Review: Springsteen Comes Full Circle with Landmark Concert
ASBURY PARK, N.J. – Bruce Springsteen is known for his many legendary concerts, but his performance Sunday on the beach in Asbury Park stands at the top of the list.
Springsteen and the E Street Band headlined day two of the Sea.Hear.Now music festival. The Boss does not play many festivals, but it always seemed inevitable that he’d sooner or later play SHN, which was launched in 2018.
Springsteen, of course, got his start in Asbury Park in the 1970s, and Sunday’s show was a full-circle moment for him and the seaside resort town.
It was also a celebration of Springsteen’s roots and fanbase, and included some touching tributes to fallen E Street Band members.
The epic three-hour and 15-minute concert came as his current tour is nearing its final leg.
But the set list departed from that of the standard tour show. It was heavily weighted – appropriately – with material from Springsteen’s first two albums: “Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.” and “The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle.”
The show also included “Thundercrack,” an uber-rarity that appeared on Springsteen’s 1998 “Tracks” compilation of outtakes and B-sides. Hearing “Thundercrack” has been a white whale pursuit for many fans. Before Sunday, he hadn’t played the song in concert since 2016.
Springsteen was on his home turf (or sand), and it must have jogged his memory. In announcing “Thundercrack,” he said, “I wrote this one in Wanamassa,” referring to the town about a mile from where he was standing.
The show also included a tribute to the late band members Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici, with photos of the two flashed on the big screens during “Tenth Avenue Freezeout.”
Earlier in the show, Springsteen dedicated “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” to Federici.
The city of Asbury Park is way different from the working-class resort it was in the ’60s and ’70s, where Springsteen cut his teeth. And it is absolutely unrecognizable from the era of blight and decay that followed.
The city’s comeback is remarkable, with high-rise luxury condos and hotels dotting the landscape and more going up. But the resurgence was also built on a foundation of rock ’n’ roll. Live music emanates from renovated spaces everywhere you turn, and Sea.Hear.Now is the crowning touch of the comeback.
Springsteen acknowledged as much in the closing moments of his show. He never thought he’d see the day his old stomping grounds would rise to new heights, as it has done, and he thanked all those who invested themselves in bringing it back to life.
Springsteen’s longtime wife and bandmate, Patti Scialfa, has been a no-show for just about all of the current tour, but it wasn’t revealed until a week ago that she has been battling myeloma.
Bruce brought her on stage Sunday, and the two sang a duet of “Tougher than the Rest.” The song is about the toughness it takes for a lasting love, and it nearly brought tears to the eye.
Springsteen ended his marathon set with “Jersey Girl” – a tour debut that seemed to hold extra special meaning: “Nothing matters in this whole wide world when you’re in love with a Jersey Girl,” go the lyrics.
Another noticeable difference from the tour was the sound of the E Street Band, which was lush and full of life. Playing outdoors in the oceanfront air made for dry and crisp acoustics and none of the echo and distortion of an arena concert.
The sound of discordant horns getting in tune at the start of “The E Street Shuffle” never sounded so beautiful.
It was a zero-humidity day, with the eye-squinting bright sun giving way to a breezy evening. The throng of what seemed like at least 40,000 extended down the beach and along the boardwalk for about a thousand feet.
Springsteen was dapper, wearing the white shirt with a black tie and vest – which eventually came off – that he sported in his Pittsburgh concerts last month and at other tour stops.
The show was replete with so many songs that were tour debuts that fans’ heads were spinning.
“Blinded by the Light,” was one of them. “I wrote this one about 500 yards north of here in Loch Arbour Beach,” Springsteen said.
Other rarities included “Does this Bus Stop at 82nd Street” (which, like “Blinded,” had not been heard live since 2017), the aforementioned “4th of July,” “Meeting Across the River” and “Jungleland.”
Springsteen introduced “Local Hero” – another tour debut – by telling the story of how he was inspired to write the song. During a ride somewhere in Jersey, he stopped to check out some cheesy black satin paintings – including one of himself. “Who’s that?” he asked the clerk, and her response became the song title.
By the way, Sunday’s concert was not Springsteen’s first appearance at Sea.Hear.Now. In the inaugural festival in 2018, he came on stage with Social Distortion and played for about 20 minutes. Bruce did not sing or say much in that short appearance, which included Social D’s take of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire.”
