Close Encounters Of The Bruce Kind
A fan his whole life, Glen Hansard has recently got to know Bruce Springsteen off stage as well as on. Talking exclusively to Stuart Clark, he explains what makes The Boss & The E Street Band so special.
Stuart Clark, 04 Sep 2012
What’s the atmosphere like behind the scenes at a Boss show?
“Very relaxed,” he reveals. “The first time I met Bruce, I was talking to him five minutes before stage. Mid-sentence he suddenly remembers where he is and says, ‘Oh, I’d better go on!’ There are a lot of bands that get super uptight and hide themselves away, but nothing phases Bruce or the guys. Steve Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren are amazing characters and stars in their own right too.”
If Glen had fears about Jake rising to the E Street Band challenge, they evaporated the minute ‘Twist & Shout’ came out of the Showgrounds’ PA last week.
“Bruce was really cautious about taking Jake on and put him through the wringer in terms of telling him, ‘I don’t want you to be learning as we go along. I want you to be as good as you can be on every fucking song’. And Jake’s risen to that. He’s had a cut on his lip for four of five months, which hasn’t healed because he’s been playing sax non-stop. Nephew or not, he wouldn’t have got the gig unless he was 100% up to it.”
Sat there the following morning at Dublin Airport waiting for his flight to Bologna, Glen tweeted: “Bruce Springsteen in Dublin. The best show I’ve EVER seen! There’s no-one on the planet who sings or gives as much.” Anything to add to those 140 characters?
“Lots! Apart from the fact he’s physically and mentally an extraordinarily strong man, he has that elixir of life thing where he basically gives himself over to the audience. He’s not afraid of being completely cheesy, he’s not afraid of being heroic. He puts himself and his ego out of the equation and becomes a man of the people. That’s what gives him that relentless energy to keep going. There’s no one on this earth who can do that except, in a very different way, Leonard Cohen.”
What struck me at the RDS was: whether mocking Westminister Council with a bit of slapstick or paying tribute to Clarence, Bruce always instinctively gets it right.
“Absolutely,” he nods. “The beautiful pause during ‘10th Avenue Freeze Out’ and the band waiting for the crowd to clap and cheer… it was euphoric without being overly sentimental, which is how you suspect Clarence would’ve wanted it.”
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