Bang Bang, Baby: A Night With Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

Adult life is mostly dusty and monotonous and lame, but occasionally the circus comes to town. I saw a legend in the still-chiseled flesh in March 2016, when I made a last-minute decision to catch Bruce Springsteen’s “The River” tour’s Portland stop.

On this tour, Bruce and the E Street Band are performing The River in its entirety, followed by around a dozen other songs. (That’s over three hours of music without a break, if you like to track the stamina of aging rock stars.) Introducing the album with a monologue on its significance in his life and career, Bruce situates it at the turning point between rebellious outsider youth and beginning to accept adulthood, with all the compromise that entails.

The River was released in 1980, when Bruce was 30 years old. It so happens that I’m 30, too. At 30, Bruce Springsteen had already released several strong albums and was gearing up for national stardom. I have not, and am not. But, like the Boss says, everybody’s got a hu-uh-ungry heart.

I came to Bruce Springsteen fandom as an adult, which I think Bruce himself would understand. The way he writes about children’s relationships with their parents also speaks to my relationship with New Jersey. I used to slander my home state the way other teenage punks might say, “My old man’s a real drag. I can’t wait to bust out of here.” My stated goal in life, from approximately ages 15-25, was “to die having spent more time living outside New Jersey than in.” As a quip, this is a cheap shot; as an actual guiding ambition, it’s not exactly “reach for the stars” caliber. While Jersey and I get along better from a distance, I still maintain that no outsiders have the right to talk trash about her—just like family.

As Bruce explained in his introduction that March night, adulthood begins when you recognize that the bonds that hold you down in life also keep you stable. Though I’d appreciated his hits before I left the Garden State, my fist pumps got more vehement the farther I moved. But my semi-contrived fandom has blossomed from an urge to claim my heritage into a deeper appreciation of the poetry in Bruce’s lyrics and artistry. When I dive deeper into his oeuvre, I’m impressed equally by his profundity and his sappiness.

Because Bruce is pretty corny. Anyone can take pot shots at “Glory Days,” but the imagery running through crowd-rousing anthems and obscure epics alike induces groans when you actually stop fist pumping and listen. "Strap your hands 'cross my engines”? What are the engines, his chest? Does he have more than one? “Two hearts are better than one”? I guess he does! Combine “little girl,” “highway,” and a sax solo, and you’re halfway to a Springsteen song.

So Bruce, whatever he is, resists reduction. His songs are bleak realism snuggled side by side with the sentimentality of a bad country song. I wasn’t sure which Bruce I’d get when I booked my ticket, but at least I’d been promised a good show.

10th Avenue Freeze-Out. "This is the important part," Bruce says as a montage of Clarence Clemons plays over the sax solo.

The River is a double album, but it doesn’t need to be. It has a lot of repetition, both sonic and thematic. “Point Blank,” the first track on disc two, is one such unnecessary element. In a collection of forward-driving rock songs and meditative crooners, the song is a grab bag of the tackiest elements in ‘80s rock anthems: tinkling keys; hi-hat; bass bouncing up and down at a head-bobbing, sleep-inducing speed.

Because you can’t skip tracks at a live performance, I focused on Bruce’s voice, which earnestly told the story in lyrics I listened to for the first time.

Do you still say your prayers, little darlin'? Do you go to bed at night
Praying that tomorrow, everything will be all right?
But tomorrows fall in number - in number one by one
You wake up and you're dying - you don't even know what from

Well, they shot you point blank...

The song is a darker retelling of the story Bruce tells in so many songs—of a vibrant kid who grows up to find that life is killing them. It’s performed so theatrically—a long piano lead-in, dramatic lighting, Bruce literally pointing his finger like a gun as he fondles the lyrics with his throat and squeezes his eyes shut, summoning a dream of better days in shows night after night—the high-drama treatment that reveals the tragedy in ordinary life.

Standing on the floor, surrounded on all sides by silent audience members equally rapt, I felt hot tears sliding from my eyes. So many Springsteen songs are about rising above the crushing weight life lowers on you year by year, either stealing moments when you can with a fast ride in a dirty car or in a blazing storm of fuck-you. “Point Blank” is an outside view of the alternative. People get lost. The weight can win. Bruce’s songs remind you what could happen, and lift you up enough to give you the strength to fight it off for another day.

The sentiment spoke to everyone in the arena the way a clever turn of phrase couldn’t, though he has plenty of those, too. (Judging by the crowd’s deafening singalong during “Thunder Road,” one of my personal favorites—“You ain’t a beauty, but hey, you’re all right,” is a lot of other people’s favorite, too.) Bruce’s grins and earnest handshakes with every fan in reach, his pregnant pauses, his gleeful exhortations to the audience to keep up with him, say what lyrics can’t at that volume. Honestly, I didn’t even know what the lyrics were to some of the songs, so I shouted nonsense syllables along to the melody. Maybe that’s why so many of his songs’ emotional peaks just go Whoa whoa whoa whoa. And when 20,000 people sing whoa, you feel it in your chest.

“Bang, bang, baby...you’re dead,” Bruce concluded, and the lights went dark, as they have at every performance for the past 36 years. (It’s still a tacky song.)

Springsteen plays the audience like another instrument, guiding it on its emotional journey. After depositing thousands of fans into the bottom of the gutter together, the band launched into “Cadillac Ranch,” an exuberant romp about death. Dance, they commanded. You're alive. They won't catch you tonight.