I’ve seen Bruce in concert maybe 20 times so while I don’t think think that constitutes uber-fandom, I’m no slouch either. In 2000 he reached his high point, touring without an album to plug, Bruce was performing a greatest hits set and mixing em up with obscurities and cutting the set to a manageable 3 hours.
Since then, indeed by 2002 and the Rising tour, I was having my problems. That’s the one where he substituted “Mary’s Place” for “10th Avenue Freeze Out” and for some reason the beloved but lousy 9-11 tribute album became a fan favorite.
It didn’t stop me from going to see him at least once and usually twice on every tour, simply stopped me from being one of the fans who made little films of tribute to Bruce on the Ridley Scott produced, Bruce Walsh directed, crowd sourced “Springsteen And I”.
“Springsteen And I” isn’t quite a real movie, It’s 76 minutes in length and maybe 20 minutes of that are live performances, dating back as far as a superb black and white “Growing Up” and as late as the last tour with Jake Clemons on sax, so give it an hour of little tributes to the Boss.
While I can quite well understand the Springsteen fan base, he is a hard working representative of a blue collar aesthetic, as one fan put it, “That people who work with their hands work harder”. One couple have never been able to afford a ticket at all which is kinda mindboggling. The wife’s prize possession is a tee shirt an ex-boyfriend bought her from a gig. She wears it rarely because she doesn’t want it to fade.
One man breaks down crying while listening to Bruce in his car, a woman tells how in her car all she’ll play is Bruce while driving her three songs around. Fans from all over the world raise their voices in praise of the boss. A third woman is like the mother from hell torturing her poor ten year old with her Bruce obsession.
The movie is all hand held camers and Iphone movies and heart felt tributes, one girl got to perform the Courtney Cox role during “Dancing In The Dark” with Bruce, and telling the story, she skips through a park almost delirious with happiness. That’s nothing compared to the Elvis Impersonator who p[erforms two Presley songs with the boss. Literally a dream come true.
Still, if you’re gonna obsess about any rock star, it should probably be Bruce. With James Brown dead, he is the hardest working man in show biz, and while I wouldn’t really wanna take a look under the hood of his life and see what really makes it tick, for sure he has managed to maintain his dignity after decades of extreme scrutiny, the worst I’ve heard is his somewhat iffy deal on a piece of real estate in Jersey a quarter the size of Central Park.
The movie even at only 76 minutes more than outstays its welcome but, what the hell, Bruce always was longwinded, why shouldn’t his fans be?
Grade: B-