This is what joy looks like

This is Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Monday night in Washington, DC. The house lights are up, they're chugging through Born to Run, and tens of thousands of people -- including a couple of shirtless guys we saw jigging down on the floor -- are singing along at the tops of their lungs.

COOL.

We caught both the Sunday and Monday shows in DC -- and it was spectacular. These were my 19th and 20th shows, Rick's first and second. Yeah, yeah, I know. I don't even want to think about the things I could have done or the trips to Europe I could have taken if I hadn't spent the cash on Bruce Springsteen. But you know what? I really don't care.

Regardless of where you stand on the guy -- whether, like me, his rear end hung on the wall over your bed when you were in junior high, or you've thought the man-of-the-people thing has worn thin -- when you're there it's hard to deny that it's one hell of a show. The guy's 58 years old, and he was jumping up and down at the end of the 2-hour-and-20-minute set in a way that had me exhausted just looking at him. I've seen him from the back of football arenas and from the front row, mashed up against the stage, and it's safe to say I've never seen anyone play a room quite like him. Famously anti-war, he marked Veterans Day here in DC -- and last night he brought some wounded vets from Walter Reed to the show. Talk about altering the dynamic in a basketball arena.

The new album's not easy -- it's filled with familiar imagery of people struggling and disillusioned, trying to live decent, honorable lives in the face of bitter disappointment and not knowing which end is up. But it's also about making connections and finding meaning in each other -- nothing's ever perfect, but in the end we're all we've got. The songs are also catchy, filled with pop hooks, and taken as a whole, the thing rocks.

And live, you can't help but walk away feeling a little bit better connected to humanity. I took my parents to see Springsteen a few years back -- and bought them tickets to see him a couple of weeks ago in Chicago as a Christmas present -- and it sounds loony, but I seriously think it brought us closer. I may drive them up a wall, but now at least we can talk about Bruce Springsteen. (Incidentally, Mom, there's a rumor he's coming to Milwaukee in March -- so Happy Birthday.)

Do I sound like a sermonizing goofball? Yeah. Is the crowd at a Springsteen show whiter than any you'll see outside a standard-issue NHL game? Yes. Have I spent more time than I care to admit perusing the setlists online and trying to figure out what he's going to play in the rotating song spots (2, 7, 11, 12, 13, and the second song of the encore, by the way)? Definitely. Do I do these things furtively? Hell no. Embarrassed? Sure. Ashamed? Never.

Tramps like us...

Continued ...

And you thought he was unintelligible 30 years ago....

Last weekend we went to the wedding of a friend of mine in DC (great party and bitchin' guests -- more on that later), and the night before we went to see Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello at Merriweather Post Pavilion, in suburban Maryland. While I would rather face the fires of Hell than spend time in suburban Maryland, for Dylan and Costello, I made an exception.

My love for Elvis Costello is deep, abiding, and undiminished by the years -- constant since I discovered him in high school (I was kind of late bloomer). He is a genius -- spectacular songwriter, endlessly creative and damn near fearless with the stuff he'll try musically. I have recovered from my mourning period after he married Diana Krall (though it gave me hope that finding happiness and bursting forth with a couple of kids relatively late in life is possible -- plus they seem to be having a nice time), and on Friday night he delivered an excellent (though for my taste, too short) acoustic set that made the drive and the traffic and suburban Maryland worth it.

Dylan, on the other hand...


I've always liked Bob Dylan and respected his genius, his conscience, and poetry and craft that he's brought to everything he's done. I've been a proponent of his new renaissance. I've seen him play an excellent concert, and I've seen him play a set that sucked so loudly that it left the entire crowd's collective jaw dropping to the floor. You never quite know what you're going to get.

The good news: His band ROCKED. Bluesy, hipster, extremely tight, obviously very talented, and clearly jazzed to be playing with a legend. And Dylan's harmonica and organ playing were fantastic.

The bad news: I understood less than 50 words total of his 90-minute set. I wasn't looking for any song to be a replica of the recordings; in fact I'd have loathed that. But it would've been great to get what the crowd of die-hards was cheering about every time he started a song. I'm grateful to know I wasn't the only one with this problem. I started replaying last week's Grey's Anatomy in my head just to stay alert.

