"a fighting prayer for our country" - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Toronto, November 6, 2024

I wrote about this show for Variety, so you can read that over there. Consider this a companion piece for subscribers, both paid and free. 

Not a subscriber? You can easily rectify that.

I had made the decision to go to this show once Springsteen made his endorsement of Kamala Harris in early October. I’d been eying the shows in Toronto, wanting to see one more before the end of the year, but I decided that for historical and personal reasons, I wanted to see the show on November 6. It was either going to be the world’s biggest party or a wake, but I felt like, as someone whose job is paying close attention to this man’s body of work, I needed to be there either way. At no point during this calculation did I consider I'd be waking up at 5:45am and trying to figure out how I was going to avoid crying the entire day.

I arrived in Toronto around 1:30pm and it was a beautiful day. I rolled my suitcase out of the train station to my hotel, down the street from Scotiabank Arena. I didn’t feel excited. I just felt heavy. I’m in a foreign country and I have the day off and I’m going to see Bruce Springsteen, my dude, and I am emotionally at flatline. And I still had to figure out how I was going to write something for publication once the show was over. 

A couple of things contributed to me being able to get into a decent headspace before the show started. I had just barely gotten to my excellent seat in section 116A, just over Roy Bittan’s right shoulder, when I got a text on What’s App from a Spanish friend. I assumed she was either checking on me or telling me she’d be in Detroit soon with the band she works with. I was not expecting her to tell me that she and her husband were in Toronto and at the show, and because this was Canada and not anywhere in the US we criss-crossed sections so we could say hi and exchange hugs and talk for 15 minutes without some security guard insisting we go back to our seats. I cannot tell you how much this did my heart good.

The second was that I somehow ended up sitting in a section of great people. When you buy a single seat these days, you can no longer just pick up a random seat at the end of the row. You’re usually in the middle of a row that has an uneven number of seats, which as a woman usually has me sandwiched between groups of men. What I knew I absolutely could not fucking handle tonight was the inevitable “oh are you writing down the setlist for setlist fm” or some kind of inquisition designed to affirm that the men are the superior fans. But the men to my right had never seen Bruce before and explained they rarely went to arena shows. The men to my left had driven in from… Detroit!

That’s when someone in the vicinity noticed the graphic on the video screen above us (which at that level is mostly obscured; we can see the stage!) noting “ESTIMATED START TIME: 8:40PM.” People around me hadn’t all seen Road Diary yet but most of them had watched or heard Howard Stern and so most of them knew about Patti Scialfa’s illness and so the first thought of folks was concern for her health. (This might be something the org should take into account in future - just tell people that the band is fine and it’s a purely operational delay.) In any event, I was amazed by how the audience accepted the delay in good spirits. People went to get merch. People went to get drinks. People stood in the concourse with their friends and chatted. I figured out how to buy a bottle of water and be able to keep the cap. 

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jukeboxgraduate dot comCaryn Rose

I also helped my new Detroit pals figure out where in the set they could make their escape and miss the least. They’d explained that they only decided to come to the show two weeks ago but couldn’t stay overnight because one of them had to be back in time to take grandchildren to daycare in the morning, and this was predicated on the show ending around 10:30pm. My response was to pull up Brucebase and show them the most recent setlists. (They ended up heading out during “Born To Run.”) I was not going to judge a guy who told me about sleeping out in the snow to see the opening show of the River tour at Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor, most famous for being the show at which Bruce forgot the words of “Born to Run” because it had been so long since he’d sung them last.

Lights out was 8:51pm. When I saw the flashlights behind the stage I muttered something under my breath about how this had better be the quickest stage entrance in the history of E Street, and to their credit, no one was fucking around. Bruce apologized for the delay, and then said the magic words: “This is a fighting prayer for my country.” 

I didn’t think I was going to cry but I also didn’t think I wasn’t going to cry, but I also don’t know why the hell I put on mascara tonight. There was no point. It wasn’t even the symbolism of the song, of when it was written, in that frustrated, crystal clear disillusionment of the post-GW Bush years, of the clarity of those words. I spent entirely too much time on that section of my Variety piece because I didn’t want to quote the lyrics or say the words “American values” and have some chucklefuck MAGA think that they were free to adopt another Bruce Springsteen song. 

