Springsteen Challenge Day 28 (SANDY!!!): Favorite Video of Bruce (music video, interview, concert footage)

Today will be a three-post mega-update.  The reason for this is because Hurricane Sandy struck earlier this week, and, while I was able to prep on Monday and write an update early, I was not able to prep for Tuesday because I was without internet and power.  I already knew that I was going to write two for Halloween.  Turns out it will just be three today. This is the first.

At any rate, to me, a video of Bruce has to be something like a found item.  We’ve already discussed Music Videos on Day 18. Streets of Philadelphia.  Boom.  This post will not be about a music video, a medium that Bruce doesn’t utilize well, and doesn’t really suit his music.  Additionally, I’ve discussed at length many of the Bruce concert DVDs and live footage that I love.  This needs to be something else.  This needs to be something that is so sporadic and intimate, more than an interview (another medium that doesn’t suit Bruce, as most televised interviews tend to be of the 8-12 minute variety, and Bruce really needs more of the long-form interview to say what he wants to say.  There are some good Jimmy Fallon interview performances recently as Fallon has become a “friend of the artist,” dedicating entire shows to the release of Bruce’s Darkness on the Edge of Town box set, and to the release of Wrecking Ball, but to really dig deeply into Bruce, he needs something like “The Fog of War” by Errol Morris – him in a chair, telling his story, interspersed with concert footage, news coverage, and the found items like the one I’m going to talk about.  The video I find to be my favorite is a grainy handheld tape, no professional recording equipment, and truly was spur-of-the-moment, and it happened almost 25 years ago in Copenhagen, Denmark, on a nondescript street.

To set the stage, in 1988, Bruce was a mega-star.  He had released Born in the USA – an album that would go on to sell over 15 million albums in the United States alone, and another 5 million internationally. This was 1984. He toured extensively for the album, up until 1985.  He got married, released some goofy music videos (Dancing in the Dark, Glory Days, Born in the USA, and I’m On Fire), and generally was one of the biggest rock stars in the world.  He released the critically acclaimed “Tunnel of Love,” toured in support of it, and got divorced. The E Street Band had yet to be disbanded, though, he and Patti Scialfia were certainly an item by this point.

The date was July 23^rd, 1988. The place was Copenhagen, Denmark. Bruce was nearing the end of the Tunnel of Love Express tour.  There were just five more shows.  He’d come from playing shows in East Berlin and West Berlin (the wall was still up!), and had a few days to kill in Copenhagen.  He decided to wander out on the town.  Here is what happened:

To put it mildly, this is incredible.  Bruce Springsteen, one of the most recognizable and famous rock stars in the world, wanders up to a few guys playing music on the street, takes one guitar, and gets the guy to back him up on guitar and vocals.  This is like having Elvis Presley wander into a shitty honk in Nebraska in about 1962, wander up onstage to the guy playing for his dinner and sit in for three songs, taking requests from the audience.  Bruce, ever humble, self effacing, and jovial, actually has to ask the guy to pick up the guitar and join him.  He decides to play three songs – I’m On Fire (after which, someone gives an almost-too-perfect, nowadays-we’d-consider-it-hipsteresque utterance of “ROCKANROLL!”), The River, and the best song of the bunch, Dancing in the Dark.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Dancing in the Dark is the best song out of those three. But, it is so incredible to hear Dancing in the Dark as an acoustic song.  At the time, Bruce had used a synthesizer, produced the hell out of it, and played it in concert, with Clarence hamming it up on tambourine.  It’s never been my favorite song off of the Born in the USA album.  On the street, with a guitar, there’s something endearing about the lyrics.  It’s nothing like the rock version played in concerts that I like more than the album version (my favorite version would be off of the Live in Barcelona DVD), which feature no more synthesizer, a bit of a faster pace, slightly, and some great call outs for solos, but it’s another version that’s better than the album version (this is all somewhere in the “backhanded compliment” to “damned with faint praise” land.)

But the other half of this is that there was a lot that needed to happen for this to come together – Bruce needed to be in Copenhagen on the day that this street performer was going to be playing, needed to happen upon him, and needed to feel the need to play, impromptu. The first few parts are kind of happenstance, and wind into some type of overarching cosmic theory – are we all just randomly happening at all times, or is there some larger force pulling us to points on a timeline that we need to hit?  The last part is more of a stretch than one would think.  While I am aware of my creation of Bruce Springsteen as a lonely drifter, wandering aimlessly with his guitar, looking for amplified performances of rock music to join in on along the Jersey shore, but these things usually happen when he ISN’T touring, much less near the end of his acclaimed Tunnel of Love Express tour, which stretched for a little over 5 months straight, all the while preparing for the Human Rights Now! Tour, slated to begin in early September of 1988, and set to run for another month and a half. But there he was, on the streets of Copenhagen, playing a quick, three-song set for free (encouraging people to pass the hat for the performer, of course) in a town where he was selling live performances of his music a few nights later.

Additionally, someone needed to have a camera. Nowadays, everyone has a camera that can record HD video and audio in their phones, and everything is recorded.  Sean Penn brings a camera crew with him while he rescues people in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Jay Leno always conveniently has a camera crew with him when he stops to change the tire for a stranded motorist on the 405.  But in 1988, recording devices were rare and expensive.

As an addendum, Bruce plucked a guitar for a few seconds in the Boston Public Gardens in early September of 2011, when bringing his son back to college. Similarly, the story I recounted of the guy and his fiancée taking pictures on the boardwalk in Manasquan when Bruce wandered up and plucked the man’s guitar for a few minutes as the engagement photo photographer captured the images forever. The times when Bruce crops up are few and far between off the stage, and this one is incredible.

Later today: How many times have you seen Bruce in Concert? Where? (this one is going to be shorter)

AND

Even later today: A personal anecdote about Bruce (This one will be longer…)