The timing of the lockdown in 2020 could not have come at a worse time especially for fans of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band band as they missed most of the shows. However with most band members becoming elder statesmen of rock, shows started to dwindle down and there was not a lot of time to perform. For these artists, the last time many of them had even been in a room was the recording of Letter to You (2019). So it was no surprise when they walked into the rehearsal studio in Red Bank to work on their setlist, they all had a specific goal in mind.
In the documentary “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band”, directed by Thom Zimny, features a behind the scenes look about how the iconic band balances its great past but also focuses on the future. Zimny has a pretty interesting backstory involving the Boss he almost always has been the chronologic of the artist which has a lot of interesting perspectives with the whole band. That coverage is important and rare, especially the behind the scenes stuff where Springsteen and co. go about devising the setlist and band dynamics in a movie that has a very simple purpose: to capture the concert it is documenting.
According to Springsteen’s narration, these run throughs are meant to do two things: Shake out the cobwebs and find out the story that you would want the set list to tell. As is usually the case in the first scenes of these stories, the principal worry of the members of the band of this group is that they may not in any way be able to give a show that the fans have come to expect. Because band members are older, many years older, than usual at this time the last time they performed live it was a long time ago. The songwriters seem to take their sweet time constructing, the first time they ever see the elements, sheesh the one; it’s almost as if there’s an invisible log. There’s new singers, new percussionist Anthony Almonte, new songs, and new rosters in other Lower East Side bands. Last but not least, he continues reading a copy of ‘Letter to You’, a building block of the strengthened R&B album targeting ‘Only the Strong Survive.’ Just like this film and the tour it memorializes.
As in the case of the setlist that he features as the ‘skeleton’ of the movie, the first few minutes give a lot of loses that Springsteen and the band have sustained in the past. Now, I remember the name of the band that started it all, The Castile’s, and also, the many years later fell James Bruce Lee’s saxophonist Clarence Clemons, the group’s keyboardist Danny Federici.
They paint a broad portrait of an artist who does not regard a perfect performance, as to perfection, the performer does not intend to pursue accuracy. Instead, it is a tool for recollection, linking these melodies and this collective of artists with moments spent together with the audience and within themselves. The excitement of new shows is underscored by the nostalgia of driving from one empty bar to another. Steven Van Zandt features in most of the contemporary scenes made in the recent months as the tour’s Music Director coordinating rehearsals among other activities. His humor being that of someone who is a rascal and does not take life too seriously adds to the fun. The entire band is addressed by Zimny Garry Talent, Roy Bitan, Max Weinberg, Nils Lofgren, and Patti Scaife and they can be brutal at times. He has been brutalized in the past, particularly when he is reminded of Springsteen’s soundcheck days: He never left an empty chair and would visit every row of an entire auditorium until the music was heard but silent for hours due to the band. Such openness that these interviews offer is just one more example of how relaxed the parties involved are around Zimny. Zimny tosses around footage of the tour in the present as well as in the recent past: Chronology is almost a formality, nevertheless. This movie is just one among many other road movies and cab drivers have a tendency to carefully select what they put on film.
The level at which Zimny respects of his subjects is toward the extremes as well, never chasing after the Boss’ easing of the band’s workload (Van Zandt even observes that the rehearsals were too short requiring him to take over the band for a longer time). Zimny too features in his work some clips about the fans who talk about the fall tour the band undertook. Such moments although well thought of, are however not organically incorporated.
Most suited to film viewers is witnessing how Springsteen and the band crafted these performances. Since he was adamant about having a story in the setlist, the songs written in it changed only a little from one night to another. One of those details is how his cover of the Commodores Night Shift gradually transformed over the years. I love the fact however, that only the strong survive brought a lot of change that I was not in support of. As intended, the most notable features of the song are the harmonic chords, which Springsteen lost for the studio version of his song. For the live shows, however, we see him work with his singers in an effort to bring them back in making Night Shift one of the most exciting performances of the tour.
The organizational structure of the set list and how the songs interact with each other focus on clarifying the emotional narratives of the movie. We traverse the film until we reach what is easily the most touching, Last Man Standing, and a shroud of sadness descends on every single shot in the film. The veins start to appear: “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band” has no intention of offering a fresh interpretation of a well known performer. It is interested in revolutions, continuous revolutions on the A side, the B and the A side again till the idea of death which overshadowed the premise of this tour becomes as inseparable as this music.
For more movies like Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band visit 123Movies.