Bruce is a hypocrite and I can’t understand the fascination people have with him here in NJ. That said, his son is a firefighter in the Jersey City FD so that’s about as “regular guy” as you can get.
Media hype. Springsteen was my introduction to media bias in the late 70’s. While rags like Rolling Stone magazine were crapping over great bands like the mighty Led Zeppelin, they were pumping out article after article calling springsteen the next coming. I wrote a LTE to RS about the bias in the early 80’s and they actually published it.
Politics aside, i never liked springsteen’s music- monotonous and redundant. When i told people i didn’t like him the response back then was ALWAYS, “have you seen him in concert??? have you seen him in concert??”
So i did- a girlfriend i was dating liked springsteen, got tickets and i agreed to go. After the first three songs i thought, “hey this is pretty good!! I may like it!!!”
Then i remembered why i didn’t like springsteen as the 4th song sounded exactly like the 5th song which sounded exactly like the 6th song which sounded exactly like the 7th song. Then there was the lecturing after every song. Then there was an obnoxious 25 minute version of the Beatles “Twist and Shout” complete with people on the stage dressed like bears dancing around.
I left the concert with my girlfriend, stuck a cassette tape (no CD’s back then) of “Trampled Under Foot” in the cars cassette player, rolled down the windows and blasted it as we left.