A Weekend in Monmouth County

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, September 6, 2025.
Pollak Theater. West Long Branch, NJ.
Photo courtesy of John Cavanaugh

A DAY AT THE BEACH

On the Beach in Asbury Park. September 5, 2025

We headed out on the road at 10am Thursday, determine to prove out that I could drive cross country in an EV, and pointed in the direction of my native land, New Jersey. I'll get back to the EV adventures hopefully soon. Pulling in to my mother's house at 10pm, it wasn't all that much slower than a gas-powered trip. My main objective for the trip was a series of events surrounding the 50th anniversary of "Born to Run."

First things first: Aaron wanted a day at the beach. He wouldn't be able to go to any of the organized events due to his job, but he came up from Baltimore and for a few hours on Friday we were a family of 4 for a perfect beach day in Asbury Park. Being a few days after Labor Day, the beach was mostly empty. The undertow was too strong to go more than a couple feet deep in the water, but it was sublime. I'd go every chance I could if I lived there. Coming back through the Grand Arcade afterwards, we bumped in to Danny Clinch, who was arriving to look over the setup for this year's See.Hear.Now festival.

A NIGHT AT THE MOVIES

Friday evening was the first of our celebration events put on by the Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music: "A Night at the Movies with Thom Zimny" at Monmouth University's Pollak Theater. Ezra managed to score a late ticket to the showing, so we had 3.

In terms of attendance, it felt like old times on the Reunion tour. I counted easily a dozen old friends in the 700 seat theater, and there were many more that I missed.

The movie was focused entirely on a single recording session for Jungleland, all from Barry Rebo. That's necessarily limited as Rebo (to my knowledge) only filmed that one marathon session at 914 Sound Studios in Blauvelt, NY in January 1975, and then two of the Bottom Line shows in August 1975. The rehearsal movie was a fascinating look in how Bruce and ran his sessions at the time. As explained in Peter Ames Carlin's book, "Tonight in Jungleland," the entire recording process, including the choice of studio was dramatically overhauled at Jon Landau's instigation about a month later. By comparison to what came to be, the process shown in the movie is maybe best described as both primitive and intense. So primitive that they were trying to do all takes live, full band. When they moved to The Record Plant, the intensity remained and Jon helped convince Bruce to clean up the process, but alas, there is no Rebo footage (at least, none that I'm aware of) of it.

Zimny did a fine job of stitching together many small snippets to produce a more or less seamless whole. There was closed captioning throughout, which made it much easier to understand sometimes hushed voices. I would have liked to see captions giving names to the people, especially folks like Louis Lahav who I've only seen decades later.

I loved seeing Suki Lahav, Louis Lahav's wife and the band's violin player at the time. She was brilliant and funny, even though she had almost no lines. One small scene in which she played with a balloon while Bruce was off doing whatever serious thing Bruce was doing, was particularly funny. Danny Federici was featured throughout; of course he was not part of the final recording. Jon kinda set the template up front but was otherwise not included - or at least not prominently. Zimny may have also slipped in some photos from later sessions; for example there appeared to be at least one image of Jimmy Iovine, and he wasn't part of the sessions until the operation moved to New York City.

Bruce came off as a loving taskmaster with a fairly pronounced ability to be an ass. But at least Zimny wasn't shy about showing it, from the first time Bruce called out Suki missing a note (which, yes, I had noticed), to Bruce calling out flaws so minor that Mike Appel ended up riding him for it. Heck, Bruce even called out missed notes by Garry Tallent, and Bruce made a point on Saturday of noting that he never stopped a rehearsal for Garry missing a note.

The capper for the evening was a performance of Jungleland from the late show at The Bottom Line on August 16, 1975, in which I ached to see Clarence actually play his solo. Great to have seen it. Let's just say Rebo was singularly focused.

After the rehearsal video, Erik Flanagan led a discussion with Thom Zimny and Max Weinberg. I'm sure Max has told most of his stories before but it was still a nice session. Max filled in some of the gaps as to how things progressed after the sessions at 914. Garry was in the audience, as well.   

