COMMENTS/FURTHER
INFORMATION
Submitted by Melissa Caputo.
When he introduced the song You've Never Seen Everything, he said, "When my girlfriend at the time first read the song she said 'I hate this song.' When she heard the song she said 'I still hate this song.'" Laughing, Bruce added, "A year later we broke up. I guess it pays to be strong willed. Right."
Rich Blatt contributed this:
This
band really gels; it is very tight. Each player is a giant in his or her
own right, and each got a chance to shine throughout the night. Bruce's
guitar playing is absolutely phenomenal. That said, however, is not in
any way
to diminish his voice, which is also in really great shape. It had not
struck me until I was sitting there watching him sing all these
different songs what a great range he has. There were many times for
that wonderful, dark, gritty baritone to roll out, but often there were
spots where he was flawlessly punching out lyrics in a high tenor range
as well. Julie Wolfe is a wonderful addition, lending a wide palette of
textures to Bruce's music. The rhythm section was in the pocket all
night, grooving through upbeat songs like Open and
lending a sinister
backdrop of sound effects and funky beats to the spoken word pieces like
Postcards from Cambodia. A bravura performance by all.
Bruce prefaced Burn by remarking that "There are two things that led me to bring this song back. There is a boy I know who is confined to a wheelchair because of a horrible degenerative disease. "He's been urging me to bring it back for a while. The other is George Bush."
It was wonderful
that Bruce chose to play Pacing
the Cage at this concert. It is a fantastic
piece of art, and I connected with it on a
visceral level from the very first time I heard its very first line.
After Bruce plucked out the first few notes, the audience reacted with
cheers, and then listened raptly. At the end of the song we gave him
what was probably the strongest reaction to any single song. He grinned
wryly after the applause had died down and said, "I always feel a
little
strange when we play that song and people respond like that. If you have
had an experience that makes you get that song, I feel bad for you! Hopefully
you've also experienced something like
this..." With which Bruce and band launch into the next song, Open.
This
was in some ways a theme of the evening: balancing the light with the dark.
For more about this show and photos, see the reviews From The Road.