We continue to explore the career of “The Boss”-Bruce Springsteen.
1999–2007: Return to success
The scene outside the Giants Stadium parking lot for banner-marked, record-setting, 10-night stand of The Rising Tour during July 2003.Springsteen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 by Bono of U2, a favor he returned in 2005.
In 1999, Springsteen and the E Street Band officially came together again and went on the extensive Reunion Tour, lasting over a year. Highlights included a record sold-out, 15-show run at Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey and a ten-night, sold-out engagement at New York City’s Madison Square Garden which ended the tour. The final two shows were recorded for an HBO Concert, with corresponding DVD and album releases as Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live in New York City. A new song, “American Skin (41 Shots)”, about the police shooting of Amadou Diallo which was played at these shows proved controversial.
In November 2000, Springsteen filed legal action against Jeff Burgar which accused him of registering the domain brucespringsteen.com (along with several other celebrity domains) in bad faith to funnel web users to his Celebrity 1000 portal site. Once the legal complaint was filed, Burgar pointed the domain to a Springsteen biography and message board. In February 2001, Springsteen lost his dispute with Burgar. A WIPO panel ruled 2 to 1 in favor of Burgar.[29][30]
In 2002, Springsteen released his first studio effort with the full band in 18 years, The Rising, produced by Brendan O’Brien. The album, mostly a reflection on the September 11 attacks, was a critical and popular success. (Many of the songs were influenced by phone conversations Springsteen had with family members of victims of the attacks who in their obituaries had mentioned how his music touched their lives.) The title track gained airplay in several radio formats, and the record became Springsteen’s best-selling album of new material in 15 years. Kicked off by an early-morning Asbury Park appearance on The Today Show, The Rising Tour commenced, barnstorming through a series of single-night arena stands in the U.S. and Europe to promote the album in 2002, then returning for large-scale, multiple-night stadium shows in 2003. While Springsteen had maintained a loyal hardcore fan base everywhere (and particularly in Europe), his general popularity had dipped over the years in some southern and midwestern regions of the U.S, because of his vocal endorsement of leftist, liberal politics. But it was still strong in Europe and along the U.S. coasts, and he played an unprecedented 10 nights in Giants Stadium in New Jersey, a ticket-selling feat to which no other musical act has come close.[31] During these shows Springsteen thanked those fans who were attending multiple shows and those who were coming from long distances or another country; the advent of robust Bruce-oriented online communities had made such practices more common. The Rising Tour came to a final conclusion with three nights in Shea Stadium, highlighted by renewed controversy over “American Skin” and a guest appearance by Bob Dylan.
The Rising at the First Inauguration of Barack Obama
During the early 2000s, Springsteen became a visible advocate for the revitalization of Asbury Park, and played an annual series of winter holiday concerts there to benefit various local businesses, organizations, and causes. These shows were explicitly intended for the devoted fans, featuring numbers such as the E Street Shuffle outtake “Thundercrack”, a rollicking group-participation song that would mystify casual Springsteen fans. He also frequently rehearses for tours in Asbury Park; some of his most devoted followers even go so far as to stand outside the building to hear what fragments they can of the upcoming shows. The song “My City of Ruins” was originally written about Asbury Park, in honor of the attempts to revitalize the city. Looking for an appropriate song for The Concert for New York City, he selected “My City of Ruins”, which was immediately recognized as an emotional highlight of the concert, with its gospel themes and its heartfelt exhortations to “Rise up!” The song became associated with post-9/11 New York, and he chose it to close The Rising album and as an encore on the subsequent tour.
At the Grammy Awards of 2003, Springsteen performed The Clash’s “London Calling” along with Elvis Costello, Dave Grohl, and E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt and No Doubt’s bassist, Tony Kanal, in tribute to Joe Strummer; Springsteen and the Clash had once been considered multiple-album-dueling rivals at the time of the double The River and the triple Sandinista!. In 2004, Springsteen and the E Street Band participated in the Vote for Change tour, along with John Mellencamp, John Fogerty, the Dixie Chicks, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Bright Eyes, the Dave Matthews Band, Jackson Browne, and other musicians. All concerts were to be held in swing states, to benefit the progressive political organization group America Coming Together and to encourage people to register and vote. A finale was held in Washington, D.C., bringing many of the artists together. Several days later, Springsteen held one more such concert in New Jersey, when polls showed that state surprisingly close. While in past years Springsteen had played benefits for causes in which he believed – against nuclear energy, for Vietnam veterans, Amnesty International, and the Christic Institute – he had always refrained from explicitly endorsing candidates for political office (indeed he had rejected the efforts of Walter Mondale to attract an endorsement during the 1984 Reagan “Born in the U.S.A.” flap). This new stance led to criticism and praise from the expected partisan sources. Springsteen’s “No Surrender” became the main campaign theme song for John Kerry’s unsuccessful presidential campaign; in the last days of the campaign, he performed acoustic versions of the song and some of his other old songs at Kerry rallies.
