I just won Springsteen tickets for 6/6, Concord

[David]

The first time I saw the Boss was back on the River Tour on Halloween at the Sports Arena. He was brought out to the stage in a coffin!

Next I saw him at the Coliseum in '85. He had 90,000 people screaming with pleasure!

My favorite song on Nebraska is Atlantic City.

[golden braid]

Originally Posted by amber

Are you sure? You know he's covering Seeger's tunes. Well, you do if you read the thread.
Sure, sounds great! It's June 6th. But now you have to give me a ride...
*not really*

Yeah, I'll go. I could meet you at BART and we could go from there.

[amber]

Originally Posted by Rickypt

Damn, she beat me to it.

I love Bruce and I'm sure you'll enjoy it. You gonna wear flip-flops?

aww, it would've been nice to meet you, someone new.

Deborah is my buddy, though.

Okay, Deborah, BART it is. How weird, that is a Tuesday. I'll be in touch.

Hey, Rickypt, if you get a ticket you should meet up with us.

[WelshWitchPMD]

Congrats Amber! Hope that you have a great time.

[Rickypt]

Originally Posted by amber

Hey, Rickypt, if you get a ticket you should meet up with us.

Hey, maybe...I'll let you know.

[David]

Originally Posted by Rickypt

Hey, maybe...I'll let you know.

ryan, don't go with amber.......she picks pockets. I mean, she's a pickpocket.

[ragandbone]

Originally Posted by amber

I explicitly stated I didn't know what Bruce was doing. I said the above about Pete Seeger because Ragandbone said this: "This is his tour supporting that album of songs Pete Seeger plays, or has played." I never said I knew what Bruce was doing, I was just repeating info I thought Ragandbone said.
I guess I misunderstood it, then?

Hey, sorry I just saw this. I just said that Springsteen is playing songs Seeger used to perform, or record, but I didn't mention that he is not (as far as I know) playing any songs Seeger wrote. I think most of the songs are probably Public Domain, traditional songs. I didn't mean to make it confusing.

[amber]

Ragandbone - didn't matter/wasn't confusing until I had to defend it.

Pattie - Thank you!

David - WTF are you talking about? I'm not a pickpocket, my friends give me money freely.

Trackie - Thanks, I forgot you saw him. I'm glad to hear it was fun, i was concerned...you know, I like Bruce's songs. I will clear my pee-ems momentarilah.

[skcin]

Well???

[amber]

Originally Posted by skcin

Well???

Aw, I just wrote about it in the "Reminds me of you" thread or whatever.

It was so good. I'll just copy and paste what I said in the other thread.

Sure did. Hey, and Joan Baez came out to the stage! She didn't sing much, though, and I'm not even sure he introduced her. Nevertheless, it was very cool. Deborah told me she lived in Woodside, which I guess is nearby.
I was in ecstasy over all the horns. And how so many of the songs had that sort of 20's and 30's Harlem horn sound. There was a trumpet (or coronet, I couldn't tell) bari sax, TROMBONE (awesome), baritone...then all the regular instruments...and an upright bass...And so many singers.
I didn't dance much, I was on the lawn (hardly anybody on the lawn dances).
There was this really funny guy on the lawn in front of us, too, he was really into it.
Bruce is really cute, too, and was joking with us and cussing at us. He's pretty funny.

Also, Deborah and I made a bunch of FM jokes throughout, which is nice. I mean, I can't make FM jokes with non mac friends.

This show is highly recommended. You can't beat the band and backup.

[golden braid]

Amber, Bruce is 56 years old according to what I read today.

[amber]

Originally Posted by golden braid

Amber, Bruce is 56 years old according to what I read today.

That's probably why he was too shy to ask me out.

Did you read the review in the Chronicle? They said it was cool, but that the band was too overwhelming. I don't really agree. It was supposed to be a huge sound.

[BTFLCHLD]

Amber, was it all Seeger?

[amber]

Originally Posted by BTFLCHLD

Amber, was it all Seeger?

No. He did Devils and Dust, and I learned from the Chronicle review that there were some others. Honestly, I really don't know. But all the front and next section seats people were standing, unlike the Mac. It made me mad at the Mac fans from before.

