David Hinckley: Born to Run Around the World

The New York Daily News
Monday, December 4th, 2006

DUBLIN - It's the weekend before Thanksgiving and Bruce Springsteen is wrapping up his "Seeger Sessions" tour, a fireworks display of quintessentially American music, in a city 3,000 miles and one ocean away from the nearest corner of America.

Why? Simple. Springsteen probably wouldn't put it this way, but basically, more people over here seem to get it.

No, Springsteen is not an exile, driven like Josephine Baker or the Golden Gate Quartet to find personal and artistic freedom abroad. He could put his E Street Band back together tomorrow and sell out American stadiums by nightfall.

But "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions," a wonderful record by any measure, met a relatively indifferent reception in the States last spring. It has sold under 750,000 copies, modest by Bruce standards though certainly no flop, and his U.S. tour included the unusual sight of empty seats.

Here, there is not a ticket in sight for any of his three nights at The Point, a converted railroad station. The scalpers are here, but they aren't much help. A man who flew in from Boston says he missed the first show because he couldn't find anyone selling.

Now it's true that potato for potato, Ireland may be the most musical country on Earth. But European audiences in general have often shown greater respect and affection for the range of music Springsteen explores.

Unlike many U.S. audiences, they don't seem to feel entitled to hear "Born to Run" at every show. They're just as happy with "Old Dan Tucker," a fine old man who "combed his hair with a wagon wheel and died with a toothache in his heel."

"Old Dan Tucker" was written in the 19th century as a lively banjo number for blackface minstrel shows. The music came from Africa, Ireland and all points in between, and the song is kin to the likes of "Zip Coon" and "Jump Jim Crow."

It could have been written only in America, where it was first published in 1843.

At The Point, 8,500 Irishmen and women hear three chords from Mark Clifford's banjo and sing the whole first chorus of "Old Dan Tucker" while Springsteen stands behind his microphone, beaming.

It's a good moment in a show that will deliver more. Springsteen has been on the road with the 17-piece Seeger Sessions Band for more than six months, and what sometimes sounded like delightful jam sessions in May has tightened up. The four-piece horn section talks to the banjo, the guitars, the accordion, the standup bass, the pedal steel and a half-dozen vocalists.

Unchanged is the music itself, equal parts New Orleans jazz and back-porch Saturday night, with folk tunes, Irish airs, gospel and a double shot of rock 'n' roll weaving in and out.

"Open All Night," from Springsteen's 1982 "Nebraska" album that foreshadowed "The Seeger Sessions," has grown into a jive workout that takes a break for dueling quartets of male and female scat singers.

"Blinded by the Light," a Dylanesque rocker, takes on a country flavor the first night and gets a little jazzier the third. It's that rare reinvention that matches or betters the original.

The anchor songs of these shows, including "John Henry," "Oh, Mary, Don't You Weep," "Jacob's Ladder" and "Pay Me My Money Down," come from different corners of America to address the fundamental matters Springsteen tackles in his own songs: work, virtue, adversity, faith, community, trouble, hope.

More to the point, they have all the exuberance he brings to "Badlands" or "Promised Land," which makes it more puzzling that a lot of American fans didn't even seem to listen.

Maybe they assumed a "Seeger" record must be folk music and decided to wait for his next E Street record - and there's nothing wrong with preferring one style of music to another when you're talking about the guy who did "Out on the Street," "Johnny 99," "Independence Day," "Thunder Road," "Atlantic City" and "The Rising."

There is, however, a minority of fans who want to hear only "The River" or "Born in the U.S.A.," so they go to shows and either leave their seats or chat with friends if Bruce dares to play, say, "Mansion on the Hill."

The annoyance this causes their fellow fans has over the years trickled up to Springsteen himself, who on his past couple of tours has told fans early in the evening that he would appreciate their shutting up and listening when the music is playing.

No such warning is needed here at The Point. There are a few whistles and bellows of "We love you, Bruce!" between songs, but no one yells "Glory Days!" as he starts strumming "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live."

These fans sing the chorus of "My Oklahoma Home," another pure American song with droll lines like "Everything but my mortgage blown away" as enthusiastically as they would sing "Hungry Heart." There is not a murmur when he sings the anti-war ballad "Mrs. McGrath" and almost whispers "When the Saints Go Marching In."

When he lifts his hand at the end of "Pay Me My Money Down," 8,500 people spontaneously hold the final note of their last chorus. At the very least, these folks are paying attention.

They're also, clearly, ready to go where Springsteen wants to take them, whether it's Thunder Road or a whole mapful of other musical paths.

Before the Saturday Point show, a group of Bruce fans are gathered in the bar, discussing "Seeger" as fluently as other fans discuss "Darkness."

One woman, a 40ish blond named Claire, suggests that part of the affection for this tour comes from the Irish roots in much of the music. A song he wrote to close the show, "The American Land," is so Celtic in melody that it could have been lifted from a Christy Moore or Clancy Brothers session.

She also suggests there's something in Dublin itself.

"Twenty years ago," she says, "this was nothing like you're seeing today, with the malls and the fancy shops. I grew up just outside the city. We didn't have indoor plumbing or running water. No telephone. Americans would look around here today and think it's always been like it is now, like it is in America. But it wasn't. So I think we appreciate things a little more, and the kind of songs Bruce is singing now, about the basic struggles, we may relate to a little better."

As it happens, three new Springsteen coffee-table books tend to reinforce Claire's point.

"Greetings From E Street" by Robert Santelli (Chronicle, $35) tracks his career from the days when he was making music but not money. Seeing Springsteen in bars and tour motels is a good reminder that he didn't come from the mansion on the hill. Most of the places he writes about, he's been.

"Born to Run: The Unseen Photos" by Eric Meola (Insight, $39.95) focuses on that breakthrough 1975 album, with a sheaf of publicity photos of this scruffy rock 'n' roll kid with a torn T-shirt and an Elvis button.

"Bruce Springsteen on Tour" by Bruce biographer Dave Marsh (Bloomsbury, $39.95) tracks where he's been onstage and, more importantly, what he did there. Powerful as the anthemic "Born in the U.S.A." tour was, it was just one style, one message. Those who ignore the others, Marsh suggests, cheat themselves.

In Dublin, where the signature industry is still Guinness beer, they're drinking "The Seeger Sessions" in.

They cheer when he sings about how the Irish helped create America, which in Springsteen's songs is a place that has never lost its promise even if it has sometimes lost its compass.

"We'll be back," he tells the audience, though what that means with Springsteen - when, who, where - is a question whose answer he may not know yet. It's further on up the road.

What we do know is that all three shows here were filmed, meaning that at the very least, something too much of America missed has not been lost.