Devils & Dust was released on April 26, 2005, and was recorded without the E Street Band. It is a low-key, mostly acoustic album, in the same vein as Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad although with a little more instrumentation. Some of the material was written almost 10 years earlier during, or shortly after, the Ghost of Tom Joad Tour, a couple of them being performed then but never released.[32] The title track concerns an ordinary soldier’s feelings and fears during the Iraq War. Starbucks rejected a co-branding deal for the album, due in part to some sexually explicit content but also because of Springsteen’s anti-corporate politics. The album entered the album charts at No. 1 in 10 countries (United States, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Ireland). Springsteen began the solo Devils & Dust Tour at the same time as the album’s release, playing both small and large venues. Attendance was disappointing in a few regions, and everywhere (other than in Europe) tickets were easier to get than in the past. Unlike his mid-1990s solo tour, he performed on piano, electric piano, pump organ, autoharp, ukulele, banjo, electric guitar, and stomping board, as well as acoustic guitar and harmonica, adding variety to the solo sound. (Offstage synthesizer, guitar, and percussion were also used for some songs.) Unearthly renditions of “Reason to Believe”, “The Promised Land”, and Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream” jolted audiences to attention, while rarities, frequent set list changes, and a willingness to keep trying even through audible piano mistakes kept most of his loyal audiences happy.
In November 2005, Sirius Satellite Radio started a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week radio station on Channel 10 called E Street Radio. This channel featured commercial-free Bruce Springsteen music, including rare tracks, interviews, and daily concerts of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band recorded throughout their career.
Springsteen and The Sessions Band performing on their tour at the Fila Forum, Milan, Italy on May 12, 2006.
In April 2006, Springsteen released We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, an American roots music project focused around a big folk sound treatment of 15 songs popularized by the radical musical activism of Pete Seeger. It was recorded with a large ensemble of musicians including only Patti Scialfa, Soozie Tyrell, and The Miami Horns from past efforts. In contrast to previous albums, this was recorded in only three one-day sessions, and frequently one can hear Springsteen calling out key changes live as the band explores its way through the tracks. The Bruce Springsteen with The Seeger Sessions Band Tour began the same month, featuring the 18-strong ensemble of musicians dubbed The Seeger Sessions Band (and later shortened to The Sessions Band). Seeger Sessions material was heavily featured, as well as a handful of (usually drastically rearranged) Springsteen numbers. The tour proved very popular in Europe, selling out everywhere and receiving some excellent reviews,[33] but newspapers reported that a number of U.S. shows suffered from sparse attendance.[34][35][36] By the end of 2006, the Seeger Sessions tour toured Europe twice and toured America for only a short span. Bruce Springsteen with The Sessions Band: Live in Dublin, containing selections from three nights of November 2006 shows at The Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, was released the following June.
Springsteen’s next album, titled Magic, was released on October 2, 2007. Recorded with the E Street Band, it featured 10 new Springsteen songs plus “Long Walk Home”, performed once with the Sessions band, and a hidden track (the first included on a Springsteen studio release), “Terry’s Song”, a tribute to Springsteen’s long-time assistant Terry Magovern, who died on July 30, 2007.[37] The first single, “Radio Nowhere”, was made available for a free download on August 28. On October 7, Magic debuted at No. 1 in Ireland and the UK. Greatest Hits reentered the Irish charts at No. 57, and Live in Dublin almost cracked the top 20 in Norway again. Sirius Satellite Radio also restarted E Street Radio on Channel 10 on September 27, 2007, in anticipation of Magic.[38] Radio conglomerate Clear Channel Communications was alleged to have sent an edict to its classic rock stations to not play any songs from the new album, while continuing to play older Springsteen material. However, Clear Channel Adult Alternative (or “AAA”) station KBCO did play tracks from the album, undermining the allegations of a corporate blackout.[39]
The Springsteen and E Street Band Magic Tour began at the Hartford Civic Center with the album’s release and continued through North America and Europe. Springsteen and the band performed live[40] on NBC’s Today Show in advance of the opener.