My father said, "Son, we're lucky in this town, it's a beautiful place to be born
It just wraps its arms around you, nobody crowds you and nobody goes it alone
You know that flag flying over the courthouse means certain things are set in stone
Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't"

If we’ve learned anything since 2016, it’s that the American people have drastically different definitions of what those things are. 

The segue into “Land of Hope and Dreams” was magnificent, it was majestic and inspiring and righteous and affirming. It was the best LOHAD I have seen in years and I am confident in asserting that it may be the best one I ever see. The horns were glorious. The choir was at their best. Bruce wrote it as an anthem, he knew what he was writing when he wrote it, this isn’t one of those “oops I just wrote one of the best songs of my life” moments although I will concede he probably didn’t think he’d be singing it for presidents and potential presidents. 

I also have thought, a fair amount, about the differences of the world being manifest between the song that inspired LOHAD, Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “This Train.” Both Bruce’s and Sister Rosetta’s trains are meant to be bound for glory, but her train “is a clean train” while Bruce deliberately included everyone, saints and sinners. I believe that he meant LOHAD to be a song of unification (while Rosetta just wanted to clean the joint up for the big guy upstairs) and from things he’s said recently, he truly believes – or can’t understand – why everyone doesn’t feel that way. It’s why he says things like “I want everybody to feel welcome at my concerts” but we are now officially at the place where if I go to a Springsteen show in the US in 2025, I am going to look at the people sitting near me and wonder how they voted, and if half of them voted for me (or anyone else) to have less rights than they do.

I don’t think Bruce can get his head around this, just like I don’t think that he ever stops to consider that parents who bring a child to the show who is too short to see over the stage (and then still keep that child at the front of the stage all night despite literally not being tall enough for this ride) aren’t doing it because they want their family to experience the joy of an E Street Band show together as a group, they’re doing it in the hopes that they get a harmonica or a guitar pick or at least some kind of attention.  

I was ready to maintain my frustration about “Lonesome Day” and its consistent presence in this show and how I do not understand what he is using it for. And I still think there are probably better choices, but he’s allowed a neutral after two insane openers and also? Tonight of all nights, a reflection on having to figure out how you’re going to get a through a life that has been immeasurably, permanently changed was exactly correct.

This is also how I felt about “Sunny Day,” it was not what I expected but as soon as it started I understand exactly what it was doing there. There is a reason it is the third song on The Rising, coming after “Lonesome Day” and then “Into The Fire,” the latter being the song about the first responders who ran into the Twin Towers and never came back. “Sunny Day” is actually a brilliant piece of songwriting in context. Where it went off the rails is when it turned into the spectacle of bringing small children onstage to sing a verse of the song, and even then, at the outset, the concept of broadening the story of E Street to include the families of the people who came to see him when they were in their 20s and, like him, now had their own kids and families, is lovely. It is not entirely his fault that it got distorted into something far beyond its original intention.

When Max hit the hi-hat at the start of “Candy’s Room,” I was initially not entirely sure that it was, in fact, going to be “Candy’s Room,” because it didn’t make sense that a song that every male friend of mine of a certain age used to play in order to psych themselves up to ask a girl out was next – until he dove headfirst into it and you realized it was simply going to be a convenient vehicle for his fury and his rage, manifested through that guitar. The solos were sharp, incisive, wounding, direct. The sustain at the end is still heading out into space somewhere. “Adam Raised A Cain” was similarly illuminated, Bruce delivering the lyrics with barely concealed vitriol but mostly? You want to hear this version of “Adam” for the guitar work: exquisitely controlled feedback, bending notes to the breaking point. I wrote “the guitar is TALKING.” That one-two punch in particular was about exorcism, a place to vent out the anger. 

I honestly do not care who is at a Bruce show and I only noticed Chris Christie because everyone around me was taking photos and talking about it, and they only noticed because it was “Hungry Heart” and the lights were up. “Bruce hates him!” said one of my new pals from Detroit in disbelief. We already know that Christie does not understand Bruce Springsteen in any way, shape or form, and that he thinks that Bruce is misguided in some fashion, and I’m glad I didn’t notice him during the first four songs because I would have been more furious than I already am. I still want to know why he was sidestage (he was between the monitor board and the stairs Steve uses) and I want to know if he was deliberately disappeared from that location. He wasn’t there when I looked down again after “Better Days.” 