THE MAIN EVENT

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. September 6, 2025.
Photo courtesy of Eileen Chapman

I've already collected scattered thoughts on the "Main Event," which went from 9am until about 5:30pm at the Pollak Theater. Not having been able to find a ticket for Ezra, now we were down to just Lori and me. As I reflect back, some additional thoughts occur to me:

• The schedule kept changing. What was posted to the website wasn't what we were handed when we walked in, and what we were handed when we walked in was substantially different than what ultimately transpired. Rock and Roll!!!
• Boom Carter and David Sancious were featured on the first panel, about the E Street Band in 1974. I believe they were the only people of color I saw all day. Not that there was much to be done about that; the participants were who they were. We missed Clarence, of course, and Danny.
• Barbara Pyle appeared a bit later on a panel covering the E Street Band on the road in 1975. While most comments, including my own, focused on her general goofiness and her willingness to rag on the band, Danny Federici in particular, I believe she was the only woman panelist all day. Pam Springsteen was an interviewer in a separate panel, and Eileen Chapman delivered the opening remarks, but still that's 3 all day. Again, not sure what could have been done here, short of coaxing Suki to come from Israel.

  

  The printed schedule for the Main Event

• During the lunch break we went on over to the DiMattio Gallery on campus where several of Eric Meola's photographs from the "Born to Run" cover session were presented, along with contextual information. The exhibit runs through November 15.
• Comments about particular songs continue to come to mind, mostly from the Peter Ames Carlin panel with Bruce and Jon: Jon noting that "Thunder Road" would be a career for other artists. Bruce saying that "Jungleland" was not autobiographical, except possibly for "the poets down here"; that he'd never written a song like it before and never would again (never mind, in my own mind, that "Jungleland" still sounds like a follow-up to "Incident on 57th Street" to me). The end of the session, when Jon reminded Carlin that they hadn't even discussed "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," which seemed in 1975 to Bruce like a throwaway, a song that he said he wasn't sure he even wanted on the album. Yet that song remains a show staple even now.
• Bruce said that the name "Wendy" in "Born to Run" was inspired by a Peter Pan poster he had above his bed in the house in West Long Branch. Although Bruce wasn't asked, this was the 2nd Peter Pan reference in one of his songs -- "take a right at the light, keep going straight until night" being a variant of the directions that Peter Pan gives Wendy to get to Neverland ("second star to the right and straight on 'til morning."
• Bruce also said that he didn't know where the title "Born to Run" came from; when it first came to him he was sure it must have been from a B-movie, but when he couldn't ever pin it down and he kept it. Other tidbits, such as the opening attack being straight from Little Eva's "The Loco-motion," I already knew; still it was cool hearing Bruce point it out.
• There was (thankfully) no discussion at all about specific lyrics for which performances do not match the original lyrics sheet; they had two prominent opportunities and passed on both. Bruce did use the TelePrompter to point out certain lyrics that he wanted to highlight towards the end of "Jungleland" ("the poets down here don't write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be") to point out that that was the spot in this song that he felt might be somewhat self-referential, but otherwise the sessions was pretty much a lyrics-free zone.
• There was also relatively little discussion about the songs that were recorded but did not end up on the album: "Linda Let Me Be the One," which was released on "Tracks," and "Lonely Night in the Park," released a few weeks ago to coincide with the anniversary. Bruce mentioned both songs, but if you want detail as to how "Meeting Across the River" ended up on the album and those two didn't (again, thankfully), you'd need to read Carlin's book.
• Among the few lyrics that were discussed, Jon focused in of Bruce's use of "faith," as in, "tying faith between our teeth." This to help demonstrate, at least partially, what was at the core of this record. For my part, I wasn't even tempted to put my arm up in the air, as I instinctively do when Bruce rolls around to "faith" in "Land of Hope and Dreams."
• Jimmy Iovine still cracks me up. That entire panel, with the surviving band members, Jon Landau, Mike Appel, and Jimmy Iovine, was spectacular. Bruce has mentioned that every year on or near the anniversary of the album's release date, he drives around the area while listening to the album, always ending up at the house on West End Court. This year, he did the drive with Jimmy, and said he wouldn't change a note.
• There was relatively little for sale at the event. At the prior anniversary event, they had even posters, books for sale by various authors, and all attendees received a "1974 tour" t-shirt. This time, there were several styles of commemorative t-shirts for sale as well as some other basic non-commemorative items from the Archives, but that was about it.
• Several people still seemed to have axes to grand. There was Barbara Pyle, upset (with some smiles, but still...) with how she was treated and (not) paid for her photographic work. Multiple Columbia folks in remembrance of the difficulty they had had selling Bruce within the company; this spilling over to a dispute within the panel as to whether a specific 1973 performance in San Francisco was good or awful (depends on one's perception of "Wild Billy's Circus Story," I suppose). There were Mike Appel and Paul Rappaport, talking smack about how Los Angeles radio station KLOS didn't immediately jump on the bandwagon for "Born to Run" and instead issuing feedback that Bruce "mumbled too much"; both men later using the line of later taunting the station with messages saying "he just mumbled his way in to the top 10!" 
• There might have been more sparks, had some other survivors from the sessions been present in the room. But of all the grudges still held, there were none between attendees. Bruce, Jon and Mike all sat on the same panel, with perfect cordiality.

