... Trouble in the Heartland
If you listen to any of the famous Bruce Springsteen concerts from the year of 1978 you can hear the intensity in each song's performance and the connection between Bruce, The E Street Band and the fans attending. It is said that Bruce and The E Street Band played every concert as it would be the last one, and man can you hear that...
For more than half of my 40 year old life many of these concerts have been played over and over and over again. I remember listening to them for the first time in the dark, closing my eyes and imagining being in the crowd, trying to get a feeling of what was happening on the stage. Well now I don't need to imagine any more (well, at least not everything...)
The saying that a picture can reveal more than a thousand words is true, and sometimes I still prefer to see a photograph than actual concert footage. The excellent book "The Light in Darkness" by Lawrence Kirsch makes you do exactly that. It is a true work of love, with fantastic photographs and fan stories from this legendary tour. Reading the book that I just recently bought from the author (and yes, it is amazingly still on sale on www.thelightindarkness.com) made me travel back 25 years to that young boys room, to those evenings in the dark when the music made such a huge impact that still lives on in my life today. From listening to the haunting "Factory" and hearing my own father coming home late at night after his shift, to the unbelievable guitar-intro on "Prove It All Night" which made you feel so alive and never wanting to go through those factory gates yourself...
If you have the same love for Bruce's music, do yourself a favour and buy this book while you still can, you will not regret it. It is a perfect companion to the listening experience for any Bruce fan, especially us that has been around a while and get the treat to travel back to that young boys room...
umberto.flauto@me.com
Stockholm 2014-03-04
