Fans at the Asbury Park’s Music + Film Festival had seen a lot of rare, mind-blowing live Bruce Springsteen footage by the end of Saturday.
In the city’s old Paramount Theatre, where Springsteen has performed many times, they saw rare clips like a highly-charged performance of “Quarter to Three” from the Bottom Line in 1975, where Bruce got so caught up in the energy that he dropped his guitar pick, and a fan handed it back to him. There was a wild performance of “Who Do You Love” into “She’s the One” from the Tunnel of Love tour that featured a truly astonishing display of public affection between Springsteen and Clemons – and their last-ever show together, performing “Growin’ Up,” in 2009. The audience also saw a long clip of the E Street Band performing a soul medley at the Apollo in 2012, where Bruce climbed up the theater’s pipes into get to the box seats, belting “The Way You Do the Things You Do.”
But the most incredible part of the night happened at the end, when the real Bruce Springsteen walked out. The surprise happened after Christopher Phillips, the publisher and editor of Backstreets, brought out Springsteen’s director and archivist Thom Zimny, who curated the event, the Springsteen Archives. Then Phillips introduced, simply, “Bruce.” The crowd went nuts as Springsteen walked out in a red sweatshirt with the number five on it. He took a seat while waving, doing his best to calm them down. “I’ve lived many lives,” he said when the applause finally died out. “I’ve never seen a lot of that stuff myself!”
Security was tight – fans had to place their phones into Yondr pouches, which were unlocked at the end of the show. But they were treated to an insightful conversation with Springsteen about what it’s like to watch your own musical evolution. Springsteen said that he’s glad it exists: “The sad thing is we were superstitious about being filmed,” he admitted of the band’s early days, saying he thought, “A magician should not look too closely at his magic trick. It’s very strange in the beginning when you hear your actual voice coming back at you on tape, you don’t like it. And when you see yourself on film, you don’t like that either! You always think you’re handsomer than you really are. You think you sound better than you actually do. So you got to get over that.”
Security was tight — fans had to place their phones into Yondr pouches, which were unlocked at the end of the show. But they were treated to an insightful conversation with Springsteen about what it’s like to watch your own musical evolution. Springsteen said that he’s glad it exists
Phillips then asked Springsteen to comment on various chapters of his career that shown at the event. Springsteen reflected on playing the Bottom Line in 1975 just as Born to Run was about to be released. The band played ten shows in five days, and Bruce said they changed the band’s dynamic entirely. “When we came out of the Bottom Line, we were officially contenders,” Springsteen said. “For better or worse, when we weren’t expected to be good, we were expected to be great. And we did all we could to try to prove that.”
Springsteen talked about playing the Apollo in 2012, which was a night of firsts – the band’s first time playing the soul capitol, the first with a reassembled line-up and their first without Clemons. Springsteen said he decided to perform a death-defying stunt when he messed up the arrangement to the Temptations cover. “I had to make up for fucking up the whole thing,” he said, explaining why he climbed stairs into the balcony and over a front-row railing as Patti Scialfa looked on, concerned.
“Now that’s something we should put out,” he said, turning to Zimny. “I didn’t know that was shot that well.”
One thing that is being released, according to Springsteen, is his performance at Jazz Fest in 2006, just eight months after Hurricane Katrina. The performance of “My City of Ruins” with the Seeger Sessions Band was chilling. Springsteen recalled getting in a day earlier and touring the Lower Ninth Ward, seeing the devastation. “Rock & roll is best when there are high stakes on the table,” he said. “That’s when something much larger than yourself can occur. It’s music that’s meant to push up against things: Whether it be against troubles and hard times. It’s lovely and fortuitous to be able to perform It’s one of my top five ever live performance experiences ever.”