we were born to choose.” You should be familiar with “Born to Run” by now; “Born to Lose” probably refers to the track by punk band Social Distortion.

9
. Two interesting exceptions to this, for me at least? Miles Davis and John Coltrane. I discovered jazz in my early twenties. Yet it took me a while to appreciate it, beyond the level of mood music. I reached a point, though, where it just . . . hit me. Listening to Davis's
Kind of Blue
or Coltrane's
A Love Supreme?
I get that feeling in my chest, that delicate balance between joy and weeping, every single time.

10
. That being said, I do continue to have the experience of falling in love with individual songs. I may not be head over heels with The Black Crowes, but their “Soul Singing,” well, it makes my soul sing. Lissie's cover of Kid Cudi's “Pursuit of Happiness” and Mumford & Sons' “Little Lion Man” both wrecked me this year, in that musical-punch-to-the-solar-plexus way that I so love.

11
. And the one thing I know, with dead certainty, is that they're absolutely not going to perform “Atlantic City.” As far as I know, they've never performed it live. So yes, this whole “bonus track” thing is a bit of a bait-and-switch. Except for this: it really is a fabulous cover, and it definitely shows the role Springsteen has had in inspiring younger groups, and you shouldn't let the fact that I'm not really going to talk about it stop you from adding it to your version of this mix-tape. It really does round out the playlist nicely.

12
. The trouble with this book ending in 2005 is that it lacks in any substantial Colin content. Colin's one of my closest friends, a fellow bookseller. As rare as it is to fall in love with a band in one's advancing years, it's rarer still to find a new true friend.

13
. All of the lyrics in this section are by The Hold Steady, and are written by, in the most democratic band fashion, The Hold Steady.

14
. A year after the album's release, almost to the day, I had the
Stay Positive
symbol—an infinity sign with a plus sign at the point where the circles touch—tattooed on the outside of my right wrist. I wanted it there not as a celebration of the band or the record, but as a reminder to myself to, well, stay positive. Has it worked? The jury, it seems, is still out.

15
. I believe their second album,
Separation Sunday,
is one of the finest albums of the first decade of the new century. I could write a whole essay just on that.

16
. You can see why lyrics like these, all credited just to The Hold Steady, would appeal to a word geek like myself.

17
. Yes, you're noticing a trend: there's a close tie between Hold Steady shows and wilful public intoxication. (And for the record, it's not just us. The message boards are like scare stories for potential alcohol poisoning.) There's a line in “Constructive Summer,” the lead-off track from
Stay Positive
—“me and my friends are like double whisky coke no ice”—that Colin and I have taken to heart. Hard. It doesn't matter what we've been drinking at, say, the Lennox, all afternoon on the day of a concert: sometime before the show a couple of Jack and Cokes will magically arrive at the table, and Colin and I will toast and grin like the tweaked middle-aged rock geeks/teenage fangirls we are.

18
. Oh, hell—we've come too far together for me to be coy now. It's on YouTube. You can find it by typing in “Rosalita Tribute.”

19
. Though the songs are all credited to The Hold Steady as a group, it's easy to slip into the assumption that the words are Craig's; there's an honesty and directness to them that is reminiscent of Springsteen at his best.

20
. Ahem. Yes, there's a collective name. Like Tramps, some Hold Steady fans identify themselves with a phrase taken from one of the band's songs (well, two, actually): The Unified Scene. Yes, there are message boards. And yes, we all have nicknames (you kind of have to on a message board). And there are t-shirts. Not generic t-shirts, though. If you're a t-shirt Scenester, your shirt will have your number on it. And your nickname. It's like a team. Or a private club. Yes, I'm aware of how ridiculous that all sounds. It's also pretty cool. I'm very fond of my red Canadian-tour 2009 Scene shirt.

Bootleggers, Roll Your Tapes!

