The Newark Star-Ledger
http://www.nj.com/
Friday July 25, 2008, 10:00 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESSBruce Springsteen, center, chats with band members Clarence Clemons, left, and Nils Lofgren during their appearance on the NBC "Today" show in 2007. Drummer Max Weinberg is in background center.
Just as tightrope walkers shouldn't look down, musicians playing in stadiums shouldn't spend too much time gazing into the crowd.
So cautions Nils Lofgren, a guitarist for the E Street Band, which will back Bruce Springsteen at Giants Stadium, tomorrow, Monday and Thursday.
"The tendency, just because you're human, is to get lost in the spectacle of it, and the next thing you know: "Oh, jeez, I missed my part,'" says Lofgren. "So sometimes I'll just ... 'ignore' the audience isn't the right word, because you soak up their energy. But, visually, concentrate more on the band."
These 55,000-capacity shows will be three of only four U.S. stadium gigs the band will present on the final leg of its 2007-08 "Magic Tour." (The other takes place Aug. 2 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.). The rest of the shows will be in arenas and smaller outdoor venues.
"It's exciting to play for your family, and everybody in New Jersey is our family," says saxophonist Clarence Clemons.
"It always has a definite New Jersey energy to play there," says drummer Max Weinberg. "It's something that you definitely look forward to. I think half the audience will be relatives and friends of ours."
Bruce Springsteen performs during a concert in his 'Magic tour' at Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona July 19, 2008.
REUTERS/Albert Gea (SPAIN)
The band has played at Giants Stadium 16 times before, in 1985 and 2003. But these will be the first Giants Stadium shows without keyboardist Danny Federici, an original E Street member who died in April, at the age of 58, after a three-year battle with cancer.
"It's been devastating," said Weinberg. "We have a beautiful picture of Danny that we set up in the band dressing room, and ... it's hard to articulate the loss.
"Danny was one of a kind. It really encompasses losing a colleague, which is hard, a friend, which is deeper, and, really, a member of your family."
Lofgren calls Federici's illness and death "a brutal chapter for us, but it's great to have shows, instead of just sitting at home and dwelling on Danny's loss. It's great to have the distraction and the opportunity of a great rock show, and a great audience, to kind of work through the grief, through the music."
The E Streeters say there has been no discussion so far about what songs they might play at Giants Stadium, what guests they might play with, or what they might do to make the shows special.
"There never is," says Lofgren. "We're just a very improv group.
"I know that I'll get a setlist that will surprise me the first night. And I know that Bruce won't follow it. I know that the entire night will be one big audible, and I'll be freaking out, and having a ball, and being extremely challenged. But as someone who is very comfortable in front of an audience, with an instrument, that's a very exciting challenge."
Bruce Springsteen at Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona July 19, 2008.
REUTERS/Albert Gea (SPAIN)
Before a July 8 concert in Oslo, Bruce Springsteen told the band that they would be playing "If I Should Fall Behind," a song they previously hadn't attempted on this tour.
He let them know as they were making their way to the stage.
They played it, with an arrangement they had never used before, "and right in the middle of it, without any discussion, he started pointing at us to take solos," says Lofgren.
"Bands just don't do that -- that does not happen in front of an audience anymore. And it's a real honor to be a part of something that powerful, with that kind of history, and with that kind of freedom."
At recent shows, some of the unexpected songs have been inspired by signs that audience members hold up. Springsteen started honoring requests made in this manner in March, and has continued doing so since then.
The signs have become so numerous that the following message was recently posted on Springsteen's website, BruceSpringsteen.net: "All of us have been enjoying the signs and banners with song requests. And we appreciate that the U.S. stadium shows may loom epic in your imaginations, inspiring grand and vibrant art. Please show respect for those in the crowd whose views of the stage may be blocked by your signs by keeping them to a reasonable size and displaying them for only short periods of time."
The musicians believe the signs have boosted the spontaneity of the shows.
July 7 / Oslo, Norway / Valle Hovin Stadion
photograph by Jan Lundahl
"It's something we've never done before," says Weinberg. "And it seems to make the stadium experience -- as intimate as Bruce has always been able to make it -- even more intimate. 'Cause that's what you do in a club. You take requests."
"I like this new thing he's doing: going out to the audience and picking up a sign, and showing it to the band," says Clemons. "Sometimes it's a song we haven't played in 20 years, so we have to go back over the hundreds of songs that the band has on file, in their memories, and grab one of them."
Jay Lustig may be reached at jlustig@starledger.com or (973) 392-5850.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
Where: Giants Stadium, East Rutherford.
When: 7:30 p.m. tomorrow, Monday and Thursday. Howmuch: $65 and $95. Call (201) 507-8900 or visit ticketmaster.com.
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