Well, the Seeger Sessions Tour has ended and everybody is holding their breath in anticipation of what will be next. Or perhaps more important, when the next thing will happen. Because Bruce already pretty much declared that the next project will be with the E Street Band, and although nothing is written in stone when it comes to Bruce's projects until they actually happen, I think it's a pretty safe bet that the E Streeters will be called out for another round in the foreseeable future. Whether it will be the last round is hard to tell, but taking into consideration that tours usually last a year or more and there's usually 2-3 years between E Street Band tours, Clarence will be close to 70 when it's time for the one after the next. And also, as has been much speculated, Max Weinberg will probably be moving to LA when his other boss, Conan O'Brien, replaces Jay Leno on the Tonight Show. It's doubtful that Max can leave this much more high-profile show for months at a time to go on tour with Bruce.

At best, we should perhaps get used to the fact that in the future E Street Band projects will be the exception to the rule rather than the other way round. Tours... if any... will be shorter and have an air of exclusiveness to them. Unless of course Bruce chooses to find replacements for Max Weinberg and Clarence, but that seems unlikely. Instead we may see individual members of the E Street Band be part of other bands backing Bruce, but a show billed as "Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band" with Clarence and Max missing... would that really be desirable? I don't think so. It could very quickly become embarrassing for everybody.

One of the bands that people like Danny or Garry could be part of may very well be the Seeger Sessions band. In the last few days of the tour Bruce more than inclined that we haven't seen the last of them. But the size of Seeger Sessions Band makes it inevitable that they won't be able to maintain the same lineup for probably even two tours in a row. Members will drift in and out, much like it's the case with Southside Johnny's Asbury Jukes (which pretty much only has two core members: Southside himself and Bobby Bandiera). There will be plenty of room for Bruce to ask his old E Street buddies to sit in on a few tours. And who knows, gradually we may see the Seeger Sessions Band, in various incarnations, become the new "main" band for Bruce. The recently ended tour showed that they are more than capable of playing Bruce's own songs, so even if they continue to call themselves the Seeger Sessions Band, the focus may shift toward playing more and more of Bruce's own compositions. Heck, we may even see them add electric instruments and play rock. The good thing about this band is that it's a totally flexible entity. It can do and play anything and give Bruce complete freedom, which is what he likes.

Whatever the case, Bruce in his older years is not going to slowly retire. In an interview with the press before the show in Copenhagen he said they would have to carry him off the stage in a casket. He has no plans of quitting writing music and performing, and no matter what band he chooses (and I mean, I could be completely wrong about everything I just wrote), I think it will be worth following. Read more

   

What exactly is up with that? Like anybody who's anybody, Bruce now has an official profile on MySpace. Actually, it seems he's had it for a while, but it hasn't gathered too much attention from the fan community. Maybe because it leaves everybody completely puzzled, including me. Is this thing really official? Does Bruce himself have anything to do with it? I can't answer the first question, but the second one must be "no". Bruce is described in third person and you don't see any personal comments from him. When that is said, there are signs that the page could be run by an insider and possibly even someone who's currently part of the Seeger tour party. Every show is being described in detail, including the nature of the crowd. Altogether the contents of the page in many ways blow away the contents of his official website, www.brucespringsteen.net. First and foremost, it's completely up-to-date. Setlists are added instantly, and the news section is updated several times a week. So what about one of the most important purposes of MySpace: sharing the music? Well, in that regard Bruce's page is definitely lacking. You won't find any exclusive audio downloads. The only multimedia you find here are links to some pretty random bootleg videos on YouTube. Actually, they are not even links. Just URLs that you have to copy and paste into your browser's address field.

And that's really the main problem with this page. Even for MySpace standards it's so amateurishly designed it's hard to believe this has been approved by Bruce or his organization. It's almost impossible to read the text without highlighting it due to a horrible background color and image. The problem is, IMO, partly inherent in MySpace, which seems to take pride in looking like something from 1996 before anyone had heard of usability and stylesheets, but surely something more could have been done to present things better.

Altogether - and this is probably just me being a bitter old man - I still fail to see what's so great about MySpace other than the fact that it's being used by millions of people and therefore there is bound to be a gem here and there. But why all those millions of people came there in the first place is a little bit beyond me. MySpace certainly didn't invent the community idea, and there are plenty of music sites that were more likely candidates for this kind of success.

