Chasing Angels

Many thanks to those who, privately or publicly, have said kind things about "Seventeen/Forty-Seven: Darkness & Magic" which I posted the other day. I really don't normally post unpublished poems here, not so much because I'm afraid somebody will plagiarize them but because posting them publicly generally means they won't be considered for publication elsewhere. In this case, I think the work found its audience here - much more so than it would have in a literary journal or whatever. So, thanks. It means a lot to me.

I wrote an elegy for Danny Federici when he died a few years ago (it's gotten some kind comments from editors but hasn't been published yet - maybe I'll post it here sometime). For those who may be unfamiliar, "Phantom Dan" played organ and accordion in the E Street Band, and he died of melanoma in 2008. I was unexpectedly shaken by his passing - in a very literal sense, as it turns out, because my part of Indiana experienced a rare earthquake in the predawn hours of the morning after Danny's death. (Yeah, that's in the poem.) More importantly, I was unexpectedly and deeply moved by the graceful way in which Bruce and the band dealt with his loss. They were mid-tour, and the first show following Danny's funeral has taken on legendary status in the Springsteen fan community - I wasn't there (though I will admit to having investigated plane fares before realizing it was completely impossible for me to go) but I've heard recordings of it, and it was both ferocious and tender, both raging and celebratory. Springsteen's eulogy was tremendously moving, as well. And Bruce has always written about how to cope with aging and death ("you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore" - he wrote that when he was what, twenty-three or something?) but some of his most recent work, like "Kingdom of Days" and his song for Danny, "The Last Carnival," tackles it with a grace and wisdom that moves me so deeply.

I started thinking about the whole thing, and about what it meant to work with somebody in a creative situation (like in a band) for so many years - all one's adult life, really - to share all those experiences, from fighting and grubbing to work in smelly little clubs to touring worldwide, performing music that ultimately stirred millions of souls - and then to suffer that kind of loss. I started thinking about the legendary "brotherhood" of the E Street Band. It could all be a big act, you know. We fans love to believe in it; it's a fable, a wonderful story, and it means a lot to us. But they are performers, these guys. It's a show. And we know the image that's presented onstage (and in the media) is always, always, always at least partially a fictitious construction. (This goes for everyone with a public image to maintain. You don't think rockstars act like they do on stage 24/7, do you? Some of them try to, but it's a pretty safe bet that anyone who has friends that still speak to them after some years has given up and accepted that they can be a rockstar on stage but they had damn well better be a human being at home. And you know Patti Scialfa would kick Bruce's butt if he came home and announced "It's Boss time!")

Now, to be clear: I don't know anyone in the E Street Band personally. I've met Max Weinberg once, briefly, and he was very nice - but that's it. If it's all an act and they really can't stand each other offstage, or if they are jerks, I wouldn't know about it. I truly believe that it's not an act - I know enough people who know them at least somewhat, and have read & heard enough things about them over the years, to believe that the whole "brotherhood" thing is based on a deep truth. I've seen the way they look at one another onstage and I do not think any of them (Steven Van Zandt's stint on "The Sopranos" notwithstanding) is a good enough actor to fake what I see there. What's more, if Bruce Springsteen kicks puppies in his spare time, I neither need nor want to know about it. Guy writes songs like he does and gives shows like he does, he can do what he wants when I'm not looking. Even if the sentiment in songs like "Land of Hope and Dreams" were fake for him, it's very real for me. And the image of him - and of the band - that I have in my heart makes my world a better place to live in. So, consider that your official disclaimer there.

But I started thinking - what if you had a couple of bandmates who'd been together that long, and who had the whole Bruce-and-Stevie (or Clarence, but my character's a guitarist)/Mick-and-Keef "bromance" thing going on onstage, but for them it really was all an act, and they couldn't stand each other in real life? (Mind, this was before I read Keith Richards' autobiography where he says some not-very-nice things about Mr. Jagger. I thought I was making up this story.) And furthermore… what if they couldn't stand each other in real life because they couldn't stand that the love they showed onstage really did reflect something about their feelings for one another? Being afraid of one's feelings is one of those universal human things I can hook into and identify with, and wrestle with in poems. And then the characters jumped into my head and started talking to me, and since I can't write fiction worth a shit, I started writing poems.

And it was the most fun I've ever had writing poems, I think. I had some poems about them being young and playing in shitty smelly clubs, and a bunch of "on the road" poems that I hope I got more or less right (never having been a touring musician myself, you see - any actual touring musicians reading this who'd like to read a few of them and offer feedback are warmly invited to do so). Oh, and then the guitarist starts liking the rockstar lifestyle a little too much and starts missing rehearsals or showing up too far under the influence to be any good. And the singer/protagonist fires his sorry ass and they stop speaking to one another for years and it's all very, very sad. (I was listening to "Bobby Jean" and Nils Lofgren's "Keith Don't Go" a lot while I was writing some of the poems in this part.) And then the protagonist finds out through the grapevine that the guitarist is terminally ill (hepatitis, I think, though it probably doesn't matter) and in the hospital, so there's a touching deathbed-reunion scene and then a death scene - my fiction-writer friends always talk about how it's really fun, in a twisted way, to kill off your characters and boy howdy, that is really true. And then the whole coming-to-terms-with-grief part of it, which lets me make the sweeping grand "THIS and THIS about HUMANITY" sermon poems I'm unfortunately so fond of (I think a lot of poets are, though, even if they won't admit it). And because it's poems, not fiction, I really haven't spoiled anything by giving y'all the plot. Really. :)

So that's "Chasing Angels." Angels being, at first, the girls they think will pay attention to them if they become rockstars - there's always an angel or two in the front row for them to play to and fall in love with for the two hours that they are onstage, and the challenge of course is to win the audience over, to make the angels fall in love with them - and as the story unfolds, angels become something more problematic and complex.

And I haven't been working on this manuscript for the past year or two, because I'd kind of lost heart with it - but it's time for me to return to it. Because I'm thinking so much about Clarence Clemons, and about the heart and soul of E Street, and about the heart and soul of all of us (see? more sermonizing - jeez, it's too bad I'm allergic to religion; I could've gone to minister school instead of library school). Because I'm back to feeling that how rock & roll affects us says something about who we are as human beings. Because I'm all too aware that you gotta say what you need to say before it's too late.

Hopefully, you'll be hearing more.

Gratitude and the Flood

So what happened for a lot of us last night was a 24-hour virtual wake for Clarence Clemons. I couldn't tear myself away from the tweets and posts and links that were pouring out from fans all over the world - ended up getting very little sleep last night, actually. Dave Lifton has a nice post about how social media has kept many of us connected, over at his blog Wings for Wheels. It sort of wrapped up this evening when many of us agreed to play "Jungleland" - as loud as we could blast it - simultaneously, worldwide, at 6pm Eastern. This unleashed a torrent of tweets and a truly beautiful sense of connection. And, as one of my Twitter friends (I'm sorry that I've forgotten who) said - when it was over, the silence felt deafening.

I have so many browser tabs open right now, and emails that I marked "unread" so I'd remember to come back to them, new Twitter followers I want to follow back, links and videos and essays and posts and outpourings of love. I don't know how I'm ever going to get to them all; this evening I had to step away from the immersion for a while and just watch the sunset.

And what I want to say is, I am so grateful. It means so much to be a part of this community, to have people in my life who understand that what happened this weekend was much more than just something sad that happened to some celebrity. Like I said in my last post, the E Street Band has stood for something so vital to me and to many of us for so many years. We've lost something that has been a part of us for a very long time. And it makes us realize that eventually, we lose everything, utterly.

Except for love.

So two things tonight. One, I keep thinking about Clarence's family, close friends, his bandmates. If people like me who never even met the guy were so sad they couldn't sleep last night, imagine how bereft they are. I've lost family members, most of us have by the time we get to be middle-aged; it sucks. Sometimes there's a strange kind of elation in the first day or two, as condolences pour in and you feel loved and as you experience the kind of temporary clarity that comes from being absolutely certain about what is and isn't important in this world. Sometimes you're just fucking exhausted. Usually it's some stupid little thing that sends you over the edge and you just crash for a while - when my dad died one of those things was seeing somebody playing the bass, as he did, and remembering how his right hand looked walking up and down the strings and realizing I was never going to see that again. (Those stupid little things can keep popping up and biting you in the ass for years, too. When you least expect it.)

Anyway, I keep thinking about his close loved ones, and I want to send love and spirit in their direction. I think about Bruce Springsteen, who spent the week by his dear friend's deathbed, and who is probably bereft and exhausted and also trying to write some kind of brilliant, comforting eulogy - and I know I can't just show up at his doorstep offering a hug and a casserole (anyway his security people would whisk me away for trying to poison him, which wouldn't be an unreasonable thing to charge me with considering my culinary prowess or lack thereof, but you can't just say "hey Boss, sorry about your friend, have a Lean Cuisine" now can you?) - we can't bring funeral casseroles, so what can we fans do for those who are hurting and grieving even harder than we are?

We can do what we've been doing these past 24-plus hours, which is to send our love out there into the world. Thousands of us all over the world have been doing this - just look at Twitter! - and I want to say, look how much love Clarence Clemons brought into this world to provoke this flood of feelings, look how much love.

And since he's not here to keep bringing the love and the light, on all those stages and all those recordings where his huge spirit could reach millions - since he's not here, let's each of us just put a little more love out there into the world than we used to. We'll never fill the void left by his passing, especially not the musical void (and don't get me started on how sad I am to wake up in a world where I'll never again stand in the middle of a sweaty crowd punching the air while the Big Man wails out the "Jungleland" solo). But we can honor his lifelong work by bringing a little more love to each day. Just a little more than we did before.

