The band Bruce Springsteen said created a whole world onstage: “It’s a lovely thing”
Has anyone done more to make a live rock concert feel like a life-affirming, redemptive exercise in transcendent living than Bruce Springsteen? I know that gigs are great and I’m sure that everyone reading this page agrees with me, but think about that for a second. It’s one hell of an act of transformation, isn’t it? One that only he and a very select few artists can even hope to embody in their concerts.
To be able to do that while being an act that, at its most cynical, is not much more than a famous person squeezing a few more bucks out of their audience, is something, really. Delivering stuff their fans already love, in much the same way that they already love it, and their presence, all mean that they can charge a premium for it. In a current gig climate where £80 for a mid-sized venue is becoming the norm and £400 for a large one is already the norm, it can be difficult not to be cynical about it.
Especially when Saint Bruce is one of the many acts driving this surge in ticket prices. It may be justified by the sheer quality of the shows and the age of the musicians playing them, but still, it stings. Yet despite all that, there’s an almost spiritual quality to Bruce Springsteen concerts that the man has put time, money and a quite frankly ludicrous amounts of effort into creating.
Thus, when the man praises your live shows, you know you’re doing something right. This is an artist who built not only his career but his reputation on the strength of his awe-inducing concerts. Thus, when someone comes along who gets ‘The Boss’ seal of approval, you can be sure that they’re a live act beyond belief.
Whose live shows got the approval of Bruce Springsteen?
In a 2007 interview with Spin, Springsteen took a moment to praise the live performances of fellow rock ‘n’ roll spiritualists Arcade Fire. This was just after Neon Bible had shown the world that the Canadian indie upstarts were no mere flash in the pan. Funeral and its titanic single ‘Wake Up’ had got the world’s attention, and Neon Bible was proof that the band could not only hold it, but deserved it too.
Springsteen was all in. In the interview, he said that when it comes to a live band, “I want people to look onstage and see themselves. That idea of the band as a representative community—all the bands I like have some element of that. It’s thrilling when you see that communication. What I’m drawn to are bands where there’s an active collective imagination going on between them and their audience.”
Anyone who’s seen Arcade Fire can attest that they show this to a T, especially in their Neon Bible era, where the band sometimes performed with around 20 people on stage. “That’s what I love about Arcade Fire,” he says, “The first time I saw you guys, I thought, ‘There’s a whole town going on up there, a whole village onstage’. There’s an imagined world you’ve made visual in front of your fans’ eyes, and it’s a really lovely thing.”
Say what you like about Arcade Fire’s music, but if they’re proof that new artists are taking tips from ‘The Boss’, then there’s hope for gigs yet. Shame about the price tag, though.