The Rest of the Fest
Springsteen’s concert on Sunday might have dominated media coverage of the festival, but there were many other great sets – including day one headliner Noah Kahan, whose stirring confessional folk-pop has made him a darling on college campuses.
Here’s a look at some other highlights:
Youngstown Connection: Kool & The Gang, led by Youngstown native Robert “Kool” Bell, got the party started Sunday with a late-afternoon set that was laden with so many booty-shaking hits that the sand was flying.
Kool was a crowd-pleaser, a well-oiled machine with horn-drenched funk and choreographed moves. SHN always nails it with an afternoon concert by a huge legacy act, and Kool’s set was an all-time high for that time slot. The set list included everything you’d expect – “Ladies Night,” “Celebration,” “Get Down on It,” “Jungle Boogie,” “Too Hot” and a sizzling extended jam on “Hollywood Swinging” with multiple trombone solos by Jermaine Bryson.
Bell, the only remaining original member of the band, will get yet another career accolade in November when his band will be inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame.
He and his late younger brother, Ronald, were born in Youngstown. They moved to Jersey City, N.J., when Bell was about 10, but never forgot their Youngstown roots. He briefly stepped to the microphone during Sunday’s set to tell the story of how the band chose its name.
Pittsburgh Connection: Joe Grushecky, the Pittsburgh rock legend and longtime Springsteen friend and collaborator, was spotted in the crowd – wearing a Pirates cap. Grushecky did play a song with Springsteen during the second of two concerts the Boss did in Pittsburgh last month, but he was just part of the audience at Sea.Hear.Now.
Warm-up Act: The Gaslight Anthem, led by Brian Fallon, are Jersey natives and star pupils in the Springsteen School of Rock. Bruce has accompanied the band several times at past shows, and he did it again on Sunday.
The Gaslight pulled out all the stops for its set, which ended moments before Springsteen’s started.
Happy Pills: Norah Jones enthralled a huge crowd during her set, which was one of the most chill of the weekend. Seated at her piano and wearing a flowing dress, the sultry Jones sang and played at a relaxed pace and the result was magical.
One measure of just how much an artist has fans in the palm of their hand is the distance from the stage where the audience is still in rapt silence. For Jones, that line of demarcation was a couple of football fields away.
What Was I Thinking? Like Springsteen, jam-band god Trey Anastasio commands a huge fanbase, and his set was memorable.
The singer, songwriter and guitarist for Phish is also a Jersey native and he told the crowd that the first concert he ever attended was Springsteen. Of course, the Boss then came on stage for an utterly scorching version of “Kitty’s Back” that saw the two guitarists trading riffs.
After it ended and Springsteen left the stage, an elated Anastasio realized he still had some time left in his set. “I never thought I’d have to follow Springsteen,” he told the crowd with good-natured dismay. “Thanks for sticking with us.”
Swedish Meatball: Pelle Almqvist, singer for the Swedish rock act The Hives, was a motormouth during his band’s rave set. He did a lot of talking but backed it up when the act finally did tear into songs.
Clad in sharp black and white suits, the Hives are touring their excellent new album, “the Death of Randy Fitzsimmons,” and their live show bursts with even more energy than what’s on the record. Almqvist was literally climbing the stage poles at one point.
Brotherly Love: The Black Crowes were another great get for SHN. The band, led by famously feuding brothers Chris and Rich Robinson, released “Happiness Bastards” earlier this year – their first album of new material in 15 years.
The Crowes were as raw and bluesy as ever, with the brothers trading harmonica and guitar riffs with each other at one point.
Their Saturday set came just a day after the onstage meltdown of Jane’s Addiction, in which singer Perry Farrell threw a punch at guitarist Dave Navarro. Chris Robinson, who knows a few things about battling band members, acknowledged it. “We hope they find some peace,” he told the crowd.
A Real Peach: The most outlandish act had to be Peaches. Her gleefully vulgar dance bangers had folks craning their necks to see who was singing, and what they saw was just as outrageous; it included some dancing lady parts. If you weren’t familiar with Peaches beforehand, she made sure you remembered her name. Her palate-cleansing set preceded Noah Kahan, who is her musical opposite.
Pictured at top: Bruce Springsteen performs at the music festival Sunday. (Photo by Charles Reagan Hackleman)
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