What it turned out to be was brilliant. The shift to quiet made it unbelievably intimate,
a performance he put on for you in his living room. Plus, when applause that did break out at the
end of each brief set, it was thunderous.
Another thrilling surprise was how almost the whole show was new
material. During the preceding months, I’d
read Born To Run, the memoir the
perform was based on, took a road trip to Jersey to visit the sites, and met
with two separate groups of friends to discuss it – first, Ben Marzouk, Pierre
Dumong, Evan Davis, and Joe Kessler in DC; then, Jim Andrukonis, Steve Mull,
Ryan Mull, Cathy Faraj, Emily Trone, and Mike Trone in Crystal City. The book, trip, and discussions were all
great, but I thought they were it. He’d
read from the book, play a few songs, and be done.
What he actually did was include never-released passages,
flip songs in bold ways, and bring the house down. Most remarkable was his rendition of “Born in
the USA,” a song I’ve never liked…until that night. Seeing the concert on Netflix is not the same
as being in the theater, but based on media reports, it does come close…
Grade: A+
No comments:
Post a Comment