It starts ... NOW. Go.

Teardrops on the city...

I know. Long time no blog. I'm sorry.

Tonight I'm here for reasons both sad and celebratory. You've probably heard by now that Clarence Clemons, who played saxophone in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, died Saturday evening a few days after suffering a massive stroke. ...Backtrack. "Played saxophone" doesn't even come close to describing what Clarence, the "Big Man," brought to the band. He was the heart and soul of all that was E Street. When he stepped onto the stage it was like a glorious sunrise. He had a smile that could light up an entire sold-out stadium all by itself, and a saxophone that followed that light with pure fire. And despite the fact that in his last years he was in near-constant pain, having had two hip replacements, two knee replacements, spinal surgery, and goodness knows what else, he still gave that beautiful smile and that music to the world.

I remember the show in St. Louis in 2009 - the next to last show I saw on that last tour - I was in the pit, about three people back from the stage, in front of Clarence. I could tell that he was physically tired, you could see the strain in his face and the pain he clearly felt anytime he moved. But he still gave his all when he played and he still beamed out at the fans, made eye contact with us, appreciated us, flirted with the women up front. And when he played his solo in "Jungleland" I knew I was in church.

Church is exactly what those shows were for me, especially in 2008-09 when I spent money I had no business spending and traveled around to shows in Indianapolis, Nashville (twice), St. Louis (twice), Kansas City, Denver, St. Paul, Chicago (twice), and Mansfield Mass (a two-night stand). Those shows meant the world to me and were the light that I held onto very tightly for a while as I went through (and am still going through) some difficult stuff.

I'll never forget a night in May 2009 when, for the first time, I was lucky enough to be in the very front row of the pit. Steven Van Zandt gave me his guitar pick at the end of the night, and yes, this perfectly rational middle-aged woman turned into a giddy fangirl over a shared smile and a little bit of plastic. Then I found out the next morning that while I'd been waiting in line for the show, my mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer. A very minor form of it (and after treatment she is completely cancer-free now as far as we know) but still, it was my MOM, and CANCER, so it shook me pretty hard. I literally held on to that guitar pick, took it out and held it tightly in my hand some days to remind me of the joy and the love and the strength of spirit that I find, without fail, in the E Street Band and the E Street Nation.

On so many dark nights over the past 35-plus years when I forgot how to believe in love, so many times it was the E Street Band that reminded me. Clarence Clemons, and his relationship (both the lifelong friendship & the musical partnership) with Bruce Springsteen, is in so many ways at the heart of what I love about E Street. There has been so much written about him, especially tonight - I won't try to replicate it; the obituary at the New Jersey Star-Ledger and the tribute at backstreets.com are the best I've read so far. (We'll also be posting links over at Blogness on the Edge of Town.) I am told that Bruce was at Clarence's side all week as he fought for his life in the hospital; I know he must be exhausted and bereft, but I hope that in his own inevitable dark nights to come, he is also able to hold on to that reminder of what is real and true.

I said earlier that when Clarence played his "Jungleland" solo I knew I was in church. That may seem hyperbolic to some, but at those concerts I was part of a congregation of souls reaching for something higher and truer than our everyday lives, something to believe in, something to help us understand how to live up to our own ideals. And isn't that church?

On that theme, I'm going to post a poem here. I don't usually post unpublished poems, but this seems like the time and place for this one. It's not specifically about Clarence, but it's about the band, about the "Darkness on the Edge of Town" and "Magic" tours and the two greatest rock & roll shows I have ever seen, thirty years apart. It's about the pact between performer and audience, a pact that I experience as nothing less than love. It is the essence of what is good in this world. It is what I hold on to during hard times. It is love. And I send this out with love to Bruce and the band and the entire E Street family, and to the E Street Nation. May we hold on to our memories of the Big Man, his beautiful music and his beautiful smile and his great big heart, and may we know that this is holy, and may we always keep on singing.


Seventeen/Forty-Seven: Darkness and Magic

I. Seventeen, The Show
(Notre Dame, 9/9/1978)

There is that moment just before
the lights go down, when the crowd
is murmuring feverishly, stamping and sweating
and I am twitching in my shitty seat
and the guy next to me lights up a doobie,
grins and offers me a toke, and I pass
it on to the friend I’m with
and I’m barely in my seat now, barely
in the real world of high
school and lousy cars and girls
who don’t understand a thing,
and I am so ready. I want this.
I count the guitars shining in their stands
on the far-off stage, watch some roadie run
over there to pluck the strings
one last time, Check Check into the microphone
and I rub my thumb across the callused
fingertips of my left hand,
all those hours of burning
up and down the neck of my only
instrument, and I am so,
so ready. I nudge my friend
and grin, I catch the eye
of my neighbor with the doobie
and I grin. I gaze down at the stage
and at the girls in the very front
row in their tight jeans and their
brand-new tour t-shirts, and the crowd
is loud and eager, the stage is set
and ready, and I don’t know
how I can bear to wait even one
minute more: the whole arena feels
like it’s going to rise up
like some great spaceship, just rise
away from the ordinary earth and fly.


II. Communion, After All
(St. Louis, 8/23/2008)

Bruce (to the audience): “Don’t you gotta be in church tomorrow?”
Steve: “We’re in church.”
Bruce: “What?”
Steve: “We’re in church now.”
-Milwaukee, 8/30/2008

The number is drawn and I’ve missed the pit.
The toe I bashed two nights ago in Nashville
throbs inside my boot. I’m among strangers—
angels, yes, with shining faces, tramps who hold
to the same hymns I do, but on this gray
and dirty street, in this disconsolate line,
strangers still – and I am waiting. I’m losing
faith, a little bit, and then it rains.
I am small and middle-aged. Seventeen
was thirty years ago, and far away.
I close my eyes, pretend to believe the rain
is a blessing, is something sweet – and my tired feet
remember that night, remember holding tightly
to the hand of a friend and rushing the stage,
remember the light that spilled over me
when I leaped atop folding chairs and danced
as you played "Twist and Shout" and the arena
was practically airborne, your kind hands
lifting your guitar, the band all blaze and thunder.
I was seventeen and believed in everything.
Now I straighten my back as the rain lets up,
take a long breath, steady my heart.
Hours yet till showtime.

And then there is waiting. And then
there is chaos and pushing and into the building
and I swear a pair of angels place tender hands
against my back, guide me into the arena. There is kindness
in the eyes of strangers, and a place against the rail.
There is the altar set with microphones
and the sweet choreography of lighting techs
ascending flimsy ladders. There is no place
on Earth or heaven I would rather be
than here, one last guitar check and chords
ring out across the room like waves
against the Jersey shore. I want to kneel.
I give myself to this.

Then sudden darkness and that moment like no other.
Then all rock and roll breaks loose.

Hours later, gratitude ringing in my ears,
you’re about to leave the stage. Then,
no: "We gotta do one for Sophie!" And you lift
your guitar into "Twist and Shout"
and all I can say is a silent "Holy…"
as the light spills over me, over all
of us. I am seventeen and forty-seven. I am an angel
dancing in the flames. There is nothing
but this night, this gift. You close your eyes
and sing, and I close mine and sing:
if there are angels they are in
this pact between us, the promises
we are keeping at this moment.
It’s only music and it’s only the night
but we are alive here, loss and laughter
crowding the lines on our faces, and I know now
that this is holy: that we are here,
blaze and thunder, still singing.

- Anne Haines

Notes from the Rock Hall 2: Music and Lyrics

So, you don't have to know me very long to learn that I love music. Whether it's a lovely cello recital by Yo-Yo Ma, an evening with a legitimate guitar god, or a road trip across the Midwest to experience the glorious roar that is a Bruce Springsteen/E Street Band concert, there is pretty much nothing I love more than music - preferably live.

My recent trip to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was such a feast of memories for me. Everything from the Beatles memorabilia (the Beatles being the first rock band I really fell in love with) to the audio stations where you could listen to little snippets from various influential radio DJ's of past decades (and I remembered secretly listening to my little transistor radio late into the night when I was supposed to be asleep, sometimes pulling in stations from far-off mysterious cities like Chicago) to the extensive artifact-driven exhibit tracing Bruce Springsteen's history, I was reminded over and over of the hours I spent immersed in music as a teenager. Bruce sings "We learned more from a three-minute record than we ever learned in school..." and it's true, you learn so much from anything you immerse yourself in like that, it marks you forever. Some of the guitar licks I've listened to a million times have probably managed to sink into my bones and change the actual way that I walk. (My poem in the new issue of New Madrid, "The Roar the Day After," is about being in high school and the way that music just doesn't leave your head and you walk around in it all day.)

But I realized more than anything, especially as I pored over the handwritten lyrics of a bunch of different artists, how that immersion in music is what made a poet out of me. I say that instinctively, but what does it mean? Well, rock & roll gives you permission to obsess, for one thing - to listen over and over, to pick apart the little nuances, to explore the same damn theme over and over (how many love songs are there anyway?) - and I don't think you can be a poet without understanding obsession on some level. At least I can't.