Well, if anyone out there can shed some light on these mysteries - Bruce's profile and MySpace in general - I'm all ears. Oh, and by the way, I actually have my own profile there. I mean, I may not see much of a point, but darn it if I'm gonna be the only person in the world without one! Read more

   

A few days ago I launched a new section on Greasy Lake. It can be found under the Songs section of Drop the Needle and features chords to just about all released Springsteen songs. The section is actually the much celebrated Springsteen Chords site which from now on will be part of Greasy Lake. Springsteen Chords has for a long time been praised as the most extensive collection of Bruce chords anywhere and it's been featured in Greasy Lake's link collection under Top Sites along with such brilliant sites as Backstreets, BruceBase and Lost in the Flood. However, Josef Schefel who created Springsteen Chords decided to hand the reins over to someone else, and that became yours truly. However, unlike Josef I'm not a musician myself and know next to nothing about chords, so you won't find me transcribing chords to all of Bruce's upcoming albums. Not that it was Josef who did it before. In the future as in the past it will be up to all the musicians out there in cyberland to help maintain the chords collection. And I know there are many of you. I'm always amazed at how many Springsteen fans play the guitar themselves and who have been inspired by his music to pick up the guitar in the first place. I'm sure, if Bruce is aware of this, it's something he is extremely proud of.

So check out the new home of Springsteen Chords and also Greasy Lake's forum for musicians, Union Street. And thank you Josef for showing the confidence to give away your baby (if not any of your real babies :-)) to Greasy Lake. Read more

   

It's almost time for the annual Light of Day benefit shows supporting the Parkinson's Disease Foundation. The three shows will take place on December 1, 2, and 3 at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ. There will even be shows in Europe this time around. You can read the press release here for more information.
If you're unable to attend the shows, dont' fret. You can still support the good cause and get something nice back: a real stunning calendar with pictures of some of the artists who have performed at the Light of Day shows. Even if you don't know who they are, the calendar is still well worth it just for the quality of the photos. Check it out.
PS, No, I don't know if Bruce will appear at this year's show. He returns home from Europe in a couple of weeks, soooo..... Read more

   

You know that feeling after a concert you walk out knowing that you've just seen the best show ever? Well, I feel that way after about every third Bruce show I go to. Whether it actually is the best show ever is impossible to say, but that's not the point. The point is that as long as Bruce can continue to give me that feeling I'm not going to write him off.

Anyway, the last time I got this feeling was this last Saturday when Bruce had just finished his Seeger Sessions show in Copenhagen. And now, I know you're probably thinking, how can a show of folk songs and a bunch of unknown musicians feel like the best show ever? Well, to be honest, I never expected that either. I admit the other show I saw on this tour (Frankfurt in May) left me just a teeny bit cold. I wrote about it on this page and probably put it in a slightly more positive light than I actually felt it was worth. Back then I felt there were just too many songs that didn't mean anything to me, and even Bruce's own songs fell flat in their new weird arrangements. Adding to the less than stellar impression was also the fact that my seat was way back in the arena and that people around me seemed to think they were in the movie theater rather than at a hootenanny.

All of those things had changed for the Copenhagen show. I was in the pit with hundreds of like minded people who were there to have fun. And the songs... well, they suddenly weren't half bad. Especially the choices Bruce had made regarding his own songs had helped fix things. Gone were the horrible "Johnny 99" and "Cadillac Ranch/Mystery Train", and in their place he'd added "Atlantic City" and "Devils & Dust", both in pretty stunning arrangements. OK, he'd also added the inevitable "Bobby Jean", but I was ready to forgive him for that. At least he hadn't turned it into some weird mess like "Johnny 99". It was pretty straight forward. Oh, and we can't forget the additions of the ever-beautiful "Long Time Comin'" and the very welcome resurrection of "Fire".

But of course, the song selections alone can't put a show in the "best show ever" category. What really put it over the top was the passion and the energy Bruce displayed. He knows he needs to win people over. This is not an E Street Band show where victory has been ensured by the first note. There will always be a pretty large amount of the crowd who, when they see 17 people walking on stage with tubas and banjos and whatnot, will think, "what the hell is that?" I think that's one of the reasons he's doing it. He wants to try that feeling again like in 1973 when no one knew who the hell Bruce Springsteen was and he had to convince every single soul in the crowd that he wasn't just any young striving musician. He meant business. The only way he can achieve that today is to alienate a sizable chunk of his fans and then try to win them back by sheer will and insistence and energy. He knows not everyone is going to like to see their rock 'n' roll hero play "Old Dan Tucker", but he also knows that if you work hard enough a fair amount of them are going to start listening and come around little by little.

