The rain stayed away, but the tears flowed freely when Bruce Springsteen capped a rousing, moving, inspiring and all-those-other-adjectives-that-long-ago-got-overused-for-the-Boss-at-his-best performance with "My City of Ruins," turning the key line of his song associated with post-9/11 New York into a very present tense as "my city is in ruins." And in the process he showed that he was indeed the perfect artist to close the first weekend of the first JazzFest coming as the city tries to recover from ruin. The tears came in his first encore song, following 90 minutes that had already touched with grace and power on hope, frustration, anger, gallows humor -- in other words, all the things left floating around New Orleans after the waters receded -- exactly in the tradition of Pete Seeger, the folk singer Springsteen has paid tribute to with his new "The Seeger Sessions" album. None of the rumored guests (Edge, Elvis Costello) materialized, but they weren't needed.
In full hootenanny mode with as many as 19 backing musicians wielding fiddles, banjo, pedal steel and horns among other things, he brought old spirituals (the opening "Mary Don't You Weep" with its line about Noah being shown a rainbow and the stern prophesy of "no more water but fire next time"), workers tales of tragic nobility ("John Henry," a tale of sweat equity if there ever was one) and civil rights anthems ("Keep Your Eye on the Prize"), making them all relevant to the immediate surroundings not just with the lyrics and tone, but with dips into New Orleans music traditions. The horns in particular mixed Dixieland and second-line funk, and Springsteen's own early '80s song "Johnny 99" was turned into something that could have been a rollicking number from the late New Orleans pianist Professor Longhair, under a portrait of whom Springsteen performed on the Acura Stage, well over 70,000 captured by every note.
As for the anger, he offered a revision of the Depression-era Blind Alfred Reed song "How Can a Poor Man Stands Such Times and Live," writing three new verses specifically themed to the Gulf Coast renewal. Introducing the song, he told of having toured the areas of devastation on Saturday, saying he never imagined he'd see such a thing in an American city, condemning the "criminal ineptitude" and "political crony-ism" that contributed to the disaster and dedicating the song to "President Bystander."
And then there was "My City of Ruins." How does one follow that? The frivolous sing-along "Buffalo Gals" would seem a strange choice, but this is Bruce and he and his band made it perfect, with the whole audience now showing broad grins. After that was his own "You Can Look But You Better Not Touch," a fun if trivial rocker, but here turned into a celebrative zydeco hip-shaker. And then he went into really dangerous territory, as he himself admitted, taking on the song most associated with the city, "When the Saints Go Marching In." But he spoke of his own love for the city (noting that he and wife Patti Scialfa came here when they were first "fooling around" and, with a laugh, that "no one found us either") and he played it slow, with band member Mark Anthony Thompson sharing some of the vocals and focusing on some lesser-known verses -- "I am waiting for the morning, when the new world is revealed . . . "
The tears returned. And the smiles.
1. Steve, thanks for your poetic and mournful entry. I wonder if the citizens of New Orleans - wherever they are now - realize how much the rest of us have loved their city. Not just now that it's destroyed and we feel awfully bad about it, but for as long as we've loved American music, dreamed of wild and beautiful places, and been craving the heat of multi-cultural influence.
The destruction of New Orleans broke my heart, and I've never even been there. Of all American cities, that's the one I wanted to visit before I die. I have a feeling it would have affected me the way the sight of Paris did - took my breath away and made me think: Ah yes, life is good.
I don't think I'll be dying anytime soon, but you never know... I can only hope I hold out long enough to see Paris again, maybe spend a few weeks in Morocco, and to visit the rebuilt New Orleans - the American place I crave.
Posted at 11:31PM on Apr 30th 2006 by Diane