And, the songs gave me little templates to follow. Yeah, a lot of what I wrote in high school was intended as song lyrics, but even when I moved past that, the music had taught me something about sound and rhythm that I would never have understood had I spent the same amount of time strictly counting iambs or whatever. The sound and rhythm gave me a template, but they also gave me enough freedom to deviate where necessary; instead of slavishly sticking to "da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM" I had something more fluid to work with, something that felt alive. And even when I moved past writing verse-chorus-verse songs and started writing poems, music gave me a sense of structure: understanding how you move from the beginning of something to the end, how you can tell a story even while you loop back and repeat yourself now and then, and how the same words and lines repeated can carry different intent and resonance depending on where they fall in the structure of the thing - look at how the last chorus of a song can have an entirely different feeling from the first instance of the chorus, depending on where the song has gone in between times.

The music gave me, too, an instinctive understanding of how different sounds convey different kinds of meaning. How a staccato line of short syllables and lots of consonants has an entirely different emotional weight and resonance than a slow line with vowel sounds that are crooned and sustained. That's equally true in music and in poetry.

Now, I'm not going to make a case for song lyrics being poetry. Maybe sometimes they are, but I think 99% of the time they are different beasts entirely (which is why I think a lot of "poems set to music" fail). Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan - all of them write wonderful images and tell great stories, and the lyrics are often worth studying and thinking about and considering possible interpretations. And a few of the musicians I love are legitimate poets and/or writers; Patti Smith was a published poet before she became a musician, and Rosanne Cash was writing well before she took up music (though she didn't publish extensively until she'd become known as a musician - her collection of short stories Bodies of Water is worth picking up, and I've just started reading her brand-new memoir, Composed, which is beautifully written).

But songs are not poems. To say this is not to take anything away from them; the lyrics aren't any less masterful for being songs and not poems. You can read the lyrics on paper, but that's like viewing a painting in black and white. You can appreciate it, and you may even gain a new understanding and appreciation of it because taking away certain dimensions of the work lets you see things you might have missed otherwise. But you're not experiencing the whole work of art if you separate the music and the lyrics. No matter how great the lyrics are, they are meant to be a part of the larger whole.

At the Rock Hall, I spent hours studying handwritten lyrics (I looked at a lot of people's; it may not surprise you to know that Steven Tyler couldn't spell for crap when he wrote "Walk This Way" or that Jimi Hendrix had large, somewhat self-consciously ornate, very distinctive handwriting). As I stared at the pages of the actual spiral notebook in which Bruce Springsteen drafted "Born to Run" - pages upon pages of the thing; that song did not come easily for him and he wrote and revised and wrote and revised for what must have been months - the thing that struck me the most, and startled me the most, was how familiar those pages felt. I looked at Bruce's notebooks from his early twenties, and thought about my notebooks from my early twenties, and realized how very similar they really were. For just a few moments, I thought, "wow, Bruce Springsteen and I are, at the heart of it, in the same line of work."

And after all these years, I liked that a lot.

Stormy weather

I think I've now heard from all my Tennessee friends, and all are safe and relatively high & dry. It's crazy out there! Floods in Tennessee, oil washing up in the Gulf, busted pipes & dirty water in Boston, car bombs in NYC, tornadoes in the South... it all makes the noisy thunderstorms that have awakened me the past two nights seem pretty tame by comparison.

* * * * *

Watched the Kentucky Derby yesterday and, as I do pretty much every year about this time, remembered the time I got to meet the great Secretariat. It was about a year after he'd retired. I was a horse-crazy thirteen-year-old, and we took a family vacation to the bluegrass country of Kentucky. After making a pilgrimage to Churchill Downs, we went to the farm where Secretariat was at stud, only to find it had been closed to the public. But my parents made a phone call and pleaded our case, and they let us in and gave us a tour of the stud barn. There are pictures (I need to scan them someday & post them online!) of a nerdy little me standing next to that huge glossy red stallion, touching his shoulder, looking up at him in awe. I also got to meet his stablemate Riva Ridge and several other stallions whose names and histories I knew well. I remember that Secretariat was enormous and stunningly beautiful; though he was no longer in peak racing condition, he'd been off the track less than a year and still looked like the tremendous athlete he was. It was a great, great day for me.

This amuses me greatly: the list of celebrities I have patted on the shoulder consists of Secretariat and Bruce Springsteen. Hee! :)

No, I haven't...

... fallen off the Internet. At least not quite.

Just back from a quick trip to Nashville, put about 580 miles on the ol' odometer (well, the rental car's odometer; my beater wasn't quite up to the trip) in two days and saw a terrific concert. I need to go back to Nashville when I can spend more time. Very cool city.

I've been a very, very lucky girl this year. Wednesday night was my 8th Bruce Springsteen concert of the 2009 "Working on a Dream" tour. He and the band play in Baltimore tonight, then Buffalo NY on Sunday night (no, I won't be there for either one, sadly) and then ... that's it for the foreseeable future. The E Street Band is officially on hiatus for at least a year or two. I think most of the band members have every intention of coming back together and touring again, but life takes its hard turns sometimes and there aren't any guarantees. I've certainly enjoyed every moment of the ride I've had; it's been worth every penny, every mile, every aching muscle.

April: Denver
May: St. Paul and Chicago
August: Mansfield, MA x2
September: Chicago again
October: St. Louis
November: Nashville

Add that to the 4 shows I caught on the 2008 "Magic" tour (Indianapolis, Nashville, St. Louis, Kansas City) and it's actually been a two-year journey.

I have an essay-ish thing brewing about it all. Maybe this weekend I'll get it written. Gratitude is an important part of it, so it's an appropriate Thanksgiving-week thing...

Nearing Winter

Still not writing, and still experiencing poetry as a foreign language. I miss it, I do. I almost got it back as I was driving back from St. Louis on Monday afternoon - something about the particular combination of alertness and meditativeness that highway driving engenders has often brought me to bits of poetry. But alas, the words just flitted around the edge of my brain, laughed at me, and left.

What can you do?

* * * * *

Thanks for the kind words about my poem's appearance in Field - it's nice to share good news with people who appreciate it for what it is. Of course, the world keeps its balance, and I've had a few rejections this week too. C'est la vie. Book manuscript #1 is still out to one place, which I'm expecting to hear from just any day now; I'm holding off on sending it elsewhere at this point, until I take the time to give it a long hard look & see if it wants a big revision. (I imagine sitting it down, giving it a stern look, and asking it "do you want a big revision?" like a bad mom asking her child if he wants a spanking. Sigh.)

* * * * *

A week ago tonight I was in St. Louis for a Springsteen show. I met up with some friends before the show, and three of us went to get our wristbands together (when you have general admission tickets, you get there a bit early and get numbered wristbands; they draw a random number and the person with that number gets to go in first - so if you want to be together in the GA area you have to show up at the same time for your wristbands). We ended up doing pretty well in the lottery, about 150 back from the number that was drawn, so we ended up about 2 or 3 deep in front of the stage, pretty much right in front of Nils Lofgren's mic stand. (The picture here was taken a couple hours before the show, right after we got into the arena. We actually ended up a little closer to the stage than we are here.) I'd never been up close on that side of the stage before, so as the show progressed it was fun to have eye contact & interaction with the guys on that side, particularly Clarence Clemons & the aforementioned Nils Lofgren - who gave me quite a few great smiles throughout the show. It's no hyperbole to say that Nils is one of the greatest living rock guitarists, and it was very cool to be able to watch him play from so close. From all accounts he's also a very sweet guy, and I have to say his energy onstage is very light, almost constantly in motion but very peaceful at the same time - a lot of fun to watch.

The show itself - what do I say about it that hasn't been said? It wasn't an epic, awesome, one-for-the-ages show like the St. Louis show last year. But not every show can be that, by definition. People who weren't there say that the setlist was boring, and it's true that there weren't a lot of surprises or rarities (though the fan who brought the gorgeous sign requesting that Bruce play piano got us a wonderful, uncommon solo piano performance of "For You" which showed that Bruce's voice, even this late in a long tour, is holding up remarkably well). But everything that was played, including the Born to Run album straight through, was played with a lot of heart, a lot of presence, a lot of commitment. "Backstreets" was mesmerizing and heartbreaking, sounding more and more like all the band's history and love has been poured into it; when Bruce sang "we swore we'd live forever" I'm pretty sure Clarence Clemons was looking at the little "altar" he has set up onstage, which houses pictures of several departed friends including the late E Street organ/accordion player, Danny Federici (Clarence writes about the altar in his new book, Big Man). So that was a touching moment. And after delivering the final, intense, wordless wails at the end of "Jungleland," as the spotlight slipped off of him, Bruce bent nearly double at the microphone, breathing heavily, seemingly exhausted by the force of throwing every cell in his body into that vocal. Theatrics? Sure. But also, the physical commitment he puts into his performance is unmistakable.

(Incidentally, the Bruce-as-blur photo here was taken with my crappy little cellphone camera. I didn't bother taking many, because they hardly ever come out worth anything, but this one struck me as kinda cool.)

I find that, as an alleged writer, I am envious of musicians for the physicality of their art. I get a little taste of what that's like when I do poetry readings, which I experience as a very physical thing (it matters what boots you wear, how you stand, how you breathe when you're reading, even if you're just standing there at a podium in front of twenty people). And it's a lovely feeling, a means of settling into your own body as home. But it's not just the performance aspect that I envy, though there is that. It's the way you make music, if you're doing it right, with your whole body. You can kinda do that with poetry, but you can also forget to do it, very easily. If you hold your breath while you're writing a poem, you still get a poem (maybe not a great one, but). If you hold your breath while you're singing, you get ... silence, y'know? You don't have the option of remaining disconnected from your physical self. And I envy that.

