And although most theaters remained closed on this sultry summer Saturday evening two and a half years later, the Boss has seen fit to lead Broadway’s reopening, as if to give a cautiously optimistic signal to audiences — hey, if Bruce thinks it’s okay, it should be okay.
But like that change-of-heart master Neil Young, Springsteen obeys an inner voice only he can hear — one that tells him to abandon completed albums; to announce that he and his band are going on a long tour just weeks after he’s told them they’re not; and to cut half the songs from “The River” in the middle of the tour celebrating that album’s 35th anniversary have said is likely in 2022.
After passing a handful of anti-vaxxers protesting the show’s vaccine requirement — one of whose sign read “Bruce Springsteen is for segregation on Broadway,” whatever that means — we presented our digital ticket, proof of vaccination and photo I.D., and entered a theater buzzing with a level of anticipation high even for the Boomer-aged Boss faithful.
‘You have managed to engage in an act so heinous that it has offended the entire fucking United States! You, my recalcitrant, lawbreaking bridge and tunnel friend, have drunk two shots of tequila!’ My hometown,” he sighed.
He also changed up his delivery on several songs in a singalong-defying way: “Growin’ Up” had jittery strumming; “Born in the U.S.A.” is even more of a gospel-blues holler, played with a slide on 12-string guitar; he sang “Thunder Road” in his Woody Guthrie-esque semi-Southern accent.
But most strikingly, he softly choked up with emotion several times, and seemingly not because it was his first concert since the pandemic began: It came as he remembered people from his past, from high school friends who died in Vietnam to longtime saxophonist and wingman Clarence Clemons ; from his late father to his mother, now 95 and a decade into Alzheimer’s.
Instead of the usual “Brilliant Disguise,” they did a playful duet on “Fire,” the Springsteen song that was a 1980 hit for the Pointer Sisters, and it ended up being the highlight of the night.
King that says, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’” He waited out the applause before continuing, “Now, he neglected to mention that it does an awful lot of zigging and zagging along with way,” to laughter.
He followed with another new addition, a tacit nod to the Black Lives Matter movement: “American Skin,” which was written in the wake of Amadou Diallo’s 1999 death at the hands of New York police.
I’m glad to be doing this show again, to get to visit with my dad every night, and Clarence, and Danny , and my Randolph Street family — all gone.