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.

Magic Pushing 60

Tonight's the night! Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band play the Oakland Coliseum tonight and I am going to see Bruce and the best rock and roll band anywhere for the first time since I saw them at the end of The Rising tour at San Francisco's Pac Bell Park in 2004.

Last spring, I had the great good fortune of seeing Bruce introduce the Seeger Sessions band and absolutely tear up the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, bringing 30,000+ battle scarred people to their feet to raise their hands in the air and cry out to the city around them "Rise Up!"

It was at that show that Bruce introduced a song that he had written specifically for New Orleans, an adaptation of a song written first during the Great Depression, but adapted for the times by Springsteen, How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?

Tonight in Oakland he's back with Clarence, Little Steven, Patti and the gang... all in support of the amazing new album Magic, an album that does for these war times what The Rising did for our collective psychological struggle with the aftermath of September 11. In this album he looks backwards and forward, reflects on the good things in life (and in our country) and considers from several different angles the ways we have lost our better selves (and a good number of our good people) to the obscene Imperial March of George II.

And that's what Bruce is best at... Somehow he can make you look at what really sucks about life, the world, and the times, without losing yourself, and without losing the goodness of the world and the beauty of people at the same time. He even celebrates those good things while refusing to turn away from the difficult. And he does it all with a kick ass rock and roll band that ranks with the best players anywhere.

At the same time... with his creativity, energy, and drive he does a damn good job of revealing an excellent model for moving into one's seventh decade on the planet.

So... well... I'm excited!

I am just damn ready to share that Magic!