Page Eight
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Saturday, September 27, 1975
Page Eight THE MICHIGAN DAILY Saturday, September 27, 1975
Springsteen stom s
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strolls, rocks
AN
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ro,
By DAN BIDDLE
All right, so this bad - -
Springsteen boogies out of Asbury
Park, N. J., leather and jeans from
head to foot, tryin' so hard to look
like Dylan and wail like Sly, skin-
ny legs and nose like a parrot, and
before you can snap your fingers,
everyone from Mendocino to Ho-
boken is calling him the Saviour of
Rock and Roll.
Saviour is a little strong, but
. . . it might be true! Christ Al-
mighty, I never thought anything
could top the Stones, you know?
Loyalties aside, Springsteen and
his E Street Band just blew- the
house down at Hill Aud. Tuesday
night. Like they say in the Un-
cola ads, it might be time for an
agonizing reappraisal.
This man Bruce Springsteen, he
is like a walking history book of
rock and roll. He starts the set
with a mournful wail from his Dy-
lan harmonica, wears Sly's cap,
swings Chuck Berry's guitar. And
then he starts to stomp and strut
... Mick Jagger incarnate! A touch
of Peter Wolf from J. Geils, more
than a hint of Van Morrison in
the bitter lyrics.
The band, too, defies the word
eclectic: the wicked wailing sax of
big Clarence Clemons lays into you
like Charlie Green's slide trom-
bone on your old Bessie Smith an-
thology albums; Miami Steve's
guitar flutters and floats from
Clapton toKeith Richard with utter
ease.
It is as if everybody onstage can
do everything: the set roars into
rockers and dips with amazing
grace through delicate solos and
orchestral arrangements of piano,
organ, maraccas, clarinet , and
even an accordion for "Sandy"
Soringsteen's sad tribute to old-
fashioned rock and roll love songs.
These guys click like nobody's
business. Springsteen, as scrawny
and fuzzy - headed as all the rest
of us east coast Jewish boys who
grew up playing imaginary electric
guitars and trying to dance as good
as the black kids, moves around up
there like, like, like the Jets are
back in town, man. Could he have
a hade u- his sleeve?
The act is full of all that old
street-gang stuff, songs like "It's
Nard to be a Saint in the City"
and "Back Streets," "Jungleland,"
songs best sung from fire escapes
and alleys.
Then we get this big question
about whether this kid Springsteen
has hustled his way into some
grand contract with the destiny of
Rock and Roll. Well, as for rocking
all by itself, no problem: they
blast out of the set with "I Danc-
ed Till A Quarter To Three",
"Twist and Shout", and an incal-
culable glory of rompin' stompin'
encores,
The question runs deeper than
that, though. Springsteen and his
famulous band simply had this
eclectic ability to mix all the great
riffs of rock into a casserole or
roll, they would probably be about
the second best band in the world.
But what put the pelvis in Elvis,
the womn in the bomp-de-bomp-
de-bomp?
It goes beyond the music: the
things that puts this act into the
history book is roots. The songs
rush up from streets full of p--- off
voune men and frustrated women,
hopned-up cars, smuggled joints,
Riple Wine, and hopeless dreams
that one day each and every one
of us could strut up there on the
stage, could conquer this awful
world with anelectric guitar.
Soringsteen will be better than
Dylan or Jagger or Berry or Pres-
lev or Sly because he is each of
uv. running down into the audi-
ev'.ce and standing on a chair, play-
inm his heart out with a crazy,
enreles Prin. doing encore after
pnn -till the old men and the
little babies are rocking in the
PiIes. He may even bring back the
riots.
Roll over again, Beethoven:
Photography
by
PAULINE LUBENS
m