I had the good fortune to attend a Springsteen concert in Boston last year.
The tour represented the first time since 2017 that Mr. Springsteen toured with the legendary E-Street Band.
The 19-piece band barnstormed through the US and Europe until August of last year, when remaining tour dates were postponed due to an ailing Mr. Springsteen. New 2024 tour dates have been announced.
As a Springsteen concert neophyte, I hoped to hear some familiar tunes from way back. What I did not understand was that Springsteen concerts are a rite, a forum at once ancient and contemporary for those gathered to partake.
“Religare” is a Latin word, sometimes, and sometimes not, pinned as a predecessor to the word “religion.” Etymologically, religare references “again” and “bind,” we might simply say “reconnect.” As the concert kicked off, it was viscerally clear that the sold-out crowd of 17,000-plus people under that roof were there to remember, return, and most of all, reconnect.
Scholars of early Greek ritual describe shared emotion, deification by projection, and, of course, participation mystique as experiences of those who attended performances of archaic Greek theatre. Erudite observers of Mr. Springsteen have surely described the same.
It was largely an over-50 crowd, looking forward, I think, to a good show and something more. These concerts are a touchstone experience for true believers. Mr. Springsteen is a kindred soul who can lift others out of their time, while living the pathos of years and youth gone by with them. The unmistakable undercurrent of the concert was the challenge of facing down time, memory, and loss.
As an opener, the anthem, “No Surrender” left no question the goods would be delivered. It was followed by a reverie of rowdy favorites and a raft of songs that recognized the joy of good times with good friends even as the years pass by.
Mr. Springsteen and his band displayed daunting musical capability. Throughout, he deftly plied the crowd with call and response. Except for the odd interlude when the man ripped off his shirt, the band shifted between tent-revival bacchanal and the personal reflections of Mr. Springsteen, perhaps honed during his successful solo show, Springsteen on Broadway.
In return, the audience remained on their feet, in their seats, or in the aisles, drunk, stoned, or straight, giving it up on every song. As the evening wore on the participatory spirit never dropped back. The audience backed “Bruuuuce” at every turn.
The set list was built on old favorites, E-Street classics, and in a tip of the hat to the Boston venue, a cover of the Standells hit “Dirty Water.”
In the middle of the playlist, the band cruised through a cover of the Commodores “Night Shift” into a cover of “Trapped” by Jimmy Cliff:
“And it seems like the game I played has made you strong
And when the game is over, I won’t walk out a loser
And I know that I’ll walk out of here again
But right now I’m trapped…”
Words do not describe the fervor Mr. Springsteen conjured in this show and in this song. Each concert-goer had their reasons for attending and moments like this song were surely one of them.
On the chorus line, “right now I’m trapped,” the vehement collective exhale of thousands of people transformed a cover song into a ritual discharge of pent-up emotion, pain, futility, and fury.
For anyone there who understood how it feels to be stuck in a dead relationship, job, or life situation, it became a moment to yell personal pain into the communal voice and feel the tide carry it away, gaining the chance to leave it in that space, that night, courtesy of Mr. Springsteen, high-priest, poet, or seasoned showman, whatever you want to call him.
Ritual, reconnection, remembering. The encore was extensive. Mr. Springsteen ended out the night in a quiet solo reverie, the perfect book-end to his opening number. Deification dropped, he took the stage, a 74-year-old man with more years behind than ahead, like much of his audience. In “See You in My Dreams,” Mr. Springsteen writes:
“I’ll see you in my dreams when all our summers have come to an end
I’ll see you in my dreams
Yeah, up around the river bend
For death is not the end
And I’ll see you in my dreams.”
Mortality haunts Mr. Springsteen, and he is not afraid to sing about it.
You shoulda been there.
Shouldn't...but Do 