I
'VE PLAYED IT a little coy in these pages on the whole subject of bootlegs. I am, to be frank, a bit conflicted. I recognize the moral question implicit in buying recordings of live shows at which recording is verboten. That being said, I wouldn't be the Springsteen fan I am today, and this book wouldn't exist, without bootlegs.
¹

So I leave it up to you. Here's a chronological list of ten of the finest recordings of Springsteen's career, bootlegs that have the potential to change your life.
²
In our wired age, you no longer need to frequent dodgy record stores or send money orders overseas: these recordings are all available for online download. (No, I won't say where.
³
)

February 5, 1975 · The Main Point, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania

I discussed this bootleg at length in the “Thundercrack” chapter, but it's too good not to include on this list. It would be essential for the opening “Incident on 57th Street” alone, but the proto–“Thunder Road,” with different lyrics, under the title “Wings for Wheels,” is a revelation, and the cover of Bob Dylan's “I Want You” is so beautiful and powerful that the mere thought of it makes me ache. If I could have only one bootleg, it would probably be this one. Released as
The Saint, the Incident and the Main Point Shuffle, You Can Trust Your Car to
the Man Who Wears the Star,
and
Main Point Night
.
⁴

August 15, 1975 (early show) · The Bottom Line, New York, New York

This FM broadcast from the ten-show Bottom Line stand at the height of the first burst of Bruce-mania (alongside the
Time
and
Newsweek
covers) revealed a band exploding with passion and drive, at once tightly controlled and risk-taking. The slow, almost sultry “The E Street Shuffle” includes the now-classic story of how the Big Man joined the band. The covers of “Then She Kissed Me,” “When You Walk in the Room,” and “Quarter to Three” are bar-band classics turned up to eleven, and “Born to Run” is fresh and intense in a way it has rarely been since. Released as
The Great White Boss
and
Live at the Bottom Line.

December 15, 1978 · Winterland, San Francisco, California

I've said this before, but it bears repeating: there was a time when I wanted to collect every show from the 1978 tour. Choosing just one show for this list is a special kind of torture.
⁵
The Roxy show, the Passaic stand, the Agora concert—any one of them could be here. But for beginners, Winterland has it all: that long, delirious intro to “Prove It All Night”; a transcendent “Sad Eyes–Drive All Night” monologue in “Backstreets” that will take you out of your body; the rocking “Mona/ The Preacher's Daughter/I Get Mad/ She's the One”. . . It will, I guarantee, blow your mind. There are many who believe this is perhaps the ultimate Springsteen bootleg: I'm one of them. Released as
Live in the Promised Land
and
Winter-land
Night.

December 31, 1980 · Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, New York

One of the longest, and finest, Bruce Springsteen shows in the canon. The band rings in the new year, and the new decade, with thirty-eight songs, including the only performance of “Held Up Without a Gun.” The energy is over the top, and this one is absolutely essential. Some recordings include the pairing of “Incident on 57th Street” and “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” from the previous night, the only time the songs were performed as they appear on the album prior to the “whole album” shows of 2009. Wow. Just . . . wow. Released as
In the Midnight Hour
and
Nassau Night
.

July 13, 1984 · Alpine Valley Music Theater, East Troy, Wisconsin

A sentimental favourite, this show was one of the first bootlegs I owned, and it stands the test of time. With a roaring “Born in the U.S.A.,” a mini-set of
Nebraska
tracks, a goofy “Pink Cadillac,” and a fantastic cover of the Rolling Stones' “Street Fighting Man,” this is a perfect representation of the early
Born in the U.S.A.
tour. Released as
Alpine Valley
and
Alpine Valley Night.

May 3, 1988 · Shoreline Amphitheater, Mountain View, California

This is the show that formed the background music to This is the show that formed the background music to that conversation in the “Brilliant Disguise” chapter, and it captures the early stages of the
Tunnel of Love
tour, complete with horn section. “Rosalita” was back in the setlist. The opening pairing of “Tunnel of Love” and B-side “Be True” set the emotional tone for the show. The sweet, wistful “All That Heaven Will Allow,” complete with Springsteen and Clemons's park bench–set intro, is charming and affecting, while “Spare Parts” is a raging, cathartic burst. It's a fantastic show, and a fantastic tour. Released as
Roses and Broken Hearts.