Orel Family

Bruce Springsteen with Robert Santelli, October 28, 2023 On Saturday, The Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music held an all day symposium to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Springsteen's 2nd album, " The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle," at the  Pollak Theater on the campus of Monmouth College . Previously this year, the Center held a successful event to commemorate Springsteen's first Columbia record, "Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J." Released in November, 1973, "The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle" moved sharply away from the "singer-songwriter" approach that had been championed by John Hammond at Columbia, and to showcase Springsteen as a rock and soul songwriter, instrumentalist and band leader. The album was not a commercial success at the time, but it remains at or near the top of many fans' favorites. The main body of the program consisted of nine panel sessions, progressing...

No Surrender. April 3, 2023 It's been nearly 20 years since I've seen three consecutive Springsteen shows, and given the current dynamics of a) high prices and b) lack of shows near where I live, I'm unlikely to see 3 consecutive shows ever again. But there I was, last night, in the corner of the exalted GA pit at Brooklyn's Barclay's Arena, at my 3rd consecutive show, with my 5th family member. I took some pains not to immerse myself in the current set prior to last Wednesday's show in Detroit, but by the time we got to Brooklyn the basic structure was pretty well memorized: There'd be a core of 25 songs, in a specific order, and then a couple of "wild card" slots -- one after "Nightshift" and the other at the beginning of the encores. With the exception of those two songs, every moment, every move, pretty much, was tightly choreographed. To be clear, this isn't a bad  thing, but if you saw the show in Detroit or at the Garden, you p...

Bruce Springsteen salutes the crowd - April 1, 2023 Inevitably, someone might ask me, approximately: "you just saw him in Detroit on Wednesday, why would you fly to New York to see more? Especially when it's so  expensive?"  As the hours slipped away on my weather-delayed flight yesterday, I could even entertain a rational point to those questions. Hell, just looking at a setlist that had only 2 changes from the Detroit show 3 days prior, it still might seem fair to ask. Jungleland Trapped. April 1, 2023 But, you see, there was this show. If you were there, you know. You experienced the crowd. You experienced what seemed to be an extra bounce in everyone's step -- in Bruce's case, literally skipping across the stage at times. You experienced "Jungleland," in which Bruce seemed to conjure up a version of himself not seen or heard in decades, and in which, if you closed your eyes, you heard the ghost of Jake Clemons's uncle, too. You heard and saw Max ...

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, March 29, 2023, Detroit It wasn't so long ago that Bruce Springsteen coming to Michigan to play was pretty much an annual event. Every year from 2002 through 2009, Bruce made at least one appearance in the Great Lakes State. But after Bruce infamously forgot where he was during that 2009 show at The Palace of Auburn Hills , his appearances here have been rare. Last night's appearance with the E Street Band at Little Caesar's Arena in Detroit marked just his 2nd appearance in Michigan in the past decade, and was his first in the city of Detroit since 2005. Which is to say, it's been a moment. Things have happened. But more to the point: Springsteen & E Street Band -- the graphics for this tour can't be bothered with first names or definite articles -- were in town last night for a show, and this is what I witnessed. Smile for the camera! Ezra (and the hat) with Bruce in Detroit Just before 7:45pm the lights dimmed. I was s...

On Sunday morning I was kicking back, killing a little time flipping through whatever popped up in my twitter feed. I saw a somewhat provocative post from journalist Matt Taibbi , with a somewhat vague (to me, anyway) accusation : "The worst thing you can do, if you want people to take a vaccine, is lie about it. You don’t realize it, and these people at Stanford may not, but what they massively promoted “hesitancy.” What are we supposed to, not print this?" Taibbi has been one of Elon Musk's primary go-to people for publishing "the twitter files"; presented as an exposé of how Twitter operated prior to Musk's takeover of the platform last October. A couple days prior, Taibbi had presented episode 19 of the files , which he titled, in his typically understated approach, "The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine - Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of 'True Stories'". The thread was a whopping 45 tweets, and I stopped paying close atte...