I also envy the communal aspect of making music. Being in a band. You can collaborate in poetry, but it's not the same thing. Watching the E Street Band from so close, it's wonderful to see how they communicate. A nod of the head, a wave of a hand, can change the whole course of a song. (And when Bruce decided to do the "Detroit Medley," which starts with "Devil with a Blue Dress On," he told the guys closest to him & they ran to spread the word to the rest of the band - and I noticed Nils making little devil horns on his own head with his fingers instead of verbally telling everybody what the song was, a game of rock & roll charades. I got a kick out of that.)

In my next life, I'm gonna get over myself about 20 years earlier, so that when I'm in high school I won't be too shy to talk to other people who love music, and can start a band. Yeah. That's what.

Most of my friends at the St. Louis show were headed to Kansas City for the show the next night. Not me - I wasn't able to swing both shows, so I left STL on Monday morning. Before leaving town I took a tiny detour to Left Bank Books. I was instantly greeted at the door by a six month old tabby kitten named Olive, who followed me around the store and pounced on anything that even thought about moving and was generally crazy as a loon, which is what a six month old kitten is supposed to be. I picked up a few books as well as a magnet that says "If you don't grow up by middle age, you don't have to" (quote attributed to James Gurney). Seemed very appropriate for the moment.

When I got home I got a call from one of my friends at the Kansas City show. They'd done the lottery for the general admission folks & had everyone in line, when all of a sudden they announced the show was cancelled due to a death in Bruce's family. Needless to say everyone there was fairly stunned. This is not a band that cancels shows if they can possibly help it. Turns out it was Bruce's cousin who died, who had worked as the assistant tour manager for the band for the past ten years. He was in his mid-thirties, so one assumes the death was entirely unexpected and certainly very sad. Just goes to show you - you never know when a show will be your last. Or as the great Warren Zevon once said, not long before his own death: "Enjoy every sandwich."

I have one E Street show remaining - Nashville, in less than three weeks. After that it's going to be a long winter.

The screen door slams...

I realize now that by waiting a couple days to post this, I risk its being lost in the flood of “happy 60th birthday to Bruce” blog posts and tweets and web pages and discussion board posts and lord only knows what all. Because, yes, Mr. Springsteen is sixty years old today. (And still jumping up on pianos and racing around onstage strapped into an electric guitar, natch.)

But this post, while it’s about Sunday night’s Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band concert in Chicago, is not really about Bruce Springsteen.

It’s about something bigger. Yeah, as big a megastar as Springsteen is (and he’s a pretty big megastar), there’s something bigger. And that’s the music.

So, the big deal about the Chicago show was that Bruce and the band were going to perform the Born to Run album in its entirety, beginning to end, at this show. (Along with a couple hours of other songs, of course.) He’d done this once before, at a benefit show in Red Bank NJ, at which he also performed Darkness on the Edge of Town straight through. There have been various rumors about why he decided to do it again: request from a VIP or a friend, filming for a DVD, a last hurrah towards the end of what could end up being the last E Street Band tour. (Nobody connected with the band has said anything about it being the last tour, but they have announced a hiatus of at least a year and a half, and after the loss of organ & accordion player Danny Federici almost a year and a half ago & given various health issues for other band members, I think they are all keenly aware that there are no guarantees.)

I didn’t manage to get a general admission ticket for this show, which is my usual preference. Sometimes you end up standing behind a couple of tall broad guys and when you’re 5 foot 1 like me you end up standing on your toes craning your neck wondering if the band is really up there somewhere, and sometimes you end up smack in front looking a guitarist in the eye and sharing a grin. I’ve had both experiences, and for the chance of the latter, I’ll put up with the former sometimes. But because I had a seat and didn’t have to worry about standing in line or holding my place, I was able to nab the opportunity to help pass out flyers before the show, promoting the forthcoming memoir by iconic sax player Clarence Clemons. (No, I haven’t read it yet, but I expect it will be pretty damn entertaining.) I didn’t get to meet Clarence or anything like that, but I got to meet his manager & her assistant, and I got a t-shirt, and I got to feel like I was helping out a little bit. And quite a few people were visibly excited at the prospect of the book, so that was cool.

After passing out a few hundred flyers, it was almost time for the show to start, so I found my seat. It was in the fifth row, not very high up off the floor but pretty far back, and I resigned myself to not feeling the connection with the band that I often feel when I’m up close (a highly addictive sensation, that).

Eventually the lights went down and the crowd made that tremendous WHOOSH like a jet airliner taking off (I love that moment so much) and under cover of darkness the band took the stage. I’d heard that they intended to kick off the show with the Born to Run sequence, so it was a bit startling when the crackling, bluesy guitar riff of “Seeds” filled the arena, Nils Lofgren whirling and dancing in the spotlight. Startling… but wonderful. Turns out that’s just an awesome song to kick off the show with. After a few moments Bruce stepped up and the crowd cheered louder, and after the first few vocal lines Max Weinberg’s drum kicks in with an almighty THUMP and we’re off and running.

The first handful of songs were reeled off at a breakneck pace, the band barely stopping for a breath or to acknowledge the thunderous applause between songs. As always the occasional crescendo of shrieks reminded me so much of a roller coaster, the biggest one of all – and we shriek at these concerts for the same reason we do on roller coasters, for the sheer speed and exhilaration and joyous risk of it all, and the wind in our ears. Finally it was time for the album, which Bruce introduced briefly by explaining that when they started recording it they’d put out two albums that had tanked and this was basically their last chance. Everything was riding on this album, for him. Everything. And you could kind of tell that he felt like a lot was riding on it again tonight.

And those familiar, beloved opening chords of “Thunder Road” filled the arena, and before the first verse was over the entire audience was singing along… as always, it felt like home. Or like church.

The songs followed one on another, without any introductions or chatting in between. Not a lot of “hamming it up for the audience” either. Just… the music. The work. The songs unfolded just as they did when I first listened to that album, back in high school, back when we always listened to albums beginning to end. Movements of a symphony. Parts of a greater whole. Even “Born to Run” itself, the ultimate anthem, was rescued from its role as a bit of a “victory lap” song; the house lights only halfway up instead of fully lit, the song not wrapping up the main set or blazing out as an encore, even the biggest song of all became just one part of the larger work. Oh yes, we all sang along like we always do, we pumped our fists and waved our hands in the air and screamed. But it was different… somehow, this song I’d heard so many times live and hundreds, maybe thousands, of times on vinyl & magnetic tape & shiny silver disk & invisible bytes – this song that I know as well as I know the sound of my own blood rushing in my ears – somehow, this song regained a little bit of mystery. Amazing.

I won’t talk about every single song (though there’s not a weak song on the album and there wasn’t a weak moment in the performance of them Sunday night), but “Backstreets” deserves mention. Talk about a song that’s accrued layers of history and meaning. When I first heard it, it was just a romantic song about losing someone. But over the years it’s become so much more. In Indianapolis last year, Danny Federici rejoined the band for a few songs after having been gone for a few months while undergoing treatment for melanoma. He was a little weak, but clearly radiant with joy at being back on stage; as it turned out, that was his last public performance. I don’t know if he or the rest of the band suspected that would turn out to be the case, but I do know that “Backstreets” hit me so hard that night. “We swore we’d live forever,” Bruce wailed, “on the backstreets we’d take it together.” A few weeks later, the day after Danny’s funeral, the band played in Tampa. I wasn’t there, but I’ve heard the show described, and I’ve heard the bootleg; they opened with “Backstreets,” a single spotlight illuminating Danny’s vacant spot on stage, Roy Bittan’s piano suffused with loneliness, a hard emptiness where the organ was supposed to fill up the song, Bruce’s voice cracking with palpable grief. I’ve never heard the song quite the same since. Anyway, Sunday night’s performance of it in Chicago was exquisite, and somehow managed to roll together all the layers and all the years and all the different ways I’ve heard the song; Bruce added a small vocal bridge of “All the way to the end… just you and me… all the way to the end…” and some high, wordless moans the likes of which I’ve never heard. Stunning. Just stunning.

But the highlight of the album mini-set was, without question, “Meeting Across the River” into “Jungleland.” “Meeting,” rarely played in concert, featured Curt Ramm recreating the lonely, searching trumpet solo from the album and the wonderful Richard Davis on upright bass. It’s an atmospheric, jazz-inflected, melancholy song unlike any other in the Springsteen catalog, and thinking of it in the context of the history & significance of the album the desperation in Bruce’s voice on the recording became not just a great singer inhabiting a character, but a sign of how badly he wanted this album to be … exactly what it turned out to be. “We gotta stay cool tonight, Eddie, ‘cause man, we got ourselves out on that line. And if we blow this one, they ain’t gonna be looking for just me this time.” Like the guy in the song, Bruce knew this was his last chance. And the way he sang it Sunday, you’d think he still felt that way sometimes.

And then Soozie Tyrell's violin introduced “Jungleland” and I may not have breathed for the entire ten minutes or so of that song. I’ve always liked the song, and it’s always great to get it in concert, but this was probably the best I’ve ever heard it. Everyone in the band was completely focused, completely immersed in the music. Garry Tallent's bass playing, always exquisite, was especially solid. Little Steven Van Zandt's guitar solo was absolutely on fire. Everyone seemed completely and utterly present.

Let me tell you, there are some big personalities in the E Street Band: Bruce, Little Steven, Clarence “Big Man” Clemons, the Mighty Max Weinberg. But Sunday night, while they performed Born to Run, the personalities took a complete back seat to the music. I’ve never seen them so … in service to the music. And that sense peaked with “Jungleland.” During Clarence’s sax solo, always a breathtaking highlight when he nails it, Bruce climbed up on the piano – not to take the spotlight, but to raise his fist in the air with the beat of the solo, conducting the band, conducting the music. And I mean “conducting” in the sense that a lightning rod conducts. So it was appropriate for him to get up on that piano and become the highest point on the stage, channeling the fierce energy of the music from … wherever it comes from … and spreading it across the stage & out into the darkness of that packed arena.

