This story must begin with a memory.
Back in 1988, when I was writing about rock and roll, I went to see Bruce Springsteen play at the Nassau Coliseum in Long Island. Fellow Rolling Stones writer Mikal Gilmore and I were sitting in the front row on one side of the stage, and Bruce spotted us during the encore, gave us a quick wave (we’d both been spending time with him recently writing articles), and then he returned to the microphone and shouted: “This is for all you old rock critics!” Then he played the opening riff of “Glory Days,” a hymn to time gone by.
Incidentally, I was only 33 at the time, and Mikal was about two years older than me, so we weren’t old, so technically we could be called geriatric rock critics, and it was nice to receive any kind of devotion. But what is “geriatric”? Really? And this week, 36 years later, watching a 74-year-old Springsteen belt out the same song at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, I was forced to remember that night.
So, Bruce: This one’s for all you aging rock stars!
But you know what? Old rock stars can be a beautiful thing. Seeing Springsteen’s two concerts at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles in early April got me thinking about a concert experience I’ve had quite a lot lately: one in which an artist I’ve listened to for years uses the concert stage not just to play the hits but to explore whole concepts like loss and, you know, coming of age.
When I heard that The Washington Post had published an op-ed in late March titled, “Trust Meet Your Music Heroes Before It’s Too Late,” I figured someone would notice it. But I was wrong. The article, written by a conservative commentator who normally writes about politics, was a very stupid piece that listed over 130 artists that the person had seen or wanted to see, but said nothing interesting or insightful about any of them.
Still, it’s a good idea to see your musical heroes before it’s too late — as long as you check off the setlist against your mental checklist of hits you want to hear — but the truly priceless experiences are with artists who recognize that they and their fans have been on a journey that will last decades, and that has left us all older, more tired, and maybe wiser in the process.
For example, last month the brilliant artist, musician and filmmaker Laurie Anderson performed at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, and the highlight of the show was her rendition of “Junior Dad,” a heartbreaking song from a critically panned album by Anderson’s late husband, Lou Reed, and the hard rock band Metallica. Anderson’s band transformed Metallica’s music into something gentler and more eerie, with Reed’s ghostly voice singing, “If I was half drowning/Put my arms on the last wave,” while a ghostly image of his face appeared in the background. The song revolves around the phrase, “Age has shrunk him, changed him,” and Anderson watches Reed reflect, transforming layered loss into a work of terrible beauty.
At the Forum last fall, Peter Gabriel played a visually stunning show that focused on lush new songs about loss and death. “When you get to my age, you either run from death or you go into it and try to live life to the fullest,” he said. (A Washington Post reporter, incidentally, hated the show because Gabriel didn’t play many of his older songs.)
Meanwhile, Bob Dylan has delivered some of his quietest but most captivating shows, based mainly on his album Rough and Rowdy Ways, which might be summed up by the lyric from his song I Contain Multitudes: “I sleep with life and death in the same bed.” Even Tom Jones, the swaying Welshman who one would expect to perform his biggest hits, responded to a back injury by sitting in a chair and belting out songs from the past and his recent album Surround by Time. The stories between songs transformed the show into an unexpectedly moving career travelogue, the music driven by memories and audiences counting the years since they first heard, for example, “It’s Not Unusual.”
Springsteen did not play such a show at the Forum; he had already performed 267 shows in “Springsteen on Broadway,” mostly in 2017 and 2018. His arrival in Los Angeles came at a time of joy: he was back on the road after months off because of a digestive ulcer, and his wife, Patti Scialfa, was performing a few songs each night. And this was happening in the same week that he appeared in “Crazy, Wild,” and that writer-director Scott Cooper’s film “Deliver Me From Nowhere” signed with Disney/20th Century. In the film, Jeremy Allen White plays the man who wrote and recorded Springsteen’s unforgettable 1982 album, “Nebraska.”
(Springsteen opened his second concert at the Forum with a rare, ultra-energetic performance of “Open All Night” from “Nebraska,” perhaps as a tribute to Cooper, who was in the audience.)
And much of the Forum shows — particularly the second show on Sunday night, which lost some of its zany and buoyancy amid the muddy sound mix and dissonant vocals of Thursday’s opening night — were textbook examples of Peter Gabriel’s maxim about embracing death and living life to the fullest.
But in addition to the roof-shaking celebrations, touchstones scattered throughout the set and occasional comments emanating from the stage helped transform the rock ‘n’ roll celebration into a deeper meditation on, as Springsteen put it, “what’s lost and what remains.” Recent song “Ghost” is played first at every show and lives up to its title: “Turn up the volume and let the spirits lead you/Meet your brothers and sisters on the other side.” “Wrecking Ball” may have been inspired by an old New Jersey stadium facing demolition, but that’s not the real meaning of the rebellious song, and “See You in Your Dreams” closes each show on a gentler note of celebration.
And there were moments when the subtext was clear: A few years ago, Springsteen used “My City of Ruins,” a song written for the rundown town of Asbury Park, New Jersey, to pay tribute to the late E Street Band members Clarence Clemons and Dan Federici. But now he uses it for “Roll Call,” introducing the band and asking, “Is anyone missing?” before answering the question himself.
“There are so many people out there who have lost someone special. We don’t know where we’ll go when all of this is over, but we do know what’s left. What I can guarantee you tonight is that if you’re here and we’re here, those you’ve lost are here with us too.” you here was here, They are here. “
These anchors, and the one-two punch of “Last Man Standing” and “Backstreets,” a mourning for the death of Springsteen’s only surviving friend from his first high school band, gave the rest of the setlist an introspective feel, even when it was rocking hard. A song like “Spirit in the Night,” from more than 50 years ago, now feels more like a hazy, romantic recollection of a past than a record of a wild Saturday night. The night was purposefully filled with ghosts of all kinds, a celebration that never ignored the losses that come with time.
In his 2016 autobiography, Born to Run, Springsteen described his legendary concerts as “fiction, theater, fiction. Not reality.” That description certainly applies to his current concerts, but they’re made better by the intrusion of real life and real loss.
In that sense, it had echoes of Laurie Anderson, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, Tom Jones and no doubt others. (Even the Rolling Stones may have to confront mortality when their Hackney Diamonds tour begins later this month, their biggest tour since the death of drummer Charlie Watts.)
Then, about three hours into the show, Springsteen played “Glory Days,” 36 years and six days after he dedicated the joyous, sad song (“Time flies and all you’re left with are tales of dull glory days”) to a pair of, er, elderly rock critics.
There was no dedication this time, but honestly, it was dedicated to the older rock fans in the arena, who dutifully sang along as Bruce took the mic to sing the last four words: “When you’re older, I hope you don’t keep thinking about it.” But maybe I will.. “
The song suggests that Springsteen knew from the time he wrote it 40 years ago that age catches up with us all. Age has caught up with him in some visible ways. After all the ulcers and postponements, the way he moves onstage now is a testament to how well he’s performing. do not have That’s how he used to move, but it’s almost fitting, because he’s one of those rare performers who can rock in the face of loss while also feeling that loss in every inch.
Great music can be a way to both shake off the years and look back on them, and artists who can do both are the ones who truly give us a reason to meet our heroes before it’s too late.