Longtime E Street Band organist Danny Federici left the tour in November 2007 to pursue treatment for melanoma[41] from which he would die in 2008.[42]
2008–present: activities
Springsteen supported Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, announcing his endorsement in April 2008[43] and going on to appear at several Obama rallies as well as performing several solo acoustic performances in support of Obama’s campaign throughout 2008,[44] culminating with a November 2 rally where he debuted “Working on a Dream” in a duet with Scialfa.[45] At an Ohio rally, Springsteen discussed the importance of “truth, transparency and integrity in government, the right of every American to have a job, a living wage, to be educated in a decent school, and a life filled with the dignity of work, the promise and the sanctity of home…But today those freedoms have been damaged and curtailed by eight years of a thoughtless, reckless and morally adrift administration.”[46]
Following Obama’s electoral victory on November 4, Springsteen’s song “The Rising” was the first song played over the loudspeakers after Obama’s victory speech in Chicago’s Grant Park. Springsteen was the musical opener for the Obama Inaugural Celebration on January 18, 2009, which was attended by over 400,000.[47] He performed “The Rising” with an all-female choir. Later he performed Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” with Pete Seeger.
Last Inspection Of West, Texas Fertilizer Plant Was In 1985
By Bryce Covert posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Apr 19, 2013 at 10:33 am
The Associated Press is reporting that the fertilizer plant in West, Texas that exploded on Wednesday night hasn’t been inspected by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) since 1985, nearly three decades ago. It was issued a fine on its last inspection for a violation related to storing ammonia:
Records reviewed by The Associated Press show that OSHA issued the West Chemical & Fertilizer Co., as the plant was called at the time, a $30 fine for a serious violation for storage of anhydrous ammonia.
OSHA cited the plant for four other serious violations of respiratory protection standards but did not issue fines. The maximum fine for a serious violation was $1,000.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/19/1893601/update-last-inspection-of-west-texas-fertilizer-plant-was-in-1985/
On Location: Taye Diggs, Sanaa Lathan, Terrence Howard And More Spotted On ‘The Best Man Holiday’ Set
Posted on April 16, 2013
I have my fingers crossed and a prayer cloth tucked between my tightly clenched booty cheeks in regard to ‘The Best Man Holiday.’ Seriously, I am nervous.
When left in ill-advised hands, Hollywood has a way of ruining good memories — especially African American ones. See Vivica Fox’s current face, then compare it to how it was during her run on ‘Out All Night’. Now kick over the nearest waste basket.
The sequel to the buddy flick, which is scheduled to drop later this year, is currently being filmed in Toronto, Canada. Yesterday, shutterbugs captured several of the stars from the film moving cool around the set.
http://www.crunktastical.net/2013/04/16/location/#more-299751
OMG Can this woman be any more nutso
Where are you, SG2? Is Gov “good hair” Perry on bended knee yet, begging for federal aide?
HELLO, DOWNTOWN MINNEAPOLIS, FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 2013
A bicyclist with rain protection passes a man as a Spring storm hit Minneapolis and other parts of the state Thursday, April 18, 2013. In the background is a kiosk of Nice Ride rental bikes, which were recently brought out for riders. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
It’s not like they walked into this country with an arsenal of guns, bullets and grenades. They bought them here. #BostonMarathon
— TheGOPunisher (@TheGOPunisher) April 19, 2013
The domestic terrorists have been in AMERICA for over a DECADE, with MA driver’s licenses.
So the the men lived in Cambridge MA, nationality RUSSIAN. So much for “dark-skinned.”
TERRORIST!
people just clowning:
Odie Hugh Manatee Says:
One thing to note is that if you have brown skin then it’s probably the safest time to go out for a stroll in Boston and not be harassed by the cops.
TERRORIST THREAD IS UP!!! Because this is who they are.