I can’t and won’t speak for the politics of the rest of the band (and worked really hard to avoid doing so in my published piece) but this was a fantastic night for the entire E Street Band as a musical ensemble. The only person who seemed to be struggling a little at the beginning of the show was Max, and it was just one of those nights where Bruce is doing whatever he can to keep him on track, or looking back more than he usually needs to. It was probably not noticeable to 99% of the other people in the audience and I blame a lot of it on having to sit around for an hour and a half, or maybe he was just having a bad day. But you notice when Max Weinberg is not on point, you know? Jake Clemons was having a particularly strong night and I would like to extend a very warm welcome back to Mr. Mark "the Love Man" Pender, who – no disrespect intended to the horns – really brought up the level of things back there and elevated “Nightshift” in particular. 

Also having a particularly great night was Roy Bittan, hitting the notes with definition and polish. I’d like to give props to the sound mix tonight, because I could hear both Roy and Charlie clearly even if what they were playing was the slightest touches. Charlie had these lovely, light flourishes in the last verse of “Wrecking Ball." I thought about Charlie in particular based on his comments in Road Diary, where he talked about how he’s not there to change what the late Danny Federici did, but he was still able to add his own special flavor, and it was something I could point to and say, that is a perfect example. It’s exactly the kind of thing Danny would have played but it’s not an exact lift. 

Bruce’s energy started to lag a little towards the end and there’s a reason these shows start at 7:30. By no means do I want him getting on an airplane he has less than 10000% confidence in and this isn’t meant as a condemnation. It’s mostly admiration that he was still doing everything he could to make the show amazing and keep himself and everybody moving. It might have been more effort than one is accustomed to seeing at a Springsteen show and it kind of reminded me a little bit of that night in Citizens Bank Park back in 2012 when Bruce literally sat down on the edge of the stage and poured sweat out of his boots. That was a great show that started incredibly strong but it was also incredibly humid and it felt like he ran out of gas physically and emotionally. Tonight it just felt like he was physically tired and is, again, probably one of those things that 5% of the audience paid attention to. It had an impact on the performance but it didn’t have an impact on the show because he wouldn’t let it, and also? That audience in Toronto was bonkers in the best possible way, engaged and attentive, especially for a Tuesday night.

I had made a note after “Because the Night” (where, credit due to Nils Lofgren for that solo, but Nils also never, ever misses) that there were too many Santa hats in the crowd, but they had the desired effect because sure enough, Bruce came onto the center platform to get one and it was very, very clear that there had been absolutely zero discussion that this was something they should get ready to play because it is, after all, November. No one person was at fault, everyone was off; Roy kind of reminded me of that scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas where Lucy hectors him to play “Jingle Bells” the way she wanted it played.

This is probably why there was a complete and total breakdown of the entire band when Bruce hit the cue for those big James Brown and the Famous Flames-style intro chords for the band introductions prior to “10th Avenue Freeze-Out.” I cannot wait to hear the tape of this because it was flat out hilarious. He hit it once, and it fell apart. He tried it again, and it fell apart differently. Then he remembered he now has an official Musical Director who yelled the chord at everyone (B flat), and the band got it right, and the audience responded with one of the most sarcastically supportive cheers I have ever heard from a rock audience. This was the highest of high comedy.

By the time I walked out of the venue close to midnight, I felt normal. I was tired, buzzed, happy, glad to be alive, and felt like I had enough strength to keep moving forward. I don’t know if you asked Bruce Springsteen what he hoped to impart tonight, but I think if you showed that list to him, he’d feel like he’d done the job he’d set out to do. I didn’t have any idea what I thought he would do tonight, but like I wrote about Pittsburgh, I expected him to say something – for himself if nothing else – and he did it brilliantly.

It doesn’t change anything, it doesn’t fix anything, and I still woke up this morning with a pit in my stomach. I think of what Patti Smith has said, repeatedly, that we are sad and we are upset but we still have to get up every day and do our work, and that’s what Bruce did last night in Toronto, and that’s what I’m doing here. Right now, that's all we can do.