European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - November 12, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse Portrait of an artist As a Young Man by Stephen Holden . Times Ruce spam Greeh & fio � Street bund livd/s9f5-85, a massive tic record retrospect we album thai arrived in s Lores in he United states this week represents an unprecedented event in popular recording. A 3hour. 40-song career summary recorded Over a 10. Year period in clubs concert Halls and s Ladius across the . It is the soil of anthology one expects to be released late in a performer s career or posthumously. Instead this monumental album which comes with a 31 Page Booklet of lyrics and photographs arrives just when the 37-year-old Singer and composer is Al the Peak of his popularity and creative Powers. Springsteen s last album born in the .a., has sold More than 11 million copies in the . Arvd live frs 8s which costs about s25 $39 for the set of three compact disk with a Price differing from store to store has received Advance orders of More than f .5 million copies. To other record album has done such a Large Dollar volume of business before its release. La has Long been said of spin Sleen that he must be seen in concert for his music to be fully appreciated find while Uvo is fido est l the us ,jer3dy fhe Springsteen perform it offers by far the broadest perspective be o an artist whose music connects Many of the major strands of american Rock tradition most notably Chuck Berry s i warty country blues Bob Dylan s oracular Foix Rock poetry. Otis bedding s Sou inem soul arid producer Phil spec Lor s surging Loen anthems live/1975-851$ loaded with history. At the very least in is a record of How one Singer and his band have helped to Lusiam and put their personal stamp on a Jock Iradi Hon trial Choc Lorat keyboard technology has sep daily eroded Over the Jasi decade More important the album is to pop record equivalent o an epic american novel its Story Lold in Tho Ingram Matiea rough Hen vocabulary of Rock. Because Springsteen is so Papula he is almost worshipped by some and because his songs Are pro loudly concerned with amen can ideals of Community family Hometown and nation the album has a histories resonance thai goes beyond pop Cullie. The driving spirit behind most Rock in Roll has traditionally involved fantasies of personal in Ascendance and escape from everyday responsibilities Springsteen Steno Orf Terrock n roller Bolo re him. Has Given this romantic vision a tragic dimension by putting in in a starkly realistic context. Springsteen s mature songs Are set against a Bleak backdrop of Dingy factories shabby Wood Frame houses and a suited Tail Oad tracks. Instead of being presented chronologically he songs ate arranged in thematic sequences structured to draw conclusions Aboul the past and speculate about the Lulu re As an portrait of Springsteen. Ive is Fly overflows w1 h Antic humor Joman Lic drama and above All restless peripatetic motor driven action. The vivid Small town settings of his Early songs Are framed against a mysterious. Inviting Menean landscape that the Singer borrowing from Chuck Berry names the promised land live 975-s5 describes Springsteen s search Lor salvation As he grows up and away from suburban i Nab town we and sets Oul to explore thai territory. But instead of leading to a blissfully Happy ending his Odyssey lakes him to he a and Back. Although he achieves a kind of redemption it is a bitter knowledge of life s essential unfairness in Anahed with compassion and a determined sek Celiance. The Core of lha album is Ari extraordinary sequence of songs in which Springsteen confronts the irrational social and economic forces hat shape and sometimes violently destroy american me. Although barely mentioned the cataclysm at the Center of the album is the Vietnam War an event that in Springsteen s View casts an ominous Shadow into the future. For the Flatt two record live res scoffers a colourful Rock n Roll phantasmagoria of Youthful passion in songs that a alternately Olvil Lingby energetic poignant and funny. Ooh coma Taka my hand we re Riding out tonight to Case the promised land Springsteen pleads to a sweetheart in she evening Cut a Beautiful acoustic version of Thunder of tract recorded 11 years ago Al the Roxy in los angelas. The songs go on to describe the rambunctious wildly romantic teen Page 16 the stars and stripes Wolph Olibruce Springsteen s to Tow anthology la an Auto biographic summary Tot did won history. Age life Fiat is ulily Afefy teff befttno1. Saffier son strife Adam raised a Cai adolescent hanging out spirit in the nigh the tawdry Glamour of the Jersey Shore 4ih of july Astry Par Romeo and Juliet love games fire Flo saw Marlon Brando stud rebel Antasia growirt1 up and it s hard lobe 8 Saint in the Cit Yand acute Small town Claustrophobia Becks reats Are remembered in the vivid Gawky Rock n Roll Street poetry of Springsteen s Matiy arvo Nrtid-70s voice and in music by the e Street band thai suggests a restless tear around the american Highway. The swinging