Posted on 09/01/2003 8:36:27 AM PDT by dead
The party-hearty Bruce Springsteen almost - but not quite - brought another kind of party into the climax of his final blowout gig at Giants Stadium on Sunday night.
"The question of whether we go to war in Iraq is not a liberal or a conservative question," The Boss said in one of several "public service announcements" during his ebullient show. He then recommended that the audience read humorist Al Franken's "Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right" before he launched into "Land of Hope and Dreams."
But apart from this and his customary plug for the Community FoodBank of New Jersey, rocking - not politicking - was at the heart of Springsteen's agenda on this memorable last Sunday of his Meadowlands run.
"Cynthia," a little-known tune from Springsteen's back catalog, launched the finale of his unprecedented, marathon 10-show engagement at Giants Stadium. Call it a small gift for the faithful who returned night after night to see Springsteen on his home turf - for many, the one redeeming feature of an otherwise dreary, rainy summer.
"Welcome to the last New Jersey house party," he said to the cheering crowd. "I think we're gonna try to take it out in style."
Which he did. After running through a catalog of his most righteous songs, many from "The Rising" album - "The Rising," "Lonesome Day," "Lucky Town," "Empty Sky," "Waiting on a Sunny Day," and "Mary's Place" - he closed his first set of encore numbers with a "Born to Run" for the record books. He stretchedthe final dramatic pause near the end almost to the breaking point before bringing down the house with the final verse about a highway jammed with broken heroes.
And yes, he came back for "Rosalita" and "Dancin' in the Dark" (no lucky girl from the audience came up this time). And then the biggest surprise: "Jersey Girl," which fans had been hoping for throughout the 10-show run, but which did not appear in the set until Sunday night.
Springsteen seemed in exceptionally high spirits, at one point grabbing a mike stand and flipping himself upside-down like an Olympic gymnast, and then propelling himself across the stage on his knees like the younger Bruce of his "Born in the U.S.A." glory days.
"Playing this summer was a big thrill," Springsteen said toward the end. "Thank you for your support." And then the words the fans were waiting for: "And we'll do it again sometime."
On Sunday night, 50,000 fans cheered the Freehold-born performer.
"We have a group of friends who talk on the computer, and we have a thing called PBD - Post-Bruce Depression," said Marcy Jurek, 39, who traveled from Schererville, Ind., to see her third Meadowlands show (she also saw shows in Chicago, Indianapolis, and Duluth, Minn.). "We also have what we call PBE - Pre-Bruce Euphoria."
In the Giants Stadium parking lot, where cars and vans began their daily Springsteen tailgate party as early as noon, PBE was running rampant. Meanwhile, down at the shore, everything was alright.
The shore was a narrow strip of sand in the shadow of Gate C, along an equally narrow boardwalk equipped with a quasi-midway: Ferris wheel, dunk-the-clown, krazy kans, volleyball, sausage and burger booths, and raised lifeguard chairs towering over the bare asphalt - a special home-state feature of "The Rising" tour, now in its second summer. "We wanted to see if anybody needed to be saved in the parking lot," said Susanne Flannelly, 51, of Jackson, sitting at one of the lifeguard stations.
The unprecedented 10 days at the Meadowlands has been a bonanza for hard-core Springsteen fans - their hands sagging under multicolored wristbands of blue, yellow, orange, red, and white from previous concerts. Many wore commemorative T-shirts with numbers on them - "6," "8," "9" — the souvenirs of other Meadowlands shows.
"This has really made my summer," said Steve Moger, 27, of River Edge, who had seen all nine of the previous Giants Stadium shows and, like many others in the stadium parking lot, was trying to score tickets to the 10th. "Need 1 GA" [General Admission] placards were everywhere.
"I couldn't think of a better way to end the summer than at a Bruce concert," Moger said.
If nothing else, the heavy-duty fans were clearly keeping The Boss on his toes during his 10 Giants Stadium gigs, seven in July and three in August. Having so many fans return night after night to the same venue has led Springsteen to boost the novelty quotient and energy.
"It's like going to the buffet line," said Rick Shear, 50, of Union, who has been to all nine shows and was about to attend the 10th. "After you go there a few times, you want to get different things."
The tour that began last summer as a conventionally good, by-the-numbers Springsteen show has evolved into a much looser, more interesting affair, with unscheduled guest appearances (Bobby Bandiera on Thursday, Emmy Lou Harris on Saturday night) and obscure songs from early albums elbowing their way into a set heavy with new songs from "The Rising" and the obligatory Springsteen classics like "Born to Run."
"Roll of the Dice," "Raise Your Hand," and "Pretty Flamingo" are among the lesser-known Springsteen tunes and covers the Boss has trotted out in recent shows for savvy Jersey audiences, for whom even the excitement of the newly resuscitated "Rosalita" has begun to pall.
"Rosalita, Rosalita, Rosalita - it's getting tedious," said Sam Missimer, 48, of New Brunswick, sitting at his parked Winnebago awaiting his sixth Bruce show of the summer.
At 5:30 p.m., there was a buzz among the parking lot tailgaters. From inside Giants Stadium, Bruce and the band could be heard sound-checking a tune that would be heard later but for now was not immediately recognizable.
"It's 'Cynthia,'Ÿ" announced Ted Whitby, 47, of Princeton Junction, returning to his parking lot encampment after comparing notes with another bunch of hard-core fans.
"I take it Bruce feels an obligation," Whitby said. "You have to introduce new tunes occasionally, or else you're just going through the motions. And if a Bruce show just goes through the motions, it's dead in the water."
E-mail: beckerman@northjersey.com
It's strange, in times past, someone like Springsteen would have encouraged people to buy the book of an intellectual or even a pseudo-intellectual polemic like Noam Chomsky. But now, the intellectual master of liberalism is an ersatz humorist whose jokes indicate a wholly unveiled psychosis of bitterness and anger.
That is something that I have noticed about bleeding-heart celebrities: they are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, they give a mere pittance to charities, and then try to lay some guilt trip on the great unwashed about giving. Add to that, they will make appearances at those charities, only if they get a huge payment for doing so. Some spirit of giving, wouldn't you say?
You First, Bossy-Boy.
That should keep him (and a tutor) busy for a year or two.
Do you know who was the first to do a song like that?
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