It’s been quite the month for live gigs in my hometown of Glasgow. Last week two legends of the music world – The Who and Neil Young – touched down on the city airport’s sweltering tarmac (on what was a week of glorious sunshine – that’s yer summer for another year, folks) to show the young bucks how it’s done. And this week – as deified in my previous blog – Springsteen played Hampden Park. Since I’m writing this blog on Monday, the day before he plays, I obviously can’t submit a full review as I haven’t yet been to the show. But that won’t stop me submitting a short one: it was AWESOME. He opened with a full on band version/stripped back of a classic/new song! He jumped in to the crowd/pulled some audience members on stage! He played for over 3 hours/6 hours!* (*delete where applicable).
Whatever I happen to think of the gig when I finally manage push my way through the throng of Boss devotees and take a seat (yes, a seat!) at Scotland’s national stadium on Tuesday night, there is an interesting thought to be had about assumptions and managing the expectations of your ticket buying public when you’re an artist of considerable reputation with a back catalogue to boot. What songs to play that will please both audience and artist? Not as easy as it sounds – the musicians invariably want to concentrate on the new work, the fans want the old stuff. My older sister, not the most fervent of Bruce fans, decided to take a jolly with friends at the weekend and so travelled down to London to see his show at Wembley Stadium. Not overly au fait with his blistering rendition of Jimmy Cliff’s “Trapped”, or the B-side to the 7” Dancing In The Dark single (it was Pink Cadillac, since you ask), what she wanted was simple: the big songs, played as she knew them. And that’s exactly what she got. What’s more, the euphoric reviews in the broadsheets this week have confirmed that I can rest assured I won’t be at the show in Scotland witnessing a 40-minute experimental jazz medley or David Bowie-esque mime odyssey.
And yet Neil Young is not quite as reliably predictable (and I say that with love for both Neil and Bruce). During our discussions on last week’s show about the boons and perils of growing old disgracefully as a musician, reports started to trickle in about Shakey’s Glasgow gig, which was taking place that night (curse my scheduling conflicts). To say the audience was split right down the middle is a fair assessment of the correspondence we received, given that half thought the show was the work of a maverick non-conformist genius and half thought it was a “challenging” experience. 20-minute guitar solos aren’t exactly unheard of at a Neil Young concert but string more than two or three of them together and you might begin to wonder about value for money. Heart of Gold was there in the mix apparently, but his epic versions of Powderfinger, Ramada Inn and Cinammon Girl defied normal songwriting rules of structure and time and not everyone seemed to go home happy. The disappointment is understandable, such is the passion that some fans have when it comes to hearing their favourite songs, but Shakey’s conviction is also strangely admirable. In fact every time I see Dylan live I swear it’s the last, so disappointing can he be when he’s not right on his game, and yet this week I found myself queuing up for tickets to see him play the Clyde Auditorium just in case it’s one of the sacred “special nights”. It’s this unpredictability of artistry that keeps us coming back for more: you can’t please all the people all of the time, but some musicians try their best to please most of the people most of the time. Then there are those who just like to please themselves. These are the artists of a golden generation of music, defiant to the last, and they’ll do it their way. And whether it happens to please them playing the hits or not; Springsteen, The Who, Dylan and Neil Young all have it in common.
