Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Back To Bruce Fans Never Tire Of Springsteen’s Powerful Music And Message

Don Adair Correspondent

Bruce Springsteen was a would-be rock star 21 years ago when he and his E Street Band stormed the Northwest with back-to-back concerts in Portland and Seattle.

Twenty-one years later, almost to the day, Springsteen returned to the scenes of his conquest, and the contrast between Springsteen then and now could not have been more stark.

On Oct. 24 and 25, 1975, Springsteen’s shows at the twin Paramount Theaters in Portland and Seattle were raucous marathons. He and his E Street Band drew on material from three records, “Greetings From Asbury Park, New Jersey,” “The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle” and the break-through “Born to Run,” which had been released a month earlier.

A great buzz had been generated about Springsteen among rock fans; he was a star among cognoscenti on the Eastern Seaboard and in such scattered locations as Philadelphia and Houston. By 1975, the Northwest was primed for Springsteen; even so, late arrivals could buy tickets for the Portland and Seattle shows at the door.

The concerts blew all expectations out of the water. The E Street Band played pounding rock that welded the innocent energy of ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll with Springsteen’s ‘70s singer/ songwriter sensibilities. His tales of castaways and losers - trapped in dead-end New Jersey shore towns, but seeking a better life through guitars and fast cars - were framed by raging guitars, hard-cracking drums and the screaming saxophone of Clarence “Big Man” Clemmons, Springsteen’s burly alter ego.

Each night during his long and uproarious encore set, Springsteen did a James Brown turn, collapsing into a heap at the foot of the microphone. Clemmons propped him up and urged him on. “I can’t, Big Man,” he rasped, “I can’t.” The crowd howled. Springsteen responded: “One! two! three! four!” he screamed and the band kicked into “C.C. Ryder,” “Devil With a Blue Dress On” or “I Fought the Law.”

Saved again by rock ‘n’ roll.

In those days, Springsteen thought he could save the world with music.

“When I first picked up a guitar, I got a little over-enthusiastic,” he said in Seattle Tuesday night. “I thought I could change the world if I could just write the right song.

“Peace in the Middle East? No problem.”

But over the course of the past two decades, in which both his fame and record sales have multiplied many score, Springsteen discovered that “the world isn’t stopped that easily.”

In 1984, Springsteen released his landmark record, “Born In the USA.” A dark exploration of post-Vietnam America - and perhaps the record he thought would save the world - “Born In the USA” was set to crushing dance rhythms. It sold millions and created legions of new fans who failed to grasp the gloom beneath the electric veneer - including a string of right-wing politicians who to this day want to co-opt its anthemic title song.

Once burned, Springsteen seems satisfied making his point in smaller and perhaps more obvious ways.

Certainly, there’s no mistaking the message that permeates every track of “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” the 1995 release that Springsteen is now supporting with a solo acoustic tour.

“Tom Joad” was influenced by a book and a movie: The book was “Journey to Nowhere,” a bleak portrait of the working men and women devastated by the collapse of industrial America; the movie was John Ford’s version of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” from which Springsteen drew the name of his protagonist.

Springsteen fashioned the record out of the lives of Rust Belt victims, illegal immigrants and the Vietnam veterans who have populated his records - and perhaps his conscience - for many years.

It was this Springsteen who faced a full house alone Tuesday night at Seattle’s Paramount Theater. His irrepressible humor shone through - in playful raps with the audience, in the bawdy/silly unreleased Santa Claus song “Pilgrim in the Temple of Love,” in his wink-and-a-nod tribute to his wife Patti’s sexuality, “Redheaded Woman,” and in his infectious cackling chuckle - but otherwise Springsteen was all business.

Accompanied only by his 6- and 12-string guitars and a mouth harp, Springsteen sang most of “Tom Joad,” played some unreleased material and breathed new life into a handful of classics, including “Blinded By the Light,” the evening’s only sing-along, and “Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street,” both from his first record.

But the greatest triumph was a midshow two-song set that opened with the unreleased “Brothers Under the Bridges,” a story of disaffected veterans and their families. A Vietnam veteran who has fled to California’s San Gabriel mountains to live in a tent camp tries to explain to his daughter how his life fell apart: “One minute you’re right there and something slips,” he says simply.

Then Springsteen recast “Born In the USA” into a song that no politician will ever steal again. He stripped the song of its anthemic chorus and slammed his acoustic 12-string, which he played with a slide, until it made machine-gun sounds. He spit out the horrific war images as if they were bile in his mouth.

All was not so grim. In “Long Time Coming,” another unreleased song, a father on a camping trip tucks his children into bed. Springsteen laughingly introduced the song “too damn happy - I don’t trust them happy songs,” a joking reference to “Lucky Town” and “Human Touch,” his two “happy” records which met with near-universal indifference.

He wrapped the show with “The Promised Land,” from “Darkness On the Edge of Town.” It’s a warning that dreams will “break your heart … tear your soul apart,” and an exhortation that without dreams life is worth nothing.

Springsteen believes that faith and hope are our salvation, and that they are found in the smallest actions of good people. He believes that salvation is not an individual thing, but a collective one, and that each of us is responsible for all others.

And, when he held his guitar high over his head at the conclusion of “The Promised Land,” he made it clear he still believes the right song can change the world. That much has never changed.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo