Posted on 06/15/2006 3:37:09 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
Pete Seeger sings songs of peace, hope and the working class. Bruce Springsteen's idea to reinterpret the Seeger songbook with broad strokes of street jazz and gospel is a noble thought. Unfortunately, Springsteen's Tuesday night "Seeger Sessions" concert was outsourced to the First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre in Tinley Park.
Everything that was so right about the music was so wrong for the venue.
Springsteen and his raucous 17-piece band failed to even fill the pavilion. Roughly 5,500 fans showed up, and the $92 ticket price knocked out the working-class audience that Springsteen and Seeger have championed. This is First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre, as in cha-ching. A Corona beer was $10. "Seeger Session" programs were $20. I know many fans who would have taken a chance on the show had tickets been $50 or less. So who's left? People who may not share Seeger and Springsteen's political beliefs.
How do I know this? Springsteen's first encore was an evocative version of "Bring Them Home (If You Love Your Uncle Sam)," which Seeger wrote in 1966 as an anti-Vietnam War song. Back then, thousands of people sang with Seeger on the chorus: "Bring 'em home, bring 'em home, but I got a right to sing this song. ..."
But after Tuesday's rendition, there was a smattering of applause to a message that is as much about freedom of expression as it is against war. The starchy atmosphere was not lost on the Boss, who earlier in the concert remarked, "Tinley Park. I don't know where the hell that is -- some big black box outside of Chicago?"
So Springsteen tried his best, especially in the second portion of the 2-1/2-hour show. (In what is becoming a Springsteen tradition, he kicked off the concert almost an hour after the advertised 7:30 p.m. start.) He rearranged "Ramrod" into a Tex-Mex-meets-ska roadhouse number with tuba solos, and "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)" continues to embrace the zydeco seasonings Springsteen deployed at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
New Orleans is still much on Springsteen's mind. He wasn't as vocal about President Bush as he was in New Orleans, explaining that he doesn't "like to kick a man when he's down." But Springsteen's hard-rockin' reworking of Blind Alfred Reed's "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live" continues to be an emotional cornerstone of the set.
Springsteen added his own post-Katrina lyrics to the 1929 blues song that reflected on the Great Depression. On Tuesday, he sang of "bodies floatin' on Canal and the levees gone to hell" with raw conviction and empathy. Moments earlier, Springsteen shared vocals with Marc Anthony Thompson (Chocolate Genius) as they recast "Long Black Veil" through pure country gospel.
The stage was basked in shades of red, and I found the three chandeliers above the band very ironic. Here's a news flash: There are places in Chicago like the Auditorium Theatre and Orchestra Hall that have storied chandeliers, where Seeger and the Weavers actually performed, and are more accessible for older folk music fans than a shed among the little boxes that Seeger himself sang about in 1963's ode to suburbia "Little Boxes (Ticky Tacky)."
dhoekstra@suntimes.com
CHICAGOLAND PING
gag me with a tuba...
And how about that snotty last paragraph from Hoekstra? I guess he thinks we should all be ghetto-dwellers. I saw Springsteen in '77 at the Auditorium when he really was the Boss, not the politically correct phony that he is now; great show show but terrible acoustics.
That kind of coin won't cover his bands bar tab.
The author is right about one thing. He should have played the Auditorium or even the Ampitheatre. He might have been able to make it look like he still had a following.
I've loathed Springsteens music since 1977 and quite proudly I might add.
Working mans hero my ass.
He's a phony.
L
I actually liked this guy quite a bit up until the mid-80s; I think the Dancing in the Dark video was the last straw. But listening again now, most of his vocals are so overwrought he sounds like he singing while he's sitting on the toilet, constipated.
Springsteen added his own post-Katrina lyrics to the 1929 blues song that reflected on the Great Depression.
Blind Alfred Reed was not a blues singer, the song was not blues, and it's tough to reflect on the "Great Depression" a month after the Wall Street crash.
the $92 ticket price knocked out the working-class audience that Springsteen and Seeger have championed.
"Bruuuuce" is one of the biggest phonies around. Typical of all "liberals", smug, arrogant, condescending, preachy, self-righteous. Plus he's stupid and doesn't know it.
5,500 tickets sold out of 30,000 seats, not very good "Bruuuce".
Front row seats for Jimi Hendrix' Band of Gypsies at the Fillmore East, New Years Eve 1969 - 8 dollars.
And how about that snotty last paragraph from Hoekstra? I guess he thinks we should all be ghetto-dwellers. I saw Springsteen in '77 at the Auditorium when he really was the Boss, not the politically correct phony that he is now; great show show but terrible acoustics.Cleveland Agora, August 9, 1978 (I was quite illegal...LOL). Perhaps one of the best rock and roll shows ever, anywhere.
Unfortunately, at some point in the mid 80's, Bruce came down with SDS (S don't stink) Syndrome, the same thing that afflicted the Beatles (about the time of Sergeant Pepper), Prince, REM, and numerous other artists.
It's still tough to beat songs like "Thunder Road", "Jungleland", "Born to Run", "Asbury Park Fourth of July", "Rosalita", and "Sherry Darling".
Ironically, when I was a big Springsteen fan and becoming a conservative, my mom was a big Pete Seeger fan. Even moreso, he criticized Reagan for using "Born In The USA", but it was the national mood of optimism Reagan helped rekindle that made that album so huge.
-Eric
Working mans hero my ass.
He's a phony.
Ditto.
Couldn't happen to a nicer jerk! Back when I used to like the 'Boss' I really liked him...when he took that major left turn and then went after Patti, I said WTF? Bye Brucie...LOL
Never got it on this Jersey Jerk, Springsteen. Never watch him in any format and his music sounds to me as little more than an adverising jingle. He is a phony, just another hypocrite like those other Jersey Jerks, the 9/11 Jersey Girls, so stupid as to support the D-Rats who actually facilitated the 9/11 murder of their spouses, and will do so again if given an opportunity. When did people become so dumb and vacuous???
Pop Culture, a disease of choice, it's beyond belief.
Still that's pretty pathetic for 'the boss'.
Never could stand his music.
L
I was never much of a fan, either. The music doesn't do much for me and the lead-footed dancing is the worst.
The Boss is going down along with the Dixie Clucks. You think they might get the picture after a while?
And who would pay $92 to hear him? Geez....
Wanna Be NJ Billy Joel Couldn't Make It As A Solo Act Had To Get A Band Workin' Man's Family Values.
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