Thanks for the letter, Matt. I don't think there is sufficient awareness from Team Springsteen just how much damage the pricing of his tour, and the cavalier response to it, has done to Bruce's reputation, possibly his legacy. I have little more to say about it because I am no longer an active concert goer, but I will say that tickets to many concerts even today cost less than the parking charge at Belmont. My essay here jumped around; it wasn't a chronological take, so it's typically intuitive of you to follow a through-line. I just think the catalog is so large now that you could replace 3/4 of the show I heard with different material and still have a great, typical Springsteen show. WR
It's really interesting to hear your take, Wayne, as I've been knee-deep in the tour's opening leg--although I was really shaken by the Ticketmaster stuff in my personal Springsteen faith, I keep circling back like a lapsed Catholic showing up on Christmas Eve.
A lot of the fan reaction has been that this set is too static, which only matters if you expect to see more than one show; and that it doesn't have a strong enough "story," which to read your reaction, seems to be totally untrue. I tend to agree; I think there is a pretty clear thru line in his setlist here and while it isn't accompanied by the same preacher-like histrionics of the 1999 reunion shows or even the 2012 Wrecking Ball shows, it's still very apparent.
I do think it's a story he's told before, namely on that aforementioned Wrecking Ball tour, which existed in the shadow of Clarence Clemons' death; to me, that album and the shows that followed are Springsteen grappling with loss on a personal and political level. Since then, the Letter to You record and this delayed tour to support it feel like the first proper Springsteen album he's put out since Wrecking Ball; there's been detours and quite beautiful ones in the case of Western Stars.
But it's really been a race between Springsteen and the black rider since at least 2012, maybe earlier, and so I do wish he'd push himself a bit more creatively to explore something new--I would have loved a Western Stars tour after its release, and even now, I'd be interested in how he could interpret the cultural quicksand our political landscape sits upon. I guess maybe that's my own expectation thwarted rather than anything he's failing to do. When you've written the songs he has, played the shows he has, lived the life he has--what else is there to reckon with but the end?
Thanks for the letter, Matt. I don't think there is sufficient awareness from Team Springsteen just how much damage the pricing of his tour, and the cavalier response to it, has done to Bruce's reputation, possibly his legacy. I have little more to say about it because I am no longer an active concert goer, but I will say that tickets to many concerts even today cost less than the parking charge at Belmont. My essay here jumped around; it wasn't a chronological take, so it's typically intuitive of you to follow a through-line. I just think the catalog is so large now that you could replace 3/4 of the show I heard with different material and still have a great, typical Springsteen show. WR
It's really interesting to hear your take, Wayne, as I've been knee-deep in the tour's opening leg--although I was really shaken by the Ticketmaster stuff in my personal Springsteen faith, I keep circling back like a lapsed Catholic showing up on Christmas Eve.
A lot of the fan reaction has been that this set is too static, which only matters if you expect to see more than one show; and that it doesn't have a strong enough "story," which to read your reaction, seems to be totally untrue. I tend to agree; I think there is a pretty clear thru line in his setlist here and while it isn't accompanied by the same preacher-like histrionics of the 1999 reunion shows or even the 2012 Wrecking Ball shows, it's still very apparent.
I do think it's a story he's told before, namely on that aforementioned Wrecking Ball tour, which existed in the shadow of Clarence Clemons' death; to me, that album and the shows that followed are Springsteen grappling with loss on a personal and political level. Since then, the Letter to You record and this delayed tour to support it feel like the first proper Springsteen album he's put out since Wrecking Ball; there's been detours and quite beautiful ones in the case of Western Stars.
But it's really been a race between Springsteen and the black rider since at least 2012, maybe earlier, and so I do wish he'd push himself a bit more creatively to explore something new--I would have loved a Western Stars tour after its release, and even now, I'd be interested in how he could interpret the cultural quicksand our political landscape sits upon. I guess maybe that's my own expectation thwarted rather than anything he's failing to do. When you've written the songs he has, played the shows he has, lived the life he has--what else is there to reckon with but the end?