The fact that “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the Street Band” even exists goes against all that the boss believed. Until a few years ago, he admitted that he was “very superstitious” on the group’s set.
“I did not believe that the magician should look too closely at his magic turn, that he could modify him in one way or another,” Springsteen told the Podcast circuit of Variety Awards, in the launch episode of the Emmy season. “And we were doing well … It’s really incredible that we have the films we have when we were a younger man, because I was roughly against filming.”
Directed by the longtime collaborator Thom Zimny, “Road Diary” – currently streaming on Hulu and Disney + – contains heaps of this archive film, including 1975 images from Hammersmith Apollo in London. “What was captured was captured almost by accident,” he said. “At the Hammersmith Apollo, the BBC has just filmed it. I don’t know if I even aware of it to film it that evening, and I didn’t watch it for 30 years.”
But in recent years, Springsteen has changed his air. “We are now at a time when we should film at least everything we do,” he said. “Once a tour or once an album, I like to film, including films with our records. Now, this is only part of what we do.” With Zimny, it included “Letter to you”, “Western stars” and “Springsteen on Broadway”.
“Road Diary” tells the world tour of the World 2023-2025 of Springsteen, which was considered (especially early) as even more introspective than usual. Springsteen entered the tour with a very specific idea of the theme and the flow, including a setlist which was quite rigid at the beginning.
“I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to sing and write, which was the group and our philosophy – and what it is to age alongside your friends, and what it does at this age to experience your mortality,” he said. “You see your friends spending quite often these days. These are problems that made my mind. ”
This is why the “Nighthift” of the Commodores has become an improbable cover for Springsteen, but it is now a basic food and a showstopper in its concerts. “I always liked this song,” he says. “I remember sitting in a bar at Red Bank and just having a drink, and he came to the playlist. And I smothered. I was a few tequilas, and that helped, I suppose, but I heard this song and I said:” God, I love this song. “It was a bit of a lost masterpiece. It ended up being a pretty duo between Curtis (King) and me, and it’s just that the background is emotion is simply in the song.
The film pays tribute to the original members of the original group E Clarence Clemons (died in 2011) and Danny Federici (died in 2008), including old interviews.
“The two come from a film on which I worked on” Darkness on the Edge of Town “,” explains Zimny. “And for years, I saved these clips and I felt like` Road Diary ”, I had this mission not only to bring the sound qualities of these players and these guys in the street E in the foreground, but literally to see my expressions, their smiles, to hear the musicality of their voices. I thought a lot about my experience as a fan and the importance. I wanted to explore the story of the street.
Of course, everything is not in the film. Springsteen was forced to postpone several dates at the end of 2023 after receiving a diagnosis of gastro-duodal ulcer disease, but this hiatus is not addressed here.
“I did not think that my gastro-duomin ulcer was worthy of a film, so we left it aside,” explains Springsteen. “I really enjoyed free time, but you hate disappointing your fans. And it took a while to calm everything down and give myself back to myself. It was therefore an unusual experience, because I am generally enough. But no, we never considered it as part of this story.”
According to Springsteenland, Jeremy Allen White will be seen in the biopic “Deliver Me From Nowhere”, playing the boss in a feature film on the production of his 1982 album “Nebraska”. The film is adapted by the book of the same name of Warren Zanes and comes from the director / writer Scott Cooper.
“They presented the idea and I said,” It seems fun, “says Springsteen. “It is an interesting concept, because it is only a few years of my life. It is ’81, ’82, and focused on the creation of this particular disc while I recorded simultaneously ‘Born in the United States’ and also by personal difficulties that I lived all my life. But it is fantastic.”
Springsteen says he was impressed by what he saw of Jeremy Allen White, who plays the musician at that time. “I was on tour for a large part, so they filmed a good amount without me,” said Springsteen. “But I was sometimes on the set. It was interesting to see him played, to see your grandmother’s house again, and to go inside and to have a general feeling of what it was when you were very young. So I appreciated all these games.”
The star also recently made waves on social networks when he attended a Los Angeles Lakers match – and caught a flying basketball ball. “It was to make up for it or bounce it to my head,” he said. “So I decided that I would catch it.”
As for the suite, Springsteen and the group again hit the road in May for dates in Europe, followed by Canada. Would he consider another live box telling his last decades on tour? “What we are doing now is essentially, we publish each program,” he notes. “You can have a live program you want, shortly after we did it. It would be possible to redo a live album, if we wanted it. But I think they are less asked these days, because people have the opportunity to buy one of the shows in which they were, or a hundred others.”
Asked about the state of the country – and the role of music by responding to what is happening to our democracy – Springsteen says that it is something of which he thinks. “One of the artists’ jobs to give meaning to existence and to give meaning to the current times in which you live and to contextualize these times,” he says. “Each artist does in a different way. So, I have it in my mind, and I am sure that it will be reflected in our next step in the tour. ”
