The Prophet... Rocks!

The Boss was in Oakland last night, and he's there again tonight (but then you knew that if you visited here yesterday).

The show - a two hour and twenty minute extravanganza - was simply astonishing. Astonishing in a somewhat unexpected way. The show - as it seems, from viewing the set lists of the tour, is the case everywhere - is an interesting juxtaposition of some of Bruce's oldest and best tunes and a heavy selection of songs from the new album, Magic. What happens in this context is a broad spectrum experience of what Bruce, at heart has always been about, and how that perspective plays at this time in our personal and collective history.

Starting the show with the clarion call, "Is there anybody ALIVE out there!?" Bruce ripped down through the set starting with Radio Nowhere, the new single, followed by a bone rattling, mind-altering three song line up of "The Ties That Bind," "Lonesome Day," and "Gypsy Biker" - a rock and roll look at what holds people together, and what, in this time of war and malfeasance, tears them apart. As the conslusion of this initial foray into what would be a two hour long musical look at what is wrong - and what is right - about our country right now, Gypsy Biker is an amazing song. The story of a group of people preparing for the return of their friend and brother, it's not until the end of the song that you realize that Gypsy Biker's coming home dead.

Late in the song, there's this lyric:

"The favored march up over the hill
In some fools parade
Shoutin' victory for the righteous
But there ain't much here but graves"

It pretty much describes the perspective that Bruce is taking on the whole scene. Even the title song from the new album, Magic, is explained as a song "not about magic, but about tricks... and their consequences."

Along the way, there's plenty of the real deal... heart stopping, ear clearing, joy inspiring, screaming rock and roll that serves to emphasize the fact that the ugliness and despair is NOT THE WHOLE STORY.

This is Bruce in the sixth year of the Dubya Occupation. He's brought the truth, again, but he's done it with strength and thought, and senstivity, and rock and roll.

The raging funamentalists who are running the Republican agenda right now might try paying attention to some of the hard stories in that Bible they are so proud of declaring to be infallible.

When the Prophet speaks... or in this case ROCKS... one would do well to listen.