Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band (2024) Movie Review

When the world shut down in 2020, effectively putting a stop to live music, felt the added poignancy of missing out on legacy acts like Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band. In the autumn of their lives, there were fewer performances and less time to perform the craft that defined their existence. For these artists, the last time many of them were even in the room was the recording A letter to you (2019). So when they gathered in a Red Bank rehearsal studio to prepare for a comeback tour, it was with a clear narrative.

Tom Zimney’s reflective documentary The Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band is an intimate portrait of a band that works to honor its history while looking forward to what might come next. With his history surrounding The Boss (Zymny is essentially a timeline of the artist), he has an unusual connection with the band. That intimacy, especially the behind-the-scenes elements of how Springsteen and company. to create a set list is invaluable in a film whose message is as direct as the concerts it captures.

The film is unofficially divided into several parts. The first twenty minutes are group rehearsals. Springsteen’s narration explains his goals for these runs: shake out the cobwebs and find the story you want to tell in the setlist. Mostly during these early stages, the band was worried that they wouldn’t be able to put on the kind of show that fans were used to seeing. The band is, after all, a few years older, in a profession where the years seem to add up since their last live performance. What is characteristic is that they lose for the first time She is the only oneit’s noticeably slower than usual. There are also new band members like singer and percussionist Anthony Almonte. There are also new songs from “Letter to You” and Springsteen’s R&B album “Only the Strong Survive;” two albums that, like this film and the tour it chronicles, are reflections of the past.

Much like his setlist, which seems to be the guiding structure of the film, the first few minutes showcase the many losses Springsteen and the band have suffered over the years. He recalls his first band, The Castiles, and the deaths of saxophonist Clarence Clemons and keyboardist Danny Federici on E Street. Through songs like A letter to you as well as archival footage of past performances and interviews with Carter and Federici, which paint a picture of an artist who doesn’t see the perfect performance as defined by precision. Instead, it’s a vehicle for memories that connects these songs and this band to memories shared with fans and each other.

Zimny ​​jumps back and forth from the current tour to footage of past concerts from previous decades, juxtaposing the thrill of playing a show again with a commitment to roughing it between speakers and sparse crowds. In today’s scenes, Stephen Van Zandt often takes center stage, directing rehearsals as the tour’s musical director. His mischievous sense of humor also provides added levity. Winter talks to the whole group: Harry Tallent, Roy Bittan, Max Weinberg, Nils Lofgren and Patti Skialfa, who can be quite sharp. Tallent is especially exhausted by the mere thought of how Springsteen would thoroughly sound check in years past (going around every row of the arena to hear the music while the band played for hours). The frankness of these interviews is another sign of how comfortable the people around Zimnyi are.

This film, like many other road documentaries, is of course carefully selected. Winter treats his subjects with respect, never trying to reduce the band’s workload from the boss (Van Zandt even notes that the rehearsals were too short, requiring him to take extra time to lead the band). Also in “Zymny” there are interviews with fans who talk about what it’s like to see the band on tour again. These moments are thought through in concept, but not organically woven.

The film is at its strongest when we see Springsteen and company create these performances. Because Springsteen wanted the set list to have a story, the set list rarely changed from night to night (a notable change for a band known for their responsiveness to audience requests). A great example of this building is how its cover for the Commodores’ Night shift developed during the tour. Personally, I wasn’t thrilled with his remake of “Only the Strong Survive.” The heart and soul of the song are its harmonies, and Springsteen stripped them out for his studio version. However, for live shows, we see him working with his singers to bring these components back by creating Night shift the highlight of the tour. These moments of evolution are so exciting that you wish there were many more of them.

The consistent set list and how the songs communicate with each other further illuminates the emotional themes of the documentary. As we move through the film, reaching Springsteen’s celebratory ode, Last Man Standinga sense of grief permeates every frame. Here’s where things fall into place: The Road Trip: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band isn’t going to reinvent a familiar artist. It wants to spin, spinning from side A to side B and back until the sense of mortality at the center of this tour is as unwavering as the music itself.