The entire album was performed flawlessly, with devotion and focus and passion. Really, I thought it would be cool to see all the songs in order, but it turned into something a lot bigger than that. It was pretty fucking amazing.

The rest of the show was almost a letdown after that, I have to admit. It got a lot looser right away, and it was a fun show, well-played, lots of energy – but it was like the first bite of any food after the most exquisite chocolate mousse you’ve ever put your tongue to: just not quite the same level of incredibleness. Although I will say that “Badlands,” which closed out the main set, took on a life and a ferocious joy that I haven’t felt from it in years. Might have been the best “Badlands” I’ve seen since 1978, and I’ve seen a lot of “Badlands.” House lights up, crowd singing along at the top of its lungs, just an absolute celebration: “It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive!”



I’ve said that with the E Street Band, I don’t always get the show I want, but I nearly always get the show I need. And that was so true on Sunday. I’m a very spoiled girl; I’ve been close enough to the stage to get eye contact with band members on several occasions, and that’s always special. But Sunday wasn’t about the band members, wasn’t about charisma and personality and stardom. It was about the music, plain and simple, and sitting (well, standing – who could stay seated at a show like this??) where I was, that far from the stage, I let go of wanting “connection” and just focused on the music – and that’s what I needed.

Love and thunder, baby… love and thunder.

On the way home, I didn’t listen to bootlegs as I’ve mostly been doing lately. I listened to studio albums: Born to Run (twice through), Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River. I found myself thinking about all the years and all the miles those albums have accompanied me through. When Darkness came out I had just started playing guitar. I was what, 16 years old. I honestly thought I might try to make it as a musician, though I knew it was the longest of long shots. Why did I veer from that course? I don’t know. Partly because I thought my greater talents lay elsewhere (though I’m not sure where, and if I do indeed have greater talents, I wonder if I’ve made sufficient use of them to justify walking away from something I loved as much as I loved being serious about playing that guitar). Partly because I was realistic. Partly because my courage flat-out failed me.

My dad, see, was a musician when I was a little kid, a bass player. He put himself through grad school by playing. We didn’t have tons of money, but there was always music in the house. When I was ten years old he got a job teaching college, and we moved away from his musical community. He pretty much stopped playing. I’ve always wondered whether the grief he must have felt about walking away from the musician’s life contributed to the health problems that eventually killed him. And it’s funny, isn’t it, that I myself turned away from the possibility of trying to live that life – though I never got as far as getting good enough to make money. I am my father’s daughter, I guess. And driving home from Chicago the other day I thought about all that, and I listened to Springsteen’s song “Independence Day” which is about a son leaving home and making some kind of peace with a painful father/son relationship:
So say goodbye it's Independence Day
Papa now I know the things you wanted that you could not say
But won't you just say goodbye it's Independence Day
I swear I never meant to take those things away

And that last line just hit me so hard. Because on some level my dad walked away from music in order to do something more stable, something with a regular paycheck, something that allowed him to feel like he was a good husband, a good father, a good provider. And in some small way I guess I’ve always felt a little guilty, a little responsible. And if the grief he must have felt over the choice he made was part of what killed him, then in some small way maybe I’m responsible for that.

But don’t we all kill our parents, somehow, on some level? Metaphorically speaking, of course. I think there’s a Shakespeare play or three about that one.

Anyway, I always justify the money I spend running around to these concerts by saying “it’s cheaper than therapy” – so there you go. Figuring out just what it is I need to learn to forgive myself for? That probably would have taken me thousands of dollars worth of therapy right there. “You’ve got to learn to live with what you can’t rise above,” as Bruce sang in “Tunnel of Love.”

Anyway, I started writing poetry back then, when I was 15 and listening to “Born to Run” – as well as lots of other music. It was music that ignited that impulse in me. So maybe what I owe myself, and what I owe to that larger thing that is the music, is just to recommit myself to my writing. To give it all I’ve got. It may not be my last chance – hell, it’s poetry, there’s not much riding on it in the first place. But I need to give it that level of commitment.

Tonight I’ll be on that hill with everything I’ve got…
I’ll be there on time and I’ll pay the cost
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town.



Till then, tramps like us…


-AH September 22-23, 2009

Night 2 & onward: Don't you lose heart

I don't have it in me to write an extensive review of the second Springsteen/E Street show in Mansfield. Not because it wasn't any good -- it was fan-freakin-tastic. Not because I don't want to boast about how close I got to the stage (one person between me & the stage, more or less in front of Steve Van Zandt, a great vantage point from which to appreciate all the little interactions that go on among the band members). But in many ways, that second show struck me in a non-verbal, purely physical place. Maybe because it was about a million degrees and a kazillion percent humidity in the pit and I sweated more that night than I think I ever have since back in the days of karate practice in a non-air-conditioned dojo. Maybe because it's hard for me to accept how much being at a show like that is home for me, and the brutal fact of it is that I don't get to have that experience more than a few times a year, and sometimes when I'm not actively nestled in the heart of E Street Nation I feel a little bit exiled.

I console myself with music. Right now I'm listening to the bootleg of that second night, when they took a request for a song called "Janey Don't You Lose Heart" -- an older song that I have only recently fallen quite in love with, and had not at all expected to hear performed. In a way it's a slighter song, not one of the big classics, not one of the epics. It isn't "Thunder Road" or "The Rising" or even "Prove It All Night." But it's a sweet song, and it was played with great affection.

That's part of what I love about how the band is performing these days -- the sheer fondness for the songs which is so clearly evident. I've seen & read a couple of interviews with Bruce where he talks about how it's like you're in a car with all the people you have been over the years, the crazy 20-year-old, the 30-year-old who just wants to crash the car into a wall, and so on, and you just hope the guy who's driving is one of the reasonable ones. (Completely paraphrasing there; he said it much better than that.) These days, it's clearly the pushing-sixty Bruce who's driving, taking great care, using all his years of experience to navigate the hairpin curves. But what I love about the guy and his art is that he has never kicked any of those other people out of the car. He is still solidly in touch with the youthful wildness that inspired "Born to Run," the rage that inspired songs like "Murder Incorporated," the sorrow of "Point Blank" or "The River," the complicated emotions of "Independence Day." When he plays those songs it's not with irony or nostalgia; it's with a real inhabiting of the original emotion that inspired the song, but also with a sense of affection and compassion for the version of himself that wrote the song. If that makes any sense at all.

And watching that, watching what happens on that stage as he re-inhabits those songs with compassion & affection but without losing the hard-earned 60-year-old self that can drive that car safely home -- I begin to understand something that I haven't quite put words to, yet. As Springsteen sings in "Tunnel of Love," "you've got to learn to live with what you can't rise above" -- and there's something in all this music about learning to live with yourself, with your own sorrows, your own regrets, and yes, your own sheer cussed goofiness.

So much more that I'd like to write about these shows, at some point -- in particular about watching the band members interact with one another, how a raised eyebrow or a tilt of the head can speak volumes among people who've been working & playing together for well over thirty years now, the sheer physicality of who they are with one another. And some of the music itself, too, of course: the second night saw Nils Lofgren taking a "Prove It All Night" solo that verged on the physically impossible (hitting a whole run of scorching harmonics with the guitar up over your head? Come on, Nils, that's just SICK!) and an absolutely spine-tingling "The River," among many other musical highlights.

But I'll leave you with two videos. There are a lot more out there, but these are a couple of my favorites. First up, "Thunder Road" from the second night. Because this is one of my very favorite songs, and because I think the guy who shot this video was about ten feet to my left -- yeah, I was THAT close to the stage.


And finally, just because this is so goofy and so fun, this is what happens when a fan submits a song request via blow-up doll. While Bruce & the E Street Band can make my knees weak and make me weep with deadly serious songs like "Point Blank," they also know how to play in every sense of the word. And you gotta love Stevie plopping that wig on top of Bruce's head while he's playing and singing and can't do a thing about it. :)

Concert review: a steamy night in Mansfield, Mass.

So uh... I went to this concert last night.

:D :D :D :D :D

I had a reserved seat last night (I'm in general admission for tonight's show). I usually prefer GA, but my seat was absolutely terrific, I chatted with some very nice people in the seats around me before the show, I could see almost everyone on stage almost the whole time, and I'm pretty sure I got at least one actual moment of eye contact with Steve Van Zandt (don't dare go so far as to speculate that he recognized me from Chicago, but he did look right at me when the lights were up and nodded happily... who knows if he was actually looking at ME but I'll take it).

Where to begin? The show kicked off with "Jackson Cage," a not-often-played song from The River that I was actually thinking about the other day & wondering if I would ever hear, and went from that right into "She's the One" which was just the most perfect segue. Other highlights were "Point Blank," a song I was totally obsessed with when The River first came out (I used to sit in my dorm room and listen to it over & over, picking up the needle at the end of the song & dropping it back at the beginning of the track), and on which Garry Tallent's bass playing was nothing short of stunning and exquisite; "Burning Love" (yep, the Elvis song); a particularly heartfelt and almost wrenching "Backstreets"; "Trapped" (a Jimmy Cliff song, which Bruce has been covering on occasion for some years now and it is always fantastic); a rip-roaring "Detroit Medley" launched by a request in the form of an actual blow-up doll wearing devil horns and a blue dress (for "Devil with a Blue Dress," part of the medley) -- Bruce and Stevie had some fun with the doll before the song, and while they were playing, Stevie took the red-haired wig from the doll and plopped it on top of Bruce's head -- too too silly, and ridiculous fun; "Born in the USA," which doesn't get played much anymore; and a raucous, barn-burnin' "Twist & Shout" to close. They played about 2 hours and 50 minutes, I think.

