bruce springsteen would drive all night just to buy you some shoes

Because I am a full-blown geek, I was on a Bruce Springsteen-centric website when the news broke that on successive nights at Madison Square Garden he and the E Street Band would be playing 'The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle' (Saturday) and 'The River' (Sunday) in their entirety. On the boards, chaos ensued. This became a matter of some urgency, as fans tried to figure out how to rearrange their lives, travel great distances, and sell prized possessions to Be There at these (instantly) Historic Events.

I'm not making fun of these people. To a great extent, I am one of these people. I also live about 25 blocks from Madison Square Garden, and the idea of not Being There was not an option. So I went to StubHub. What was I saving my money for? The NEXT time Springsteen and the E Street Band played these classic albums a mile away from me? You must be joking.

It is possible, depending on the day and mood I'm in, that 'The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle' (which the website folk invariably compress to 'WIESS,' although I refuse to do that, because it makes it sound like an international financial institution and not one of the most rich, passionate, jubilant and lyrical rock albums ever made) is my Desert Island Disc. But I'm not going to go into that, because this is a concert recap (I will direct you to Ariel Swartley's essay on the album in the book 'Stranded'). This is a sentimental choice. The first time I ever saw Springsteen live (summer of '74, Central Park, opening for Anne Murray, I swear), it was his most recent album, and the set was filled with its songs, from 'Incident on 57^th Street' to 'Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),' and Springsteen was every bit as spectacular live as some of my rock writer friends had insisted he was.

(The consensus at the time was that you had to see him in person, that the albums were a pale facsimile of the Springsteen experience, and I suppose that's true. I will submit, however, that however primitively recorded, and kind of thin-sounding, 'The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle' is, it is far more sonically enjoyable than Brendan O'Brien's production on 'The Rising' and 'Working On A Dream.' And the songs are better.)

A question on my mind before the Saturday night show was, how much would I feel the absence of Danny Federici, whose keyboard and accordion playing were so central to the ambience of the album? Since Danny passed away, I've seen the band play three or four of the album's songs live, including '4^th of July Asbury Park (Sandy),' a song with his fingerprints all over it, and it made me a little weepy. I was glad, therefore, that I decided not to take a date to Night 1 at the Garden, because I'd never have gotten laid if I'd broken down at the last notes of 'New York City Serenade.'

The shows were, even for a geek (maybe especially for a geek), a revelation. 'The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle' was more of a Piece. A section of the show with its own place and time, a recreation, down to augmentation by horn and string sections when the songs required. It's Young Man's album, the equivalent of an early autobiographical novel, and as Springsteen said at the show, it was partly the Jersey experience, partly a romanticized idea of New York City. And it was performed beautifully (perfectly, in fact), with Side 2's half-hour ('Incident On 57^th Street'>'Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)'>'New York City Serenade') just wiping the place out. The album was a fan's dream-set: who could have ever imagined it? It's like if the characters in a Seurat painting came to life and threw a cocktail party in your living room. No, it's not like that at all. It's like if Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band existed simultaneously in 1973 and the present, playing on a boardwalk merry-go-round where you saw them from one angle one moment, and a different one the next.

'The River' is a less compact thing, more of a rough and tumble ride, and certainly more of a marathon (20 songs). It started out a little shaky, with uncharacteristic fumbles and miscues on songs that the band has played a zillion times ('Hungry Heart.' 'Out In The Streets'). But then something clicked: Springsteen can mock 'Crush On You' all he likes ('a hidden masterpiece!'), but it sparked a raucous goofiness in the band and the crowd, and from that point on the uptempo stuff ('You Can Look But You Better Not Touch,' 'Ramrod,' 'I'm A Rocker') felt like it did on that classic 1980/81 tour (of which there is a huge poster on my apartment wall). That was the tour where the E Street Band 'graduated' to the Garden, and where I first heard most of this material live. More flashbacks, specifically to the MSG No Nukes show, where 'The River' and 'Sherry Darling' made their debuts (I think…in any case, they were new to me).

And the ballads…

My +1 was at her first Springsteen show, and I told her after 'The River' (the song) that I'd seen countless shows and I'd never seen them nail that one with more intensity. Ditto for 'Point Blank,' 'Fade Away' and 'Drive All Night.'

I made fun of Springsteen's automotive shtick once in a Creem review. 'It's a major production every time he turns the ignition key. Doesn't he ever get in the car just to get a pack of cigarettes?' And that was before 'The River,' where he, or his characters, are driving everywhere, in Cadillacs, stolen cars, taking Sherry's mom to the unemployment agency, going out for rides and never coming back, riding down to The River. On Sunday night, 'Drive All Night' was overwhelming, epic. It's the penultimate song on the album, near the end of a long road trip, and still, he summons up the energy and makes his pitch. He swears he'd drive all night, just to buy you some shoes. Does anyone need shoes in the middle of the night? No matter. He'll get in the car and find a store that's open, and bring back those shoes. On Sunday night, it felt like a promise to his audience, and there were people around me crying.

A half-hour later, they were singing along to 'Seven Nights To Rock' and 'Higher and Higher' (and in between, misting up to a short, tender version of Elvis Presley's 'Can't Help Falling In Love').

By the time 'Higher and Higher' ended Sunday night, I felt like I'd seen one 6-hour show ('The Wild River'?), broken up by sleep and a couple of meals.

I'm going to one more show before the tour wraps up on November 22, down in Nashville (a 'Born To Run' night, tickets still available, so go if you can). But I'm adjusting to the notion that Sunday night was the last time I'd see this incarnation of Springsteen and the (Legendary) E Street Band in my backyard, where I've seen them on every tour (multiple times) since 1974. People who know I'm in the music business game (what remains of it) sometimes ask me who my favorite artist is, and I don't really have an answer. But I know this: if you asked me where I'd want to spend three hours of my musical life, it would be in a room where this band is playing. If this is really the last time, that's something I'm really going to miss.