That's what I saw in Copenhagen. A fired-up Bruce who took the crowd in one by one, song by song, including me. I was ready to be disappointed again, but by the time he did the extended jam during "You Can Look" I had that feeling of floating on the music like everything is right in the world that I had first experienced when he did "She's the One" at the same venue 18 years earlier on the Tunnel of Love Express Tour... my very first show. And the next song, "When the Saints Go Marching In"... I swear to God, play all your Darkness boots from start to finish and you won't find a more beautiful moment. It was otherworldly. It was pure genius. It was what "best shows ever" are made of. Read more

   

While Bruce is attracting thousands of people all over Europe playing American traditionals, his old buddy Southside Johnny is on a more low-key tour of the old world with his Asbury Jukes. Last week I was fortunate enough to catch them in what has become an annual tradition, their show at Amager Bio in Copenhagen. Southside is doing what he's been doing for as long as I think anyone can remember: playing his unmistakable rock 'n' roll/blues/soul mixture, horns blasting, guitar screaming, harmonica whailing. He may have gained a few pounds over the years, and he may not be jumping up and down quite as much as he used to, but make no mistake, the energy level is still way above what most bands can only dream of. There is rarely a break between songs, and for the two and a half hours a typical Southside Johnny show lasts, Southside makes a strong case why he and not James Brown or even Bruce should earn the title as the hardest working man in showbusiness. If you get a chance, catch one of his shows and support a guy who doesn't make millions on his music and who mostly does it because that's all he knows how to do and because the world needs bands like the Asbury Jukes. Read more

   

Well, the first week of European shows is over, and we have in fact seen what seems like a new trend in the setlists. It seems Bruce is more willing to try out new things with the Seeger Sessions Band than before, and it seems he's more willing to dig into his own material. "The River", "Fire", "Growin' Up" and "Bobby Jean" all made their first appearances with the Seeger Sessions Band this past week, and traditionals like "This Little Light of Mine" and "Samson and Delilah" also made their way into the set. While this is by no means a revolutionary shake-up, it's enough to make life a little more interesting to setlist-watchers everywhere. Now, if Bruce would only realize how songs like "All I'm Thinkin' About" and "Maria's Bed" from the Devils & Dust are begging for a Seeger Sessions treatment! Read more

   

Starting today Bruce's Seeger Sessions circus tour is back on the road. Tonight he kicks off his new European tour with a show in Bologna, Italy. It will be the first of no less than seven Italian shows, which is unprecedented for him. Unfortunately the show in Caserta has been moved from the beautiful Ciardini Della Reggia castle to a small indoor arena called Palamaggio. After spending 1½ weeks in Italy the tour will continue in the rest of Europe where it will end on November 21.
But for now it will be interesting to see what, if any, changes Bruce has come up with since the last leg ended in June. Last time Bruce took such a long break in the middle of the tour was in 1992-93. When he returned to the road in March 1993 the show had been completely revamped, including the first live performances of the then unreleased "This Hard Land". Of course, that doesn't mean something simiilar will happen this time, but it will definitelly be worth checking out the setlist tomorrow. Among other things, it will be interesting to see if the American adaptions of the show will survive. I'm talking about songs like "American Land" and "Bring 'Em Home" which seemed tailor-made to an American audience. Whatever the case, with that many shows in Italy and, in three weeks, Spain, it looks like Bruce is ready for some fun and craziness.
Enjoy, all of you who're going!
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There hasn't been a whole lot of news in the last few weeks while I was on vacation, and whatever there was, you probably found elsewhere. On the 17th Bruce performed for parents and teachers at the Ranney School in what used to be the Rumson County Day School benefit, but which has now been changed to the Ranney School benefit. I don't know if his kids changed schools or what. Whatever the case, you can see the setlist and more details here if you haven't already.
In other news, there will be a book signing by Robert Santelli for his new book, Greetings from E Street: The Story of Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band, which I have mentioned before on this page and which looks like it's going to be essential reading for all serious fans. The book signing will take place in the Pollak Theatre at Monmouth University in New Jersey this next Saturday.
Finally I'd like to mention that in Italy the 8th annual Glory Days in Rimini Bruce party will happen on September 29-30 in Italy. It's becoming one of the biggest and oldest Bruce events of the year, and as usual you can expect lots of live music, videos, memorabilia, and lots of other things. See more details here, but you have to know Italian. Read more

   

I'll use Bruce's 57 birthday as an opportunity to re-emerge from oblivity and wish him a good one. And may the next year be as active and exciting as this past one has been.

Personally I have been on a nice little vacation for a couple of weeks, but I'm now back in business, so that hopefully you won't have to wait another three weeks for the next update. I want to apologize to those who submitted eyewitness accounts in the Magic in the Night section and didn't have them approved until today. We actually passed the 1000th account submission within the last couple of weeks. Not all have been approved, so you can't quite read 1000 accounts, but it's close. I hope you'll keep them coming when Bruce returns to Europe in just a few weeks. Read more