Not the best E Street show I've ever seen, but a damn fine one, probably in my top five. As hot and sweaty as it was (before "Rosalita" Bruce hollered, instead of his usual "is there anybody alive out there" -- "is it hot enough for ya??" several times), Bruce had that "I do not want to leave this stage!" look on his face. I've seen it a couple times before. He is always whole-heartedly committed to his performance, but some nights he is just so totally fucking ON it's unbelievable. He seemed thoroughly happy, completely present, sometimes somber and serious, sometimes silly and playful, as the song and the moment required.

Oh, and Jay Weinberg (son of Max, the usual drummer) came out & drummed for the encore, which was fun as hell. He's not the master that his father is, but then, he has about 40 years less experience! For his age he is pretty terrific, and a HELL of a lot of fun to watch, very passionate and animated and clearly loves doing it.

As does everyone on that stage, really. Just such radiant joy shining on every face up there. I know it is their job to make it look like they are having a good time -- they are professional entertainers, after all -- but you can not fake that much joy. You just, you just can't. At this point in all of our lives, we know that every show is a blessing and a gift. Everyone in the band is keenly aware of that, especially after Danny Federici's death last year. They don't take it for granted, and neither do a lot of us in the audience. There is no other band on the planet today that speaks so eloquently about survival, and appreciating what you've got, and the kind of joy you can find only when you've made it through some hard times. And that's why I fucking love those guys and that music so, so much... and that's why I fly halfway across the country just to see them again. Because what they're telling me these days is something I want to remember. It's something I'll hold on to for the rest of my life. And for that, I thank them.

And tonight, I get to do it again. I am so very lucky. So very, very lucky.

I live by the river

Just because I've been watching this over & over this evening and sharing it everywhere else, I'll share it with y'all too. Here is Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band about 3 weeks ago, with their opening number at the Hard Rock Calling festival in London. Yes, they're covering the Clash, and doing an extremely creditable job of it too. If this doesn't put a big grin on your face, you have no rock & roll in your soul. LOVE. THIS. Love this so much.

Low high; hi!

It's been cool and cloudy today and, honestly, really lovely. I don't think the temperature even hit 70 degrees all day. In Indianapolis, the record "low high temperature" was set over 100 years ago at 75, and they probably broke that record today. I know climate change is probably to blame for this, but I confess I've been enjoying it immensely.

I've returned safe & sound from the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago (attendance, including registrants and exhibitors, totaled 28,941 - this conference could eat AWP for lunch and still be hungry!). While an unfortunate amount of my time was eaten up on the shuttle buses between my hotel and McCormick Place, I attended some interesting sessions, met a few people, saw some cool stuff in the exhibits, and picked up some great freebies - notably the free frothy coffee drinks from ProQuest (I hit that line three or four times) and a free copy of Rachel Zucker's forthcoming book, Museum of Accidents (out from Wave in, I think, October). I got to hear Zucker read, which was great fun, and chatted with her for a minute at her book-signing; I also got to hear Jane Hirshfield (but didn't go to her book-signing because it conflicted with Rachel Zucker's reading - I already have Hirshfield's newest book anyway) and Sherman Alexie (didn't go to his signing either, as the line was about 980300198 people long - librarians love them some Sherman Alexie! - but did snag a copy of the bound excerpt from his forthcoming book that they were handing out). Other very popular book-signers included Judy Blume (who I gawked at for a minute) and Neil Gaiman.

Besides that, and besides getting together with Sara for a bite and some drinks & good conversation on Friday evening (yay!), the conference pretty much took me entirely out of poetry-brain for a full week. I'd taken my new manuscript with me, knowing I'd have the option of at least one or two quiet evenings in my hotel room and thinking I'd take advantage of the marauding-cat-free space to spread out pages all over the floor & juggle them a bit, but I found I didn't even have the -- what, ability? willingness? mental sharpness? -- to read poems, much less write them or fiddle with them.

It was a relatively interesting conference, & gave me some good food for thought especially regarding some of the technology trends that are going to affect how libraries serve their users (I really, really want to play with Google Wave now), & helped me get a little clearer understanding of how what I do on a day-to-day basis fits into the larger world of library work. So, that's good. All in all, I have to say AWP is way more fun. But ALA was worth my time. And I had an incredible view from my hotel room; I stayed at the Holiday Inn Mart Plaza, up on the 19th floor of the Merchandise Mart, & to the west I had a clear view all the way to the broad sweep of the horizon, directly below/before me was the Chicago River, and to the east & north I could see much of the Chicago skyline, including the John Hancock bldg., with glimpses of Lake Michigan in between skyscrapers. Evenings were spectacular, watching the big fat orange sun sinking below the horizon & watching all the lights slowly twinkling on. The daytime view was gray and kinda bleak (I'm not a fan of cities; give me a view with grass & trees any day) but at night it was spectacular & dazzling; I kept my curtains open all night just to look out at it all.

Next up - two Springsteen shows in Mansfield, MA in August, and a Rosanne Cash show (for which I have front row seats!) in September at Notre Dame. And I'm plotting: we just got 25 new Springsteen tourdates, so I'm trying to figure out how many (& which ones) I can afford to go to. St. Louis is almost for sure, and I'm considering Chicago & Cleveland as well. Sorely tempted by Nashville, which was a fantastic show & venue last year, but the date is horribly inconvenient for me; also by Kansas City, which is the night after St. Louis so it would be a lovely "double shot" but the drive back is long. And I only have so much money - not that much, especially now that we've received the official word that the university isn't giving out any raises this year (not cost-of-living, not merit, not anything - no, it's not a surprise; yes, I'm glad that I have a job at all, and one I generally like, to boot - but it does look like I'm going to be driving the '91 Corolla for at least another year).

Sure, I'm crazy for chasing a rock band around the country like this when I don't exactly have the kind of disposable income to justify such a thing. But every show I go to, I come away feeling energized, rejuvenated, glad to be alive. I come away feeling at least ten, maybe twenty years younger. I come away with all kinds of energy for my own creative work. I come away in love with rock & roll again and with the world. And that's worth every penny & every mile.

Road notes from the E Street Nation: Part 2 - The Beat, The Beat, The Beat

No, I haven't run away and joined the circus (or a rock & roll band... same difference). Still here.

I have been restless and impatient ever since returning home from my oh-so-short road trip a couple weeks ago, feeling centered only when listening to music, bashing away at my guitar, or writing. I feel like something's come unplugged.

Rock concerts -- at least the ones I go to and love -- give the audience full permission to express and enjoy a couple of things that are, intentionally or not, less than abundant in my life: unbridled romanticism (from"the screen door slams, Mary's dress sways / Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays..." all the way to "big wheels roll through fields where sunlight streams / meet me in a land of hope and dreams") and unfiltered sexuality (cue up any throbbing bass line, any drumbeat shuddering through the air and into each and every body in the room, any scorching guitar solo). Hell, just immersing yourself in -- giving yourself over to -- music that's being created by other human beings to the extent that your body moves, almost involuntarily, with what those other humans' hands are doing... that's almost frighteningly sexual in and of itself. Rock music isn't sexual because of its lyrics, but because of its pure, immersive physicality, and the expectation of surrender. So... yeah.

Strong stuff for a middle-aged hermit. No wonder I'm ready to run off and join the circus, huh?

You know, if I had my life to live over again, the one big thing I would do differently is: I would push myself harder with my own music, make myself learn to sing even if it's emotionally challenging (which it is, for me, for some reason -- more than physically or technically challenging -- singing in front of people feels like standing there naked), not put down the guitar just because I'm busy doing other things. Because as much as my fangirlcelebritystalking ways are exactly that -- at the heart of it, it is much more that I long to be a part of the larger thing that is the music itself. I would much, much rather be someone's lyricist or even background singer (yeah right) than their groupie. Much as I get all fangirly about the musicians I love, I don't give much of a shit about celebrity itself -- if you put me in a room with, say, Tom Hanks or some other megasuperstar and a minor-league musician I happen to love, it'd be the musician I'd get all tongue-tied talking to. Because they are the emissaries of the Music, corny as that sounds.

(Which is how it happens that a middle-aged doofy poet gets all swoony over being given a little plastic guitar pick by a middle-aged doofy rockstar. Trust me, I know how silly this all is, but it's truly in service to something larger. And knowing that, my friends, is part of what makes it different now -- and deeper -- than what it was like seeing this same band thirty years ago, when it was just wild and fun. All the deeper stuff was there then, but I didn't know it yet, at least not with the brain part of my brain.)

At my age (forty-eight in a few short days!) I'm obviously not about to run away and join the circus. I know it, you know it, my colleagues at work know it, my cats know it most of all. I'm too fond of having health insurance and of sleeping in my own bed at night. Certainly "Chasing Angels," the manuscript I'm working on these days, is in part my stab at living vicariously through my characters, imagining the good and the bad of being a full-time touring musician. If I can get the thing written and (cross fingers) published, it will certainly serve in part as a very public love letter to the music and the people who create it.

