To me, in order for a performance to be a great live collaboration, I had to see it. So, the amazing collaborative efforts Bruce had with his tour mates on the 1988 Human Rights Now! Tour, sharing the mic with Sting and Tracy Chapman, among others are off limits. The MTV VMAs in 1997 with the Wallflowers on “One Headlight” is out. Even the massive collaborative effort a few years ago with Lady Gaga, Sting, Debbie Harry, and Elton John on stage is off limits (all available on YouTube, by the way.) Another great is when U2 invited Bruce on Stage in Philly in 1987 to play guitar (Bono’s arm is in a sling for some reason), and they had a fantastic version of “Stand By Me.” But, all of these songs are off limits, because I wasn’t there, and live music is different live and in the moment than when it is felt after the fact, on a recording.
By the way, there is a notable stinker: Bruce sharing the stage with Eddie Vedder on “Betterman” – also from the VfC tour. Bruce just didn’t have the tempo right. There’s also a song for which Bob Dylan invites Bruce on stage, and Bruce just plays backing guitar. I can’t seem to find it on YouTube, and there are plenty of times Bob invited Bruce to share the mic with him, but the time he just played guitar and nothing else was weird. It also doesn’t count for this experience. I should recommend, however YouTube, for any concert footage and lost musical treasures involving Bruce. It really does feel like what I said in last night’s post – Bruce just wanders the countryside like a lonesome troubadour, his guitar case in hand, waiting to feel the rumble of a bass drum amplified to 100+ fans, and he’s drawn like a magnet. He’s like the Observers in Fringe – he’s freaking EVERYwhere.
This significantly limits my options. For most of my Bruce concerts, it’s just been Bruce and the band. For my most recent two at MetLife stadium, Gary US Bonds came out to play a few songs with Bruce, but they weren’t my favorites. I, of course, saw the Dropkick Murphys come out to play with Bruce in Boston, complete with a proposal (accepted!), but the show at which I’ve seen the most collaboration would be Cleveland in 2004, which was my first Bruce experience, and it was the Vote for Change tour.
In the summer of 2004, I was talking politics constantly with my friends Erik and Jeff – Erik, a self-described moderate liberal, and Jeff, a self-described conservative – would talk about the RNC and DNC. I was a newly found hyper partisan liberal. I was completely intolerant of conservatives, and thought they must really REALLY want to ruin our country. I’m now married to a conservative. I’m also really more along the lines of a quite liberal person who has a few odd conservative traits, but is accepting and understanding of those whose opinion differs from mine, and believe that most conservatives, like most liberals, just have different opinions than one another, but are not actively trying to ruin the country.
This was a different time. This was Vote for Change. We NEEDED to get George Bush out of office. I had real animus for him. I didn’t respect our President, which is a dangerous, dangerous thing. I wasn’t right to not respect our President. I was also to disrespect the President with the things I was saying about him. I’m sure he didn’t care what some shitheel at NYU was saying (okay, lots of shitheels at NYU, but still.) MoveOn.org, a left wing organization dedicated to moving the country left, put on the Vote for Change concert. That’s an innocuous way of saying they wanted to vote President Bush out of office, and that’s all fine and dandy, but this is before MoveOn.org went WAY left. This is before calling General Petreus “General Betray-us” and making other awful claims.
When we got to Cleveland, rumors were running wild that John Kerry was in the state, and was going to make an appearance. Kerry, a big Springsteen fan, was apparently really in to “No Surrender.” As a 19 year old, wide-eyed fan of Bruce, and huge, newly minted liberal, I was so happy that these two things dovetailed together.