• 

  Boom Carter playing with the E Street Band.
  September 6, 2025.
  Photo courtesy of John Cavanaugh

  There were people I would have liked to see, who were not present. Especially those who participated in the early sessions at 914 Sound Studios. I have no doubt the Archives extended invitations, and I remain impressed that every surviving member of the band came to the event.
• The mythologizing was in overdrive all day. Let's just say that in 1975, Bruce did not play 4 hour shows! 
• Bruce performed with an 8-member E Street Band, Without looking it up, I'm confident that this was the smallest E Street Band since 1988. Sure, Of course I'd have liked more than 2 songs; I think like most attendees I'd have liked the whole album. But I'm not complaining! I couldn't easily make out anything that David Sancious played -- totally unlike his virtuoso performance of "New York City Serenade" at the previous conference. And then... Boom Carter. He could have faked it on "Thunder Road" for all I cared. But... oh my...having that performance of "Born to Run" in that room. Max kicking back and letting Boom take the polyrhythm of the "Born to Run" breakdown, just a few feet in front of me... wow. Just wow. That's a year. A decade. Whatever. Bucket list!!!
• Bruce sounded good, too. He performed "Thunder Road" far closer to the album version than I've heard in years, and the Telecaster -- theTelecaster -- sounded great.
• This is likely the last conference featuring any of the older guard. Vini Lopez was there as an audience member only. Mike Appel and his brother Steve were both gone before the "Darkness on the Edge of Town" sessions and album. While I'm confident there'll be an event for Darkness -- and hopefully a rocking Grand Opening event next spring when the Archives building opens -- there won't be any more like this one.

WALKING THE STREETS

Vinii Lopez, Jean Mikkle and Stan Goldstein at West End Park.
West Long Branch, NJ. September 7, 2025

There was an academic conference on Sunday. I would have liked to see several of the presentations, but the logistics were too difficult to navigate, and we had already signed up for the "walking tour." Stan Goldstein and Jean Mikkle have been leading versions of the tour for more than 25 years, and this version would cover a very compact area.

We met a group of several dozen people at West End Park in West Long Branch, where Bruce had one played gigs with his prior band "Child" (later renamed "Steel Mill"). The entire tour was only a few blocks, taking us past the pizza joint where Bruce had the cover photo of "The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle" taken, past the sites of several formal hangouts for band members, and finally on to the house where Bruce lived in 1975 and where he wrote most of the "Born to Run" album. The band shell and the house still stand, but everything else is gone or at least changed.

For our tour, we also had a special tour guide: former E Street Band drummer Vini Lopez. Having talked to Lopez several times previously, I'm conditioned to be at least somewhat skeptical of the finer details in his stories. Of course, they're a hoot anyway. My favorite was when we came to the place where David Gahr shot the photo for the back cover of the Wild and Innocent album, when Vini explained why the band members - Garry in particular - were smiling. Vini says he's writing a memoir, it should be fun read.

Vini said he'd only been in the house once, as he'd already been sacked as the band's drummer by the time Bruce moved there. Nonetheless, seeing the house, and being able to walk through it by permission of the current owners and tenants, was a one-of-a-kind experience. I'm guessing it'll be a museum someday. For me, the saddest part of the tour was learning that the piano upon which Bruce composed many of the songs, may well be gone forever, apparently having been put out to the curb by later residents who didn't know its significance. At least, that's what we were told. Hopefully it'll turn up someday.

7 1/2 West End Court, West Long Branch, NJ.

Also in West Long Branch, we took some time out to eat at the pizza place where the cover photo was taken (it's a different establishment now), and to peruse a current exhibit at the Long Branch Arts & Cultural Center called "Springsteen in Long Branch," which collected a number of photos and artifacts from the time when Springsteen lived in Long Branch; he was born there and of course lived in West Long Branch during 1975. Particularly fascinating to me were re-productions of posters from Springsteen shows in the area with Child, Steel Mill, and the Bruce Springsteen Band, as well as a peg board showing the local venues where he had played over the year -- which I guess would need updating after the weekend! The exhibit runs through December 18th.

Sunday night and most of the day Monday we drove back to Michigan, the music still ringing in our ears.