It's all my dad's fault, really. He was a musician and I grew up in a house full of music -- my dad's band occasionally practiced in our living room (when they couldn't use the drummer's basement for whatever reason) and music was just a part of the air I breathed. And then when I was 12 years old he got his doctorate, got a faculty position, packed us up and moved us to Indiana, and never made an effort to find himself a musicians' community or people to play with, and he pretty much gave up playing. Which is just tremendously heartbreaking to me, even now. He always loved music and listened to it, but he was never a part of it in the same way again.

What would it be like to reach middle age without having given up on your greatest, craziest dreams?

Getting a little taste of that, even from a distance, is another reason I love Springsteen/E Street Band concerts. In part it's what they're selling us -- the dream, the romantic sense of belief. I know that. It's a circus, it's a show; they're performers, playing their parts. But also, there's something there that's much too real to be just an act, just entertainment. You watch Bruce on that stage with every cell in his body committed to what he's doing (living the dream he's been working on since he was a kid, really) and as you sing along and raise your arms in the air and become a part of it, you can't help but believe the message on some level. "Dreams will not be thwarted / Faith will be rewarded."

Late in the show on a Saturday night (Milwaukee, 2008)...
Bruce: "Don't you [people in the audience] gotta be in church tomorrow?"
Steve [Van Zandt, guitarist]: "We're in church."
Bruce: "What?"
Steve: "We're in church now."

Religious experience? Sure, maybe. I really don't care what you call it. All I know is, when I go to these concerts, I become a part of something much, much larger than myself. Call it Music, call it God, call it twenty thousand people getting sweaty together in a very large room. Call it a little corner of joy and hope and letting your whole body be alive. Call it whatever you want... all I know is, I want more.

Interlude: Radio Nowhere

Still scratching my head trying to put some words together about some of what the recent Springsteen shows meant to me. Maybe it won't happen. Maybe it will.

Meanwhile, here's part of Radio Nowhere (from a couple of weeks before "my" shows) so you can see I wasn't kidding about Mister Holy Crap Jay Weinberg. Not that a little YouTube video can capture half of what it's like when you feel that bass drum in your chest and legs... but maybe you'll get a little of the idea. (I love how he's singing along, too! He's just SO into it, it's unreal.)

Road Notes from the E Street Nation: Part 1 - The Thunder

So last week I spent a few days with my mom in northern Indiana, then drove to Chicago, flew to St. Paul, flew back to Chicago, and drove back home. All for the love of rock & roll. It wasn’t quite as epic as last summer’s road trip, but it sure did have its moments.

One thing I was looking forward to was the new kid on the drums. Max Weinberg, who’s been the E Street Band drummer since the mid-seventies, has a “day job” as bandleader for the Conan O’Brien show – and with Conan taking over Leno’s timeslot, Max won’t be able to miss the first few weeks. It was revealed a few months ago that Max’s 18 year old son, Jay Weinberg, would be sitting in for at least some of the European shows that Max won’t be able to make – and Jay’s been warming up by playing at least portions of most of the recent U.S. shows (though he didn’t make an appearance at the Denver show I went to). Now, Jay’s usual gig is with a metal band, and did I mention that he’s 18? Just… yeah. I have to admit that my first reaction was “An 18-year-old metalhead? Has Bruce Springsteen lost his freakin’ mind??” But I’d been hearing good reports from the shows Jay had played so far, and I was dying of curiosity to see for myself.

The St. Paul show opened with “Badlands” and Jay was on the riser – and holy crap, people! The kid’s impressive! “Radio Nowhere” is his real showpiece – long black hair flying, bringing the thunder like nobody’s business. I immediately became a convert. True, he doesn’t have the precision, the consistency, or the depth of repertoire that his father has. Nor can he read Bruce’s mind quite the way his father can after so many years. But let me tell you, the kid makes up for it with his passion, enthusiasm, power, and joy. He is SO much fun to watch. At about the halfway point of the show Max took over, and the changeover was just incredibly sweet – both Bruce and Max visibly busting with pride, giving Jay hugs and high-fives, the audience ROARING as Jay took a bow. (And for the rest of the show Max played, if anything, even harder & better than usual, & his "usual" is damned amazing -- a little challenge from the younger generation never hurts, I guess!)

   [photo from backstreets.com]
Understand: the E Street Nation is very, very protective of its little band. We’re incredibly lucky in that most of the guys in the band are the same ones many of us fell in love with thirty-plus years ago; and we don’t much care for change, or for new faces. So to see the audience embracing the “new kid” was sweet indeed. Does it help that he’s “family”? Sure. I wouldn’t deny that. There are lots of competent, even brilliant, drummers (my hometown guy Kenny Aronoff comes to mind) who could have stepped in to get the job done. But they would have just been hired hands. So the blood connection does make a difference. That said, Jay had to win us over on his own – it wasn’t a gimme. And he did so with gusto.

A little known fact about the younger Mr. Weinberg: “Jay” is actually his middle name. The whole show I found myself calling him by his full name, which is HOLY CRAP JAY WEINBERG. I heard more than a couple of other folks using his real first name as well. Seriously!

Anyway, so St. Paul was a pretty good show. But Chicago’s what I really want to talk about. See, I had general admission tickets both nights. The way they work GA is this: you show up at the venue between 2 and 5:00 on the day of the show with your ticket in hand, and you get a wristband. The wristband has a number on it. Around 5:00 they start getting people lined up in numerical order. Once people are sort of lined up they let you know how many wristbands have been given out (around 1200 in St. Paul and a little less than that in Chicago), and they let you know how many they will be allowing into the “pit,” which is the partitioned-off section right in front of the stage. (600 in St. Paul, 550 in Chicago – it varies by venue.) They draw a “random” number, and the person whose wristband matches that number gets to be first in line. It generally works more or less okay, and keeps people from sitting in line in front of the venue all night like in the bad old days.

ANYWAY. In St. Paul, I didn’t get into the pit, and in fact I had a good couple hundred people ahead of me going into the main GA area, so I had quite a few people in front of me – at 5 foot 1 this is an issue! – but honestly I still enjoyed it more than I would have from a seat. The energy is higher on the floor, and those of us who like to stand up and dance and shout and sing the whole show don’t have somebody behind them begging them to please sit down. But still… you want that magic number, you want to be close. In Chicago, my wristband was #782. I stood in line, surrounded by strangers, my heart pounding as they drew……… #747. I was in!! Not only that, but I was WAY in… I knew at that point that I’d either be in the very front or at most I’d have maybe one person between me and the stage. Oh, the glee! Oh, the anticipation! Oh, the people high-fiving and texting their friends! 20,000 people in the United Center and we’re going to be in front of all of ‘em!

We were ushered into the arena a good couple hours before the show, so most of us used the time to sit on the floor and relax while we could. Some people brought in food and enjoyed their dinner. Lots of chatting, reminiscing about shows past, getting to know your neighbors. I always meet really great folks at these shows, and St. Paul & Chicago were no exception. A few times I stood up to stretch and just gazed at the stage… right… THERE… within touching distance. The stage is like an altar to me, a sacred thing, set with the implements of magic: guitars, microphones, Soozie Tyrell’s violins, Roy Bittan’s white piano. There’s a comfort in seeing water and setlists set out for the band members a few minutes before showtime, in the ritual of the last-minute soundcheck. I’ve never been a performing musician, but looking at that stage just feels like home to me. It’s funny.

And then that magic, magic moment when the lights go down. The crowd erupts and under cover of darkness, one by one, the musicians slip onto the stage. And the lights blaze up and the band crashes into “Badlands” and I’m out of my mind with giddy delight. It’s funny, being six feet from the musicians – the show is BIG: grand gestures, full voices, everything devoted to pushing the songs’ energy all the way up into the rafters. Being so close to that is like chatting with someone who’s in full stage makeup – it’s TOO vivid, too big, too MUCH almost. It takes a little getting used to. (Oh, but I can get used to it… oh boy can I ever.)

It’s a different show, being close enough to actually interact with the band a little. Close enough to get hit with a flying drop of sweat (Bruce sweats like a horse and he plays that guitar pretty hard… it’s actually fairly unsanitary up front *grin*). I was, in an uncharacteristically brilliant move, wearing my favorite tie-dye “Little Steven’s Underground Garage” t-shirt, and as luck would have it, I was planted squarely in front of Little Steven himself. It was a fun moment when he noticed the shirt and gave me a big smile. (And then at the end of the show, he came over in my direction and handed me a guitar pick – someone else was reaching for it and he was very careful to make sure it got into MY grubby little hands. Swoon!)

I actually find, when I’m up close, that I only end up watching Bruce about half the time – even though he’s pretty much the greatest and most charismatic performer in the history of rock & roll. I just love watching all the other band members as they rally round to support his vision – the little interactions between them, the scrambling when Bruce changes up the setlist on the fly, the dedication and love that every one of them puts into the music. It’s a remarkable band, made up of (from everything I have heard from people who know or have met them) remarkable people. Yes, it is Bruce’s vision and commitment (and NOBODY, nowhere, conveys pure commitment in their performance like Bruce Springsteen does) that’s out front leading the way, but the E Street Band is a magnificent machine: the sheer virtuosity of Nils Lofgren and Roy Bittan; the mighty thunder of Max Weinberg; the heart and soul and rock&roll conviction of Little Steven; the reliable foundation of Garry Tallent’s criminally underrated bass playing; the "biggest man you've ever seen," mountain of love, Clarence Clemons… it’s like a bumblebee, this band: with that many strong-minded individuals on stage, it should be physically impossible for it to fly -- but fly it does. Oh baby… fly it does.

[photo taken with my crappy cellphone camera. that's Bruce up there standing on the piano.]

