The Boss is Back: Bruce Springsteen in Boston Aug. 21, Fleet Center

by Seth Rogovoy

BOSTON, Mass., Aug. 23, 1999) -- Hold that obituary for rock 'n' roll -- the Boss is back.

Those who feared that rock as we once knew it is dead or moribund, take heart - Bruce Springsteen has returned. And at the Fleet Center on Saturday night -- the opening night of a sold-out, five-night stand - he showed that he is still able to transport a crowd to that same place he has been bringing audiences for over a quarter-century.

Not only is the Boss back - he has reassembled his old crew, the E Street Band, thus recapturing an essential element that was lost earlier this decade when he ignominiously dismissed them in favor of a bunch of hired hands.

The E-Streeters are no better musicians than they ever were, but this homely, ragtag, aging bunch has an undeniable chemistry borne of their shared history. Much of the drama of Saturday's show was built around the emotional aura that surrounds the Boss, his old sidekicks, and the band's newest member, the Boss's wife, Patti Scialfa.

And drama aplenty there was, as Springsteen tore through two dozen of his blue-collar rock anthems and epics in the course of the three-hour show, digging back into his catalog for such gems as the jazzy "Meeting Across the River" and the veritable, miniature rock opera, "Jungleland."

Days away from turning 50, Springsteen showed incredible stamina as he threw himself body and soul into hits like "Prove It All Night," "Two Hearts," "Badlands," "Out in the Street" and "Darlington County," and at a pace that drained and exhausted listeners more than it seemingly did the performer. He did not stint on the trademark, throat-ripping wails and moans that punctuate his slice-of-life musical playlets, which he delivered in fully-committed renditions that were the rock equivalent of method acting.

The evening was in large part about rededication - about Springsteen's return to full-fledged rocking on his old hits with his old band, after more recent appearances as a solo acoustic act playing his mostly-new songs of social protest.

Singly the musicians took the stage, each to huge ovations, none huger than that for the Big Man, saxophonist Clarence Clemons, who seemingly vied with the Boss himself on the applause meter throughout the night - every time he'd take front and center to blow one of his simple, R&B riffs, he brought down the house.

The band kicked the show into high gear immediately with "The Ties That Bind," setting the tone for the show. "You can't break the ties that bind," sang Springsteen, and one couldn't help fill in the blanks: even if you turn your back on your best, most loyal friends, as Springsteen did to the likes of the E-Streeters -- some of whom thrived elsewhere, such as drummer Max Weinberg, who wound up fronting Conan O'Brien's TV band. Others didn't, such as Clemons, who only a little over a year ago was featured as a special guest with an anonymous, regional bar band playing in a soon-to-be-destroyed storefront in downtown Pittsfield.

The symbolism of Clemons's rise and fall and subsequent rise is fitting, as Springsteen's songs and performance derive much of their power from such religious-based iconography. The song "Badlands," for example, invokes "the soul," "love," "hope," "faith," "sin," and prayer and belief that "may raise me above these badlands." Much of Springsteen's stagecraft is borrowed wholesale from the world of R&B, which directly lifted gospel-based paradigms such as priestly testifying and audience call-and-response, all of which Springsteen is a master. He wrapped a religious-based drama inside of "10th Avenue Freeze-Out," substituting the "river of love" for the "river of life" and even interpolating the Rev. Al Green's "Take Me to the River" into the mix.

Ultimately, though, Springsteen shies away from any overtly religious intentions - he is happy to make use of the techniques to whip up the crowd into a state of generalized, communal ecstasy, and the sound of 20,000 mostly thirty- and forty-something fans singing "whoa, whoa, whoa" on "Badlands" or "uh-oh, uh-oh," on "Out in the Street" in unison was remarkable.

Ever wary of the dangers of such power, he defused much of it with a solo acoustic rendition of a new song, "Freehold," a partly-comic, frankly autobiographical portrait that revisited his hometown where he grew up scorned and an outcast, and in which he even confessed to continuing to practice the sin of onanism he refined as a teen-ager who couldn't score with the girls.

What is unique about Springsteen is that he is able to unite an arena full of fans not around issues of resentment or violence, but simply through his infectious, catchy rock songs dramatizing the everyday plight of ordinary people - finding and keeping a job ("Working on the Highway"), making enough money to support a family ("The Ghost of Tom Joad"), keeping that family together in times of emotional hardship ("If I Should Fall Behind").

That he achieves this through sheer effort, personality and old-fashioned showmanship - no fancy costumes, no high-tech special effects, no triggered soundtracks - is all the more to his credit. He may be the last of his kind, and rock indeed may be playing itself out as the century comes to an end, but if it is, it won't be through any self-imposed surrender or isolation on the part of Bruce Springsteen - reportedly he intends to continue touring across the nation and the world, in arenas and stadiums, throughout next year.

Playlist:

1. The Ties That Bind
2. Prove It All Night
3. Two Hearts
4. Darkness on the Edge of Town
5. Darlington County
6. Mansion on the Hill
7. The River
8. Youngstown
9. Murder Incorporated
10. Badlands
11. Out in the Street
12. 10th Avenue Freeze-Out
13. Where the Bands Are
14. Workin' on the Highway
15. The Ghost of Tom Joad
16. Meeting Across the River
17. Jungleland
18. Light of Day

    Encore I:

19. Freehold
20. Bobby Jean
21. Born to Run

    Encore II:

22. Thunder Road
23. If I Should Fall Behind
24. Land of Hope and Dreams