The Highway Is Alive Tonight

June 25, 2018

Bruce Springsteen 

The Highway Is Alive Tonight

June 2018

The reason we came to New York City in the first place was to see the Bruce Springsteen on Broadway show at the Walter Kerr Theater. I had signed up for the ticket lottery when the shows were first announced and been shut out during the first two onsales, but the third time, when the run was extended, I received a text informing me that I had 30 minutes to order tickets ( a two ticket limit) so I did just that. That was last Fall and finally the date of the actual show had arrived.







The show is being staged in the relatively tiny Walter Kerr Theater which seats just over 700, making it the most intimate Bruce Springsteen show and hottest ticket in America at the moment. Scalped tickets have been selling for upwards of $5,000.00 and when the lottery tickets do go on sale, they sell out in mere minutes.





Since the theater is literally right next to the Crowne Plaza hotel where we were staying I had a couple of opportunities to go watch Bruce arrive at the theater, each night he pulls up in a limo and steps out, stopping to chat briefly, sign autographs and pose for photos with the fans, many who have waited for hours for his arrival. Thankfully I did not wait at all, just walked down from our room and out just in time for his arrival to grab some pix, then it was back inside until just before the 8 PM curtain.









The show was spectacular, having seen Bruce around twenty times previously over the years, this was completely different. Like a private performance and story time with the Boss. The setlist was limited to 16 songs (usually there was 15), but the two hours is made up with intimate stories of his life, career and how he came up with various songs. It definitely has a theater quality about it and it was truly wonderful.



The show is basically a two hour musical and autobiographical storytelling journey through his life and career. Solo and with only an acoustic guitar and a piano (He is joined on two songs by his wife Patti Scialfa). There’s no intermission, and the show is divided into two parts. The first traces his life from early childhood through his days leading bar bands in Asbury Park, New Jersey. “My Hometown” is an ode to his hometown of Freehold, while “My Father’s House” and the rarity “The Wish” (a song about his mother) offer him a chance to speak about both of his parents in loving but clear-eyed detail.









About halfway through, Springsteen abandons a strictly chronological structure, and turns to a more thematic approach. A mournful version of “Born in the U.S.A.” gives him a chance to state, once more, that the much-misunderstood smash is a “protest song, a G.I. blues.” He moves over to the piano for “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” to speak about his E Street bandmates, giving special attention to his bond with the late Clarence Clemons. “I still carry the story the Big Man whispered in my ear and the Big Man in my heart every night when I walk onstage,” he says. “Clarence was elemental, a force of nature in my life.” No members of the E-Street band are included in the show itself, but ironically, Max Weinberg was in attendance, watching the show only a few seats over from Kathy and I.







He has been sticking to a mostly scripted setlist since beginning the residency on Broadway, but Kathy and I were fortunate to be there for the first time he switched things up. In protest of the policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the US border, he took a special moment to make the statement below before launching into a heartwrenching version of “The Ghost of Tom Joad”





Here is a transcript of Bruce Springsteen's remarks at the show we saw, prior to adding "The Ghost of Tom Joad" to his setlist.

“I never believed that people come to my shows, or rock shows to be told anything.
But I do believe that they come to be reminded of things. To be reminded of who they are, at their most joyous, at their deepest, when life feels full. It's a good place to get in touch with your heart and your spirit, to be amongst the crowd. And to be reminded of who we are and who we can be collectively. Music does those things pretty well sometimes, particularly these days when some reminding of who we are and who we can be isn't such a bad thing.

That weekend of the March for our Lives, we saw those young people in Washington, and citizens all around the world, remind us of what faith in America and real faith in American democracy looks and feels like. It was just encouraging to see all those people out on the street and all that righteous passion in the service of something good. And to see that passion was alive and well and still there at the center of the beating heart of our country.

It was a good day, and a necessary day because we are seeing things right now on our American borders that are so shockingly and disgracefully inhumane and un-American that it is simply enraging. And we have heard people in high position in the American government blaspheme in the name of God and country that it is a moral thing to assault the children amongst us. May God save our souls.

There's the beautiful quote by Dr. King that says the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. Now, there have been many, many days of recent when you could certainly have an argument over that. But I've lived long enough to see that in action and to put some faith in it. But I've also lived long enough to know that arc doesn't bend on its own. It needs all of us leaning on it, nudging it in the right direction day after day. You gotta keep, keep leaning.
I think it's important to believe in those words, and to carry yourself, and to act accordingly. It's the only way that we keep faith and keep our sanity.

I've played this show 146 nights with basically the same setlist, but tonight calls for something different...”

- Bruce Springsteen