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By Mike Warren
Senior editor
The men who saved rock ‘n’ roll in the
1970s from the dirty grips of disco and pop
entered Denver’s Pepsi Arena on Friday
night on a “search and rescue mission.”
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street
Band pounded out guitar-driven rock for
three hours in the midst of a Rocky
Mountain snow storm outside, on the sec
ond of two sold-out nights in Denver.
He preached to his congregation.
Springsteen and the band took the stage
one by one: Roy Bittan on piano, Garry
Tallent on bass guitar, Max Weinberg on
drums, Danny Federici on keyboards, Nils
Lofgren on guitar, Patti Scialfa
(Springsteen’s wife) on acoustic guitar,
Steve Van Zandt on guitar, “The Big Man”
Clarence Clemons on saxophone and per
cussion, and, finally The Boss, in front of a
sold-out crowd that numbered close to
i9,oo0r
The show kicked off with “The Ties
That Bind” from the 1980 “The River” dou
ble album and continued into one of
Springsteen’s favorites, “The Promised
Land,” where at the end of the
song he threw his harmonica into the
crowd.
None of the radio hits, such as
“Dancing In The Dark” or “Glory Days,”
were included in the setlist; it was more of a
nitty gritty show, putting the hits aside for
more meaningful substance.
The band tore through five songs for
close to 45 minutes with everyone in the
audience still standing. After “Darlington
County,” Springsteen appeared alone
onstage with a spotlight and, in Springsteen
fashion, thanked the audience for coming.
The band then slowed the tempo with
two slower ballads, “Factory,” about
Springsteen’s blue-collar father, and “My
Hometown,” about New Jersey’s economic
troubles in the mid-‘80s. Springsteen
seemed to say it was about everyone’s town,
asking the audience to sing along with the
chorus.
Some newer material was included,
picking up the pace again with an excellent
guitar solo from Lofgren in “Youngstown”
and “Murder Incorporated,” where
Springsteen, Nils Lofgren and Steve Van
Zandt - “Silvio” from the HBO series “The
Sopranos” - dueled on guitars.
Springsteen’s shows during this tour
have included a core
in the setlist of about 15 songs, and the other
eight or nine change from night to night,
giving fans who follow the band on consec
utive nights variety. It creates a different
feel for each show. Most of the shows this
tour have been about three hours long with
23 to 25 songs.
Following “Murder Incorporated” was
“Badlands,” and the house lights were
thrown on to show audience members
pumping their fists in the air in unison with
Springsteen. The chorus was so loud at
points it was hard to hear the vocals.
Following “Badlands,” Springsteen
came to the front of the stage and screamed
to the audience, “Is there anybody alive out
there?” Max Weinberg of “The Conan
O’Brien Show” pounded on his drums, and
the audience screamed an enthusiastic
“Yes!”
The band then broke into “Tenth
Avenue Freeze-Out,” and Springsteen
jumped on top of Roy Bittan’s piano and
egged on the crowd to make more noise. In
the middle of the song, Springsteen told
how the band came together - a band he
hasn’t played with in more than a decade.
The set finished with “Ghost of Tom
Joad,” “Meeting Across The River,”
“Jungleland,” and, finally, a
loud and rocking “Light of
Day, where
Melanie Falk/DN
Springsteen shouted that he came to Denver
to “regenate you, resuscitate you, reliberate
you, resexualate you... With the power and
the glory, the majesty, the mystery and the
ministry of rock ‘n’ roll.”
The band left the stage with the congre
gation standing and cheering. But the band
and the crowd hadn’t had enough after more
than two hours.
The band came back on the stage, led by
Springsteen running up the ramp to the mic,
and broke into “Bobby Jean” and the classic
“Bom To Run.” They bowed after “Bom To
Run” and left, but the crowd kept cheering
and the band came back out for encore No.
2.
Another classic, “Thunder Road,” start
ed the second encore, then a slow but fan
tastic “If I Should Fall Behind,” where the
band members took turns at the mic with
Springsteen playing alone on his Fender
guitar. A new song, “Land Of Hope And
Dreams,” finished the second encore, but
no one in Denver was ready to let the rock
n’ roll Hall of Famer leave.
The band stood at the front of the stage
bowing to the audience, but the standing
ovation did not die down. After a few min
utes, Springsteen yelled to a man in the
front row wearing a Davy Crockett-style
raccoon hat, “Give me your hat!”
The man obliged, and Springsteen wore
the hat for the third encore,
“Ramrod,” with the rac
coon tail waving around as
Springsteen ran across the
stage with a big smile on his
face.
The show ended with
Springsteen running from the
riser at the rear of the
stage and doing a
somersault
back to his
- feet. The
crowd did not
stop screaming
until the band
left and the arena
lights came on, signal
iHgpThe Boss had left the
building. »
The E Street Band has
not toured together in a
decade but sounded tight
and was very enthusiastic
to join The Boss again. The
tour began in die summer of
1999 with a record 15
sold-out nights in
/ ~ New Jersey.
The tour
will con
tinue into
this sum
mer, fin
ishing with
another record 10
night stand at Madison Square Garden in
Manhattan.
The tour rolls through the Midwest to
St. Louis on April 8, and Kansas City on
April 9. Both are sold out, but tickets can
still be found from fans at ticket trading
pages on the Internet at face value.
• :1! - ' *?■ ** . .
Traveling Joslyn exhibit offers something new
By Jason Hardy
Staff writer
For the past two years, schools,
banks and museums all over
Nebraska have played host to some of
the Joslyn Art Museum’s most prized
possessions.
This weekend the Joslyn’s
“Travels in the Interior of North
America, 1832-34: The Maximilian
Bodmer Expedition” finally came
home, but not before touching the
lives of more than 29,000 students
and adults throughout Nebraska.
The exhibit showcases the work
of Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, who
journeyed across North America and
up the Missouri River from 1832 to
•fft was a wonderful opportunity for us
to bring in something new.”
Joan Bimie
coordinator of the exhibit
1834. The collection of 81 featured
prints included examples of Bodmer’s
landscapes, portraits and other scenes
of American Indian life, including the
flora, fauna and native peoples of the
Missouri River frontier.
All in all, the exhibition, which
was divided into two 41-piece
exhibits, with one print being dupli
cated for both, visited 18 different
towns in Nebraska and the surround
ing regions, including Broken Bow,
where the collection was displayed at
the Broken Bow public library. For
Joan Bimie, the librarian who lined -
up the exhibit, it was a great run.
“It was a wonderful opportunity
for us to bring in something new,” she
Please see JOSLYN on 10