Home is where you feel at home and are treated well. – Dalai Lama
Bruce Springsteen came home to New Jersey last night. Again. And 55,000 people who he has never met welcomed him. Again.
These days whenever Springsteen and his mighty E Street Band bring their ageless touring carnival to the great Garden State we embrace them with a fervor that is part love, part pride, part ritual, and all possessiveness. Across all the decades, albums, tours and concerts, and after all the triumphs, tragedies and changes, we still flock to the altar because (more…)
into the great wide open
Posted: January 4, 2018 in Arts, Observations and CommentaryTags: common ground, death, legacy, life, music, Tom Petty
Tom Petty has been gone for three months, but it still doesn’t feel real. Since the mid-70’s he has always been there doing his thing without much fanfare, like bedrock. His songs, especially the earlier ones, routinely pop up on classic rock stations. Whenever that happens the volume gets boosted a bit. Part of the reason is the songs are solid; the other is they offer warm familiarity. This may be true of all music you enjoyed as a kid, but not of all that music endures. Petty endures, like bedrock.
I was never a superfan, but I like a lot of his work – and love some of it. I saw him live for the first and only time in 1979. Back then huge video screens did not flank the stage, so unless (more…)