LOL Yes; they need to keep up the CLOWNING. The American media is a fucking joke. Now that these murdering terrorist are white, they’re trying to play down the terrorist and they are now called “INDIVIDUALS.”
hunting door to door..
damn!
woke up at 4am…usually turn on the radio to listen for the weather…heard this news, and had to turn on the tv
Boston live feed
http://www1.whdh.com/video/7newslive
Boston Marathon suspect killed, second sought after Watertown explosions, gunfire
WATERTOWN, Mass. (WCVB News) –One suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings was killed early Friday morning, while the second suspect was being sought following an attack on police officers in Watertown that involved explosives and gunfire, Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis said in a Twitter post.
The man known as suspect No. 2, the man seen in widely-distributed FBI surveillance photos wearing the white hat, is the suspect being sought, Davis said. Sources called the situation “fluid and dangerous.”
http://www.wcvb.com/news/local/metro/Boston-Marathon-suspect-killed-second-sought-after-Watertown-explosions-gunfire/-/11971628/19812240/-/8jn3t7/-/index.html
There are more people missing in the Texas explosion that have been confirmed dead. The plant was a cesspool of worker non-safety. This is what you get in a state that thinks ‘REGULATION’ is an infringement upon people’s ‘freedoms’. They let these companies get away with everything…and now people are dead and homeless.
Meanwhile, the same mofos that talk about the evils of gubmint are the first ones whining about federal help.
Where’s the GOP talking about no help unless it’s balanced out with
‘cuts’, like they did with Sandy?
Go ask all those Texas mofos that voted against Sandy Aid what they’re willing to cut in order to get aid for the people in Texas.
Gov. Patrick visits Martin Richard’s family: ‘We have all felt their loss’
Clare Kim, @clarehkim
12:05 AM on 04/18/2013
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick spent Wednesday at local hospitals visiting victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. He met with Denise and Bill Richard, the parents of 8-year old Martin Richard, who died in the blast.
“This is a wonderful family surrounded by a very loving community, and we have all felt their loss,” said Gov. Patrick.
The Richard’s daughter Jane had surgery for her leg Wednesday and her mother, Denise, is in stable condition. The governor told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, “She’s feeling all those layers of emotion both sense of loss and the importance of rallying for Henry and Jane and Bill and for herself.”
Governor Patrick became emotional when discussing a photo of Martin. “When I spoke to Bill yesterday, he reminded me about a photograph he has of Martin when he was only 2 or 3 years old holding a campaign sign.”
“I think they have a very, very clear sense of how Martin in particular and the family in general have become a symbol about what has happened and a touch point for all of our grief. And they love that and they are daunted by it at the same time, as a person would be,” added Gov. Patrick.
http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/04/18/gov-patrick-visits-martin-richards-family-we-have-all-felt-their-loss/
A Shameful Day in the Senate
The NRA got its victory, but Michael Tomasky is confident that, years from now, we’ll look back on yesterday as the moment when the gun lobby overreached—and laid the groundwork for its own undoing.
by Michael TomaskyApr 18, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
Every strong political movement, besotted with the fragrance of its own power, hits the point of overreach, and the pro-gun movement hit that point yesterday in the morally repulsive Senate vote on the background-checks bill. We all know the old cliché that the National Rifle Association has power because its members vote on the guns issue, while gun-control people aren’t zealots. Well, Wayne LaPierre and 46 craven senators, that “majority” of the Senate, have just created millions of zealots, and as furious as I am, I’m also strangely at peace, because I’m more confident than ever that the NRA will never, ever be stronger in Washington than it was yesterday.
Historians will see this recent debate, culminating in yesterday’s vote, as the time when the gun-control lobby grew and coalesced. The gun issue, since the 1970s a blunt instrument used mainly to bully rural-state Democrats, is going to start turning into the opposite: pressure on blue- and purple-state Republicans to vote at least for modest measures. And make no mistake, what the Senate voted on yesterday was modest; far too modest, in that we can’t even discuss banning the online sale of limitless amounts of ammunition. The NRA won this one, but as President Obama said in some of the most passionate remarks of his public life yesterday evening, this is just “round one.” More rounds are coming, and the balance of power is going to change.