I can’t overstate how excited I was at the prospect of Bruce playing “No Surrender” with John Kerry. A guy behind us in line told us “Because, you know, John Kerry plays guitar. You know that, right?” I didn’t know that. I was ridiculously excited by this prospect. Based on the electoral math, Ohio was going to be the tipping point state. This rally was IMPORTANT (Note: the rally was not important) for the future of our union. When Bruce began to play the opening licks to “No Surrender” as his fifth song of the night, I knew pretty decisively that Kerry wasn’t coming out. I mean, for starters, he’d have introduced him first, then launched into the song. I also didn’t know what I expected if John Kerry actually DID come out – was he going to strap on a guitar, start shredding, go back to back with Bruce, share the mic, do scissor kicks off a drum riser? I mean, he’d have stood there in a goofy suit or wearing some faux-workman flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up (“ROLLED UP SLEEVES MEAN HE’LL GET THINGS DONE! YOU HAVE MY VOTE!”) and sung poorly, and it would’ve been like Dukakis in the tank. Even still, when I heard the first few notes, which bled in from “Badlands” before it, I got really nervous, which is another completely irrational response (though not uncommon for me at a Bruce show. More on that on Day 30…) because it’s not like he was going come out in section 335 of the upper bowl and stand next to me to sing. He’d have been on stage. I guess, at the time, I was just so wrapped up in ensuring that President Kerry was a thing that was going to happen. By the way, this little anecdote is going nowhere. John Kerry didn’t come out, didn’t win Ohio or the Presidency, and his running mate, by all accounts, should be in jail. Good times!
On the other hand, the Vote for Change concert did have some good collaborative efforts. The acts were Bright Eyes, who I had never heard of (and was confused as to how many members there were. I liked the songs they performed, though. There was REM (who I am not a huge fan of, but, hey, gotta see them to see Bruce) and there was also John Fogerty – this was a special appearance by him. He wasn’t appearing at all the VfC shows. Bruce traded vocals with Michael Stipe and REM on “Bad Day” and “Man on the Moon” with REM backing them, and “Because the Night” with the E Street Band backing them. When Fogerty played, his backup band was the E Street Band, and he played “Centerfield,” “Déjà vu All Over Again,” (without Bruce) and “Fortunate Son.” They also collaborated on “The Promised Land,” and “Bad Moon Rising” a little later. These were all fun to see, and of the bunch, I probably liked “Fortunate Son” and “Bad Moon Rising” the best. But neither of those would match the show closer.
At the end of the night, as is the case with every concert ever, other than the Bob Dylan/Willie Nelson concert I saw in Cooperstown, all the acts came back to the stage for the final few songs, leaving a crowded, jumbled mess on stage, everyone singing at different mics, and having a great time, like history is happening. In a way, it felt like it was. I was going to be able to say I saw Bruce play in support of President Kerry! That’s incredible! And he shared the stage with REM, John Fogerty, and who the hell else cares?! So the artists flooded back to the stage after Bruce and John finished with “Bad Moon Rising” for two more songs.
They led with Elvis Costello’s “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?” and then in to “The People Have the Power” – I left the show so fired up, I felt like I could have flipped a car over. I had already actually voted with my absentee ballot. In New York. My vote didn’t really matter. It counted, but it didn’t matter.
Of course, it’s so interesting to think back eight years. Ohio is so inextricably tied to me for Presidential elections. In 2004, I went to rally for John Kerry a month before Election Day. In 2008, I was living in Ohio when President Obama won the election. This year, I’ll be going to Ohio the weekend before Election Day, though, not to stump for anyone. I’ll be going to Ohio to spend time with Grad School friends. But, eight years ago, we were talking about “Peace, Love, and Understanding” in the context of the war. John Kerry was the “Peace” candidate, despite the fact that he’d voted in favor of the war (He voted for it before he voted against it) – now, we have Mitt Romney and President Obama both saying that we don’t want another Iraq or Afghanistan. We’re all tired of War. It’s a strange turn of events. But, those two songs were my favorite collaborations with other acts at a live event. Everything felt like the crossroads of history, and it all hit me so deeply. I loved every minute of it.
Tomorrow’s topic: Favorite Character from a Bruce Song. Uh oh, I get to talk literary ability and depth of character. Put on another pot of coffee…
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