The mumbling. The muddy delivery. Good God, the mumbling. In the past I've chalked up Dylan's weird on-stage behavior to being the singing equivalent of Miles Davis playing with his back to the audience. Now I think it's the musical equivalent of those computer-generated pictures where you can see the spaceship if you unfocus your eyes. Or a foreign-language immersion program -- eventually you start to understand French if you're surrounded by people who are speaking it. With Dylan, I started to get scared that I'd lose my ability to understand English if I could make out what he was saying for a sustained period of time. Oui.

The weird news: As Rick and I strained to understand what the hell was going on, he noticed something sitting near Dylan on a cabinet onstage. Is ... that... really? Could that really be the Oscar he won for Best Original Song (on the Wonder Boys soundtrack)? Rick borrowed a fellow concert goer's binoculars to get a better look, and unless we had a simultaneous hallucination, it was either the statuette or a replica. Who does that? I mean really. On the other hand, it's damn near the funniest thing I've ever seen on a stage.

For a long time now, I've been mocking the Rolling Stones for touring -- again and again and again. I wouldn't have wanted to see them on any tour after Tattoo You in 1982. But at least their frontman can still sing. Mick, I promise to (almost) never make fun of you again.

Continued ...

Holiday Road...

Rick was FAR more systematic in compiling his road music than I. He clearly spent a lot of time thinking about the songs, the way they’d fit together, and the rhythm of the CDs. I put together a list that referenced any kind of movement – driving, flying, sailing, walking, what have you –- as well as any possible reference to a place. A haphazard approach at best – and one that resulted in a 352-song playlist. Excessive.

A sample, minus the overlap with Rick:



“Woke Up This Morning (Chosen One Mix),” Alabama 3 (a.k.a., the song behind Tony Soprano tooling around Jersey)
“Jessica,” The Allman Brothers (no movement or place, but one of the best road songs ever – thank you, Dickie Betts)
“Say Goodbye to Hollywood,” Billy Joel
“South of the Border (Down Mexico Way),” Chris Isaak
“On the Road Again,” Willie Nelson
“Me & Bobby McGee,” Janis Joplin
“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” The Band
“My Tennessee Mountain Home,” Dolly Parton
“Truckin’,” Grateful Dead
“Ticket to Ride,” The Beatles
“Big River,” Johnny Cash
“Don’t Fence Me In,” David Byrne
“Ramblin’ Man,” Hank Williams
“Tiny Dancer,” Elton John (I know, but come on)
“Take Me With U,” Prince
“Copperhead Road,” Steve Earle
“Hotel Illness,” The Black Crowes
“Goodbye Stranger,” Supertramp
“Wild West,” Joe Jackson
“Can’t Find My Way Home,” Blind Faith
“Highway 61 Revisited,” Bob Dylan
“Thunder Road,” Bruce Springsteen
“Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You,” Last Train Home, covering Bob Dylan
“My Ride’s Here,” Bruce Springsteen, covering Warren Zevon
“Train Song,” Mindy Smith
“Where You Lead,” Carole King
“I’m So Bored with the U.S.A.,” The Clash
“Black Cadillac,” Roseanne Cash
“Move On Up,” Curtis Mayfield
“Mississippi,” Sheryl Crow, covering Bob Dylan
“Into the Mystic,” Van Morrison
“The Apartment Song,” Tom Petty
“Take It Easy,” The Eagles
“Midnight Train to Georgia,” Gladys Knight & The Pips
“This is Where You Ain’t,” Glenn Tillbrook
“Highway to Hell,” AC/DC
“Tennessee Plates,” John Hiatt
“That’s Right (You’re Not From Texas),” Lyle Lovett
“2000 Miles,” The Pretenders
“Panama,” Van Halen
“Begin the Begin,” R.E.M.
“King of the Road,” Roger Miller
“I’ll Take You There,” The Staples Singers
“Pony St.,” Elvis Costello
“Ultraviolet (Light My Way,” U2
“Sin City,” Uncle Tupelo, covering the Flying Burrito Brothers
“Luckenbach, Texas,” Waylon Jennings

Continued ...