The main event in the E Street nation this month was not so much the release of the new Bruce Springsteen album as the litmus test live concert at Harlem’s legendary Apollo Theatre last Friday.
How would The Boss cope without The Big Man, saxophonist Clarence Clemons, who died last year after suffering a stroke? Springsteen maintained that Clemons was irreplaceable. He’d been a fixture for four decades, a towering presence on stage and an integral component of the E Street sound.
Two summers ago, I bumped into Clarence at a marina on Singer Island, Florida. As you do. Even though he was still frail following back surgery, he was an imposing figure, built like an NFL running back and with an aura the size of a solar system.
All the great saxophonists, from King Curtis to Junior Walker, have their own signature sound. Clemons’s rasping horn was arguably the most distinctive of all, adding poignancy and power in equal measure.
The Apollo concert was the first time the band had played in public without Clarence. Springsteen filled the gap with a five-piece horn section, including long-time Jersey Shore stalwart Ed Manion and Clarence’s nephew Jake Clemons, who produced a note-perfect sax solo on ‘Badlands’.
Eight of the 11 songs from the new album, Wrecking Ball, were showcased. The title track and ‘Land of Hope and Dreams’ are old friends. ‘Wrecking Ball’ was written and first performed to commemorate the demolition of the old New York Giants Stadium in 2010. ‘Land of Hope and Dreams’ is a juggernaut, Springsteen’s take on the traditional train song that has been a staple of American popular music since the days of the Delta bluesmen. On the studio album, both sound subdued to those familiar with the titanic live versions. On stage, they explode.
The E Street band has always been about live performance. Tracks which seem tame on record are transformed in concert. On Wrecking Ball, Springsteen revisits his eternal themes. The self-styled ‘rich man in a poor man’s shirt’ retains his blue-collar anger, now directed at the rapacious bankers who derailed the American economy.
‘Death To My Hometown’, the pick of the new material, takes up where the post-9/11 anthem ‘My City In Ruins’ left off. At the Apollo, driven by the sublime violin of Soozie Tyrell, it clattered along like a bastard child of the Pogues and Billy Bragg. And I mean that in a good way.
The Wrecking Ball tour arrives in Britain in June, the spirit of Clarence Clemons included. As Springsteen says: ‘Clarence doesn’t leave the band when he dies. He leaves when we die.’