Loose now eco bar band Ioco of the Fanti its Centrepiece the majestically gregarious honk of saxophonist Clarence Clemens musically epitomizes the joyous freewheeling sense of camaraderie that runs to the heart much of Springsteen s music. Hungry heart an Arena audience sins a jog two hearts a a daringly Ewi Berant Cadillac ranch and a play Lully sexy you can too but you better not touch show of Springsteen and the band at their most raucously playful. But beginning with Independence Day a brooding song about a Young Man leaving Home he mood or the album begins to shift. With just a slight alteration in one Springsteen s charging anthems can turn desperate. And 8adtar a reeks with cold sweat As it contemplates a deep animal feat not often admitted to in mainstream Rock songs. This ear which Springsteen perceives As an ominous growing undercurrent of american working class tile haunts much of the a St of the Alburn. The other Side of the Coin is a tie a nagging desire poor Man Wanna be Rich Rich Ryan Wanna be Wing and a King Ain t satisfied til a Rule everything. In an upwardly Mobile society Springsteen asks is it possible or Ordinary working people to build and sustain a stable responsible sense of Community far the next 1 a records the Songa address the economic up Obj of America s wording class with increasing despair end rage. Darkness on wednesday november 12, me Edge of town and freeing in the a free look sorrowfully Al the Energy and dreams squandered on Small town tag racing. Later. Springsteen introduces a Stow measured rendition of Woody Guhne s this lend is your Lanc with a monologue about Haw the song was written As an angry response to Irving Berlin s god Stess America. It is followed1 Fly Tatroe songs from Nebraska the 1982 acoustic album of Cowboy Folk songs in which Springsteen began writing first person monologues in he voices of characters totally outside himself. Sung in e sullen twang this trilogy about senseless murder injustice and betrayals so harsh they Render life meaningless casts an even deeper chm. It hurts to hear Springsteen mumble in a tone of ornery Deadpan despair struck a Kinda funny seem Kinda Tunny sir to me at to end of every hard earned Day people find some reason to Springsteen makes Toto Nebraska songs pay dividends by placing them in the album just before the concert version of bom in Tia Simply because its title is so Catchy some have mistaken the song for an aggressively jingoistic Anthem in fast the song is an unemployed Vietnam Veteran s scream of anguish when he finds himself unwanted and Ync ared for in the Homeland he defended. In the next number. Seeds America a but disappears into a Black Hole. This previously unrecorded song the relentless cry of an out of work homeless Oil worker if Houston weaves Togo Lher images of Blind Industrial Power and brutal social indifference with visions of suicide and social disintegration. You Ain t Gonna find nothing Down Here frieno1 except he seeds Towin up the Highway in the South wind the narrator warns howling a tune is essentially one repeated note Sleichert along an unresolved blues chord the album turns poignantly reflective to 1 a moment gift a spoken monologue in which Springsteen recalls battling with his father in the Laie 60s. The tale which has the understatement of a Freymond Carver Story segues into tie liver the Bleak Folk Ballad about a Shotgun marriage and prematurely withered lives Sot in an ugly Industrial town. Then in another spoken monologue Springsteen remembers watching Tho Vietnam War on television and tells his audience if you a in your teens in 1983, Blind Faith in your leaders or in anything will Gal you the Singer end band immediately launch into a Jackhammer charged rendition of Barrett Strong and Norman Whilia Elmvs 1970 anti War chant. War. With Herr relentless Pawer Drill Fig rhythms and Slavely Chainsaw textures 8am in the .a., seeds War and two other songs Darling Lon county and working on the Highway All compare hard labor with War making. Without actually preaching Springsteen repeatedly makes the Point that the same will and Energy hat drives productive physical labor can just As easily Power destructive violence. All it takes or one to be perverted into the other is an absence of meaningful after contemplating the void so Cal Nelly. Live/1975 is gradually lifts is gaze upward in. A final sequence of songs that tentatively allium love and Community the optimistic spirit of Thesa songs comes More from the solidity o the music and from Springsteen s rugged singing than from what the songs actually say. The bomb demanded in cover me is More protective than romantic Asha narrator pleads. The whole world Oul inure us trying to score i be seen Enouoh-1 Don l want any More Bobby Jean no surrender he High Point of the a bum is a roaring tonally Rich concert version of5pringst Bens most famous mid.70s Antn a nun mat builds to such an exalted Peak the music T Abom ,in9s to a ma9nmc"nt synthesis jus about All the impulses that have fuelled Rock music to surfaced in mid sos As a ,