Here's the review:

REVIEW
Springsteen gives old folk songs -- and a few of his own -- a mighty roar with his Seeger Sessions Band

Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic

"Thursday, June 8, 2006

Bruce Springsteen gets vocal help from a Seeger Sessions ...



Bruce Springsteen couldn't stop grinning. No fewer than 17 musicians were raising a fat, gleeful noise behind him, and he clearly relished every moment onstage Tuesday at the Sleep Train Pavilion in Concord with the mighty Seeger Sessions Band, the sprawling assemblage of folk and bluegrass musicians he used to record his latest album, "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions."

A year after the acoustic noir of "Devils & Dust," Springsteen is back with a tribute to America's great folksinger, Pete Seeger, who is still alive at age 87 to enjoy it. With the world in an uproar and the country going to hell, the time couldn't be better to resurrect some of Seeger's fiercely left-wing sentiments, his anti-war songs, his union songs. He is a man who fought to save the environment before they even called it that. And, unfortunately, his songs never have been more relevant.

Springsteen has rescued from elementary school songbooks the American folk ballads that lie at the core of Seeger's repertoire and, indeed, of all American folklore -- "John Henry," "Oh Mary Don't You Weep," "Erie Canal," "Jesse James." Like Seeger, Springsteen understands the power of the American myth and, in a day and age when right-wing evangelicals routinely appropriate the country's most time-honored, fundamental emblems as their own, he seeks to reclaim and refresh some of the values these songs represent.

With three or four guitars, an entire Dixieland-jazz horn section, banjo, accordion, steel guitar, keyboards, drums, bass, various other percussion and as many as seven or eight people singing, the Seeger Sessions Band didn't so much play the songs as overwhelm them. In a short black jacket and vest he borrowed from Johnny Cash, Springsteen gave the music his trademark full-throttle treatment, rasping and exhorting his way through all but one of the 13 songs from the new album, along with a few retooled songs from his back catalog.

He repeated final choruses endlessly. He shamelessly dangled false endings at the crowd. He had the four-piece marching band section -- complete with sousaphone -- braying and blasting over almost every chorus. He used every trick in the trade to make these 100-year-old songs sound bigger than life.

Springsteen gave his song "Atlantic City" an arrangement with banjo and fiddles. He turned "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)" into zydeco. He tried out the Band's "Rag Mama Rag" and he matched the lyrics from his song "Ramrod" to the irresistible bounce of Nick Lowe's "Half a Boy and Half a Man." He put a Mardi Gras parade beat and furious acoustic guitar strumming under the remade "Johnny 99" -- "funk-folk" he called it. He turned his "Open All Night" from "Nebraska" into rollicking big-band swing.

But the stamp of this cumbersome, wonderful band was so overpowering that even when he reached for the heartbreak in "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times," an old blues he rewrote into a piece about New Orleans after Katrina, the horns ended up giving the song a churchy Salvation Army Band sound.

"We Shall Overcome," the song that sparked the project in the first place, Springsteen justly called "the most important political protest song in history." He also said, before he sang the soaring arrangement, that familiarity has made this song sink into the background. "People don't hear it so well," he said. Elementary school children all over America have no idea what the song is about. But it is utterly crucial to this country. And, again, it is a song whose relevance just won't go away.

Joan Baez, who actually put the song on the charts in 1963, joined Springsteen for the flag-waver "Pay Me My Money Down." Her presence onstage was another important symbol. When she walks onstage, the anti-war movement and the history of non-violent protest comes with her.

But when Springsteen gets the entire audience to scream "blown away" in "My Oklahoma Home" or sings the timeless lament of war, "Mrs. McGrath," he is not-so-subtly introducing subversive material. He went downright flagrant when he returned for his encore and, without further comment, sang a modified version of Seeger's own Vietnam rally cry, "Bring Them Home."

Another song, alas, still relevant.

[golden braid]

Originally Posted by amber

That's probably why he was too shy to ask me out.

Did you read the review in the Chronicle? They said it was cool, but that the band was too overwhelming. I don't really agree. It was supposed to be a huge sound.

I don't get the Chronicle but I think it was neat hearing all the different instruments together. Plus, the musicians got to do little solos so that helped to single out each instrument.