for a few days. I told him if he ever needed a guitar player, I’d like an audition; it was a passing thing, but I wanted him to know that. About five weeks before the tour started, he asked me to jam and I went up there and passed the audition, and I was very happy about that – it was a very special day for me. I went to work then. I had a lot of work to do.’ At the time Lofgren had his own solo album Flip, about to be released. ‘My commitment’s to Bruce and the band, and when they’re not working I just go back and pick off with my own solo thing. There are no decisions to be made – it’s that simple. To me, it’s not a sacrifice at all, it makes it more fun and easier to do what I’m doing, and it’s given me more confidence. My whole life, really, I’ve been a frontman so this to me is a refreshing change. I love bands and I’m more of a band person. I missed playing in bands, that’s why I put together so many temporary ones. The allegiance Bruce gets is deserved, he returns it. It’s a two-way street. He earns that kind of allegiance by the way he carries himself as a human being. Just being a part of it, it’s a real special treat that comes along, sometimes never, sometimes once in a lifetime. I’ve been very lucky. I got to admit, I’m pretty impressed. You know, it’s nice to be a little more objective because it’s not my songs and all that. I have been a fan of his for a long time, it’s just personal taste, but I find myself laughing sometimes onstage because it’s just such a great band.’ Not all the critics were so easily convinced, however. Reviewing the Wembley Stadium shows, the Times critic Richard Williams, a long-standing Bruce supporter, asked outright if Born in the USA was ‘not too calculated a simplification of his virtues? Who among his old admirers had not been dismayed by the announcement that his 1985 British tour would consist only of stadium concerts? Could it not be said, in fact, that the past year had been the story of a sell far harder than anything attempted in 1975?’ He added scornfully that ‘for all but the few hundred crushed closest to the stage there was no feeling of true engagement at all.’ He did concede, however, that the second half of the show was infinitely better. ‘Where even Thunder Road had sounded coarse and perfunctory, now Hungry Heart and Rosalita shouted their joy to the darkening sky… For the final gallop, ending with Twist and Shout, he was joined by his former lieutenant, Steve Van Zandt, whose humorous presence had been missed. Now… the stadium [was] reduced to the dimensions of a club… But – bigger? Louder? Brighter? What happens next?’ Writing of the show in Newcastle on that tour, Simon Frith of The Observer really hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that ‘his live shows have always been the core of the Springsteen myth. The question that’s currently being debated then is whether Springsteen’s ability to enter his fans’ lives can survive his commercially necessary move into stadia and football fields. On the evidence of his opening night in Newcastle on Tuesday, I’d say yes and no – Springsteen can humanise an open-air crowd better than any other rock performer I’ve seen, but he couldn’t completely surmount the distance and discomfort. This clearly worried him. Springsteen needs to feel his audience’s response and in 24
Newcastle he worked very hard to get it, eschewing (thank goodness) the alienating device of blowing-up video screens, throwing his phenomenal energy into every trick he’s ever learnt about crowd control.’ He concluded: ‘As he finished his final encore, Springsteen wailed in imitation of James Brown: “I’m just a prisoner, I’m just a prisoner, I’m just a prisoner… of rock and roll!”’ Another significant addition to the live band that year was that of female backing singers, one of whom, Patti Sciafa, who also played rhythm guitar, had an even more long-reaching impact on the singer’s life from this point on. Patti first auditioned for Springsteen back in the now distant days when he was briefly working under the pseudonym of Dr Zoom. Yet it was on the Born in the USA World Tour that Patti first formed the friendship with Springsteen that blossomed into a full-blown love affair – and eventually a marriage. This would not have been a troubling situation if Bruce hadn’t just announced plans to wed Oregonborn model and actress Julianne Phillips, which he duly did in 1985. But that was one storm that was yet to break. Bizarrely, given that he was now assuming the status of zillionaire rock star, the image Born in the USA saddled Springsteen with was that of the denim-clad blue-collar worker saluting the flag. It wasn’t just Bruce who now laboured under this new, somewhat patronising catch-all phrase, but other artisans of the dusty American road like Tom Petty and Bob Seeger. Rock artists that had become stars the hard way: by taking it out on the road; bringing it direct to the ‘people’, and thereby appearing to have become spokesmen and role models for the ordinary hard-working guy – and his gal. As Springsteen put it to writer Cynthia Rose in 1984, ‘When I was writing the early songs, the girl was still a part of it, she was just part of the future. But she was always there, that was always there, because it’s simply a basic human need. There’s a hunger for that relationship. But my characters, they’re wrestling with the fact that it’s so hard now to separate traditions of love and possession, romance and relationships, from the realities of those things today. It’s a puzzle to me, because the desire to become truly involved is as strong as anything about freedom. It’s a basic reality of how people are.’ Or as Glenn O’Brien wrote in Spin in 1985, ‘I don’t think of Bruce as some flag-waver riding the crest of yuppie reaction. I think of him as the guy who is proving once and for all that you don’t have to be an asshole to be an artist. Springsteen is a poet. He writes great words. But he’s also a rocker. I listen to some of the older albums and I like them OK. But you live and learn. And if you live and learn right, you get better. I think with Nebraska Bruce really learned how to write and with Born in the USA he really learned how to rock. So I don’t care that I just hopped on the bandwagon with the millions. It’s just great right now. And I’m happy to be a very avant-garde mainstream far-out regular guy…’
