'Tis the day after my return from the Glastonbury Festival 2009. I was not in a fit state to write yesterday, mostly due to a cumulative lack of sleep and the distraction of feet that have seen more use than in many a year and are suffering the consequences!
I might write a few pieces based on my Glasto experience, what with it being possibly the most interesting thing to happen to me this year. That's is if I remember I'm supposed to be writing a blog, which on past evidence is hardly a given.
Anyway, as the title suggests, I'm starting at the top, with festival headliner Bruce Springsteen. Had I not seen him play Cardiff Millennium stadium last summer, I might not have been able to persuade myself that £200 for a festival ticket would be money well spent (£175 on the face of it but there are so many extra charges...). As it was, the combination of The Boss and Neil Young in one weekend, along with various other luminaries finally got me off my arse instead of sitting in front of the extensive BBC coverage mumbling "maybe next year".
Why should this be? He is quintessentially American, blue collar in sentiment if not status and while as a fan I'd be thrilled to meet him, I doubt we'd have much in common to discuss beyond a shared love of music. A friend asked me quite recently why I liked Springsteen when the rest of my musical taste seemed sound, a question which reflects a fairly common situation. On Bruce Springsteen there is no middle ground. Like Marmite, it seems most people who have heard him either love him or hate him.
A large part of this comes down to trust and belief. Is he sincere? If you think so, and are touched by the power and sentimentality of his lyrics, predominantly narratives on ordinary folk struggling with ordinary situations, far removed from a mansion in New Jersey or touring on room service, you'll be bowled over by his live presentation. On the other hand, if you find a multi-millionaire in jeans insisting that "tramps like us were born to run" just a bit far fetched, you are going to struggle!
Now, I'm not known for my fondness of kitsch, but I find myself a believer. Some of this is based on logic. Said millionaire doesn't have to play energetic three hour sets as he approaches his sixtieth birthday, but he does. He engineers a seemingly spontaneous choice of songs from a repertoire covering the best part of forty years, where most of his contemporaries are content to churn out the hits on autopilot and watch the bank balance swell still further. Some of the material is less anthemic than the majority, but this maintains a sensible balance between the frantic and the reflective moments, of which The River has been the highlight on each of my three encounters so far. If Springsteen is merely an actor, he's a bloody good one, more plausible than many an angry younger man elsewhere in the music scene. Each of my Springsteen gigs has left me overwhelmed that a man over 10 years my senior can generate more energy than I ever could have. Consequently, I have no problem with his label as The Boss.