Next up: Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll (except not so much with the drugs part).

spring vacation in the E Street Nation

I will definitely make a better post in the near future. But for now, I leave you with this picture that someone sitting in a section behind the stage snapped at the Chicago Springsteen show. (You probably have to click on the picture to see the whole thing. And yes, it's taken from behind the stage; Bruce and Steve were interacting with the drummer so that's why they have their backs turned to most of the audience.)

Look in the very front row, towards the left... short woman wearing a tie-dye t-shirt that's kinda blue at the top... c'est moi.

I'm not kidding. At the Chicago show, I was in the very, very, very front. To say that I was deliriously happy would be an understatement.

(The shirt I was wearing, incidentally, was my Little Steven's Underground Garage shirt. And Little Steven did indeed notice and appreciate that fact. He smiled at me a bunch of times and at the end he came over and put a guitar pick into my happy little hands. Niiiiiiice.) (Yes, he was also Silvio on the Sopranos, for those who follow tv more closely than they follow music. But he belonged to the E Street Band first, darnit!)

Anyway, it was a bit of a whirlwind trip, and I'm long overdue for sleep, so I will post more tomorrow or so. And I'm sure I owe some emails, Twitter/Facebook stuff, etc. and I haven't read any blogs in days. I'll catch up eventually, right?

Chasing angels in Colorado

Back from a quick trip out west. I hope to blog more about the Springsteen show later; as his shows often do, this one not only rocked my face off but also brought me to new understandings about a few things. I take away equal parts exhilaration and thoughtfulness from his shows. It's pretty amazing. Anyway, we didn't get a great spot on the floor, so I was on my tiptoes craning my neck most of the night and still couldn't see all of the stage (and depending on which way the guys in front of me happened to shift, sometimes I couldn't see any of the stage; I'm 5 foot 1, for the record, so it doesn't take much of a tall person to block my view) -- and even so, I preferred it to sitting in seats; the sound was better, and the crowd around me was way more excited and energetic. There was a young woman behind me who, by the encores, was so radiantly happy that the smile on her face could have powered a small city. The difference between standing on the floor in general admission versus being in seats is the difference between watching the musicians perform versus participating in the performance. Being in GA, you really do feel like you're more a part of things, more connected with the performers and the music. It's a great thing.

It was a high-energy show, with a fantastic crowd; people were on their feet cheering, fist-pumping, arm-waving, singing along from the floor all the way up to the rafters (and there were plenty of folks up in the rafters; it was a sold-out show and even the nosebleed seats in Denver's Pepsi Center were full). It amazes me, every time I see him, how Bruce puts everything he's got into every show; even after thirty-five years, he still sings "Born to Run" like he means every word with all his heart.

As I type this I'm listening to an audience recording of the very first Springsteen show I attended (9/9/1978, Notre Dame, Indiana) and while the energy was very different then in ways I'd like to spend some time putting words to, the shows he does now are every bit as joyous and every bit as enjoyable. I remember that '78 show as well as I remember anything from that far back. I was seventeen: what did I know? Well... I knew more when I left that show than I did when I walked into the arena, that much is for sure.

While I was out there I also had the chance to meet the newest member of my extended family -- my sister's stepson's son, who is three weeks old and as my sister says, he is stinkin' cute.

Tomorrow: back to regular old reality again. I hope to get back on track with writing and stuff by next weekend.

Thanks to all who sent nice comments on my recent Field acceptance, by the way -- or thought nice things and didn't get around to posting them. I first submitted to them in 1989, so it certainly feels like one of those "persistence pays" situations. The contract showed up in my mail while I was gone, so I can now tell you that "The Fuel" will be in the Fall 2009 issue.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the amazonfail fiasco currently playing itself out. Others have summarized it much better than I'd be able to, so read these two posts and follow the links therein if you want to know more:
Emily Lloyd (Poesy Galore)
Timothy Green
Both of these bloggers give some good information, but come at it from somewhat different angles and give different examples. There is tons more out there about it -- in blogs, on Facebook, on Twitter. I'll leave you with a link to a petition which I have signed and certainly endorse; I don't know if online petitions are ever taken all that seriously, but it's a quick way to do something.

Because the Night

Not the best video or audio quality in the known universe, but here's a song I have loved for over thirty years, and it is still SCORCHING... check out this video of Springsteen & the E Street Band ripping into "Because the Night" in Glendale, AZ last night. Beautiful.

Road Notes from the E Street Nation

I am home after a Grand Adventure. I drove 1350 miles in a rental car and saw Bruce Springsteen perform in Nashville, St. Louis, and Kansas City. All three shows were wonderful; St. Louis was probably the best concert I have ever seen by anyone, ever. (Some people who've seen 50+ Springsteen shows over 30+ years are declaring St. Louis to be at least in their top five.) He played for just under 3 hours in Nashville and over 3 hours in the other cities. And when I say "he played" I do not mean that he came out on stage and sat there while the band did stuff, or that he came out and sang for a while then declared an intermission and took a break. No. These shows were relentless. It was incredible.

I feel like this little trip has changed my life in some way, although I have yet to put my finger on just how.

I met a lot of really nice people at the shows. Many dedicated Springsteen fans refer to themselves as the "E Street Nation" and, cheesey as it may be, there is something to that. There is a real community feeling, a pool of shared imagery and shared experiences. There is, often, a sense of the need to take care of one another; there are always charity efforts going on (in KC a group of fans put together a raffle and raised $1100 for a local food bank, an effort which garnered onstage thanks from Bruce himself), and many fans take care to watch out for one another on the general-admission floor -- you get out there a couple hours before the show starts, and if you've come alone, it's pretty easy to get someone to hold your spot for you while you dash to the restroom or get a drink of water. One of the people I met emailed me to make sure I'd made it home safely.

There are a lot of things I want to write about, after this trip. It's going to take me a few days to wrap my mind around it all. It was about the music (and oh, how I need to remember that music is what saves my soul, over and over again) but it was about much more than that.

Kansas City was the last official show of the "Magic" tour. (The band is playing at HarleyFest in Milwaukee this Saturday night, but it may not be a full set, as there's an opening act and stuff. And Bruce himself said that KC was the last night of the tour.) There was a definite farewell feeling to it. A bunch of fans had made up small (just sheet of paper size) signs that simply said "Thank you!" on them, and coordinated a moment at the end of the show to hold them up; Bruce and the band were clearly very touched by this and it was such a sweet moment. (After all these years, you'd think it would come as no surprise, how we feel about this band. You'd think they would start to take it for granted. But I really don't think they do, and that's why it's so magical.)

The first encore began with "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)," dedicated to Danny Federici -- the E Street Band organist/accordionist who died of melanoma this past April -- and to Terry Magovern, Bruce's personal assistant and close friend who died just over a year ago. I wept through the whole thing. It's been a long tour for this band, punctuated by too many funerals. It's not the same band it was a year ago when they kicked this thing off. It's not the same world it was a year ago. I can't imagine how exhausted they must be, physically and emotionally. And yet they gave us their absolute all, night after night after night. Just amazing.

For the final encore, Bruce sang a sweet, tender version of "Save the Last Dance for Me" -- not a song that's normally found on their setlist -- that roared into a loose, rollicking rendition of "Dancing in the Dark" and then a purely celebratory "Rockin' All Over the World." And then one final bow, as Bruce thanked us for supporting the tour, supporting the "Magic" album, and supporting the music for all these years. He thanked the E Street Nation by name, and for some reason that was tremendously touching to me.

The last few shows of this tour have been just off the hook, insanely good. They were added sort of at the last minute, and people have wondered why. I have a theory, now. You know how, when you're about to leave on a long journey, you make sure you tell the people you love that you love them? Just in case something happens? Well, I think that after the losses they've suffered in the past year or so, Bruce and the band are keenly aware that there are no guarantees. I think they have every intention of touring again -- I don't think this is the end of the E Street Band. But these guys are in their fifties and sixties, and nobody lives forever, not even Bruce Springsteen. And I think that these shows have been a little love letter to the E Street Nation ... just in case.

I hope they know we love them, too.


It seems so cheesey to be saying these things, talking about "love" in the context of a rock & roll band. I sound like such an over the moon fangirl. Of course I don't know Bruce personally, or any of the band members, and probably will never even meet any of them. But there is such a sense of love in that community and in that room when they are playing. I mean, most of those guys have been working together for 35 years or more. The love among them is visible onstage and it's such a strong thing. I know, I know, it's part of the mythos they've developed, and it's part of their job to be entertainers and look like they're enjoying themselves. But you can NOT fake what they do & what they have. You can't fake that much fun and that kind of brotherhood. And it's contagious. I know that this band & this music has made me a stronger, braver, better person in the 30+ years (eek) I've been listening to them.

Well, I didn't intend for this blog post to veer so far over into a pure declaration of fandom. Oh well. Them's the breaks. I'll talk about poetry again sometime soon, I'm sure. :) I've got some writing (and maybe even some poems) percolating in my head after this little road trip. For now, I'm just struggling with the return to the "real world" after the Summer Vacation to the E Street Nation.

(For setlists and full reviews, check out the best source for all things Springsteen: backstreets.com)

(P.S. As a result of this little trip, I'm way behind on every-freaking-thing again. I owe some of you email! I will get to it over the next couple of days. I had my laptop with me, but as soon as I got out on the road, it was like nothing mattered but the shows, and even when I had time in the hotel room during the day before a show, I was just sort of pacing around waiting until it was time to go over to the arena. Sigh. Now I know, just a little bit, how touring musicians feel... )