You cannot oppose the will of 90 percent of the public and expect no consequences. You can’t have people saying what Rand Paul said, that monstrous comment of his about Newtown parents being “props,” and think that you haven’t offended and infuriated millions of people. You can’t introduce amendments that encourage more interstate transfer of weapons and give it the way-beyond-Orwellian name “safe communities” act and think that karma will never come back around on you. And you can’t sneer at the parents of dead 6-year-olds and expect that God isn’t watching and taking notes.
Sickening. The whole thing. The four cowardly Democrats, too. Max Baucus, Mark Begich, Mark Pryor, and Heidi Heitkamp. Heitkamp won’t face her voters again for five years. Baucus has been around long enough to be able to be bigger than this. Begich and Pryor, who face reelection next year, have the least lame excuses of all, but they are cowards too. They have to know they did the wrong thing. If Joe Manchin could do what he did—and trust me, I’m from West Virginia, and I know Joe, and our families knew each other, and the whole thing. If Manchin could do what he did, from a state every bit as tough on this issue as theirs, these four pygmies really have to be ashamed of themselves.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/18/a-shameful-day-in-the-senate.html
Why the Senate Vote May Signal 2016 Problems for the Gun Lobby
By Ronald Brownstein
Updated: April 18, 2013 | 8:31 p.m.
April 18, 2013 | 2:01 p.m.
The outcome of Wednesday’s dramatic Senate vote on expanding background checks simultaneously demonstrated the difficult geography confronting gun-control advocates in the Senate and the potentially daunting math facing gun-rights proponents in the Electoral College.
On the one hand, the defeat showed how difficult it is for gun-control advocates to reach the 60-vote threshold required to break a filibuster in an institution whose two-senator-per-state apportionment magnifies the impact of small, heavily rural states where guns are interwoven into the culture.
On the other, the vote suggested that, after years in which gun-control has been sublimated as a political issue, support for expanding background checks and possibly further steps has again become a political norm in almost all of the blue-leaning states that underpin the recent Democratic advantage in the race for the White House.
One way to understand these divergent trends is to examine the Senate vote on the critical amendment to offer background checks through the prism of the Electoral College. The amendment drew unified support from both senators in 21 states representing 261 Electoral College votes. By contrast, both senators opposed the amendment in 17 states representing just 146 Electoral College votes. Senators from the remaining 12 states, with a combined 128 Electoral College votes, split their vote on the amendment. (The remaining three Electoral College votes belong to the District of Columbia, which of course does not vote in the Senate.)
The contrast between the tight balance in the total number of states that unified for and against the amendment, and the broad imbalance in their Electoral College strength, underscores how the Senate’s structure magnifies the influence of smaller states, most of them rural, preponderantly white, and culturally conservative.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/why-the-senate-vote-may-signal-2016-problems-for-the-gun-lobby-20130418?page=1
Boston Bombing Victim in Iconic Photo Helped Identify Attackers
By Asjylyn Loder & Esmé E. Deprez – Apr 18, 2013 8:45 PM CT
Minutes before the bombs blew up in Boston, Jeff Bauman looked into the eyes of the man who tried to kill him.
Just before 3 p.m. on April 15, Bauman was waiting among the crowd for his girlfriend to cross the finish line at the Boston Marathon. A man wearing a cap, sunglasses and a black jacket over a hooded sweatshirt looked at Jeff, 27, and dropped a bag at his feet, his brother, Chris Bauman, said in an interview.
Two and a half minutes later, the bag exploded, tearing Jeff’s legs apart. A picture of him in a wheelchair, bloodied and ashen, was broadcast around the world as he was rushed to Boston Medical Center. He lost both legs below the knee.
“He woke up under so much drugs, asked for a paper and pen and wrote, ‘bag, saw the guy, looked right at me,’” Chris Bauman said yesterday in an interview.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-19/boston-bombing-victim-in-iconic-photo-helped-identify-attackers.html
Ann Curry was ‘tortured’ by Today staff, never given a chance, and her clothes compared to Big Bird… and top producer plotted to oust her in ‘Operation Bambi’
By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED:09:39 EST, 18 April 2013| UPDATED: 10:30 EST, 18 April 2013
Ann Curry was left embarrassed when she was ousted as the co-host of Today Show, but according to new revelations, that was only the final chapter in a long and humiliating behind-the-scenes campaign against her.
A recent New York Times Magazine piece about the Today Show debacle claims that Curry felt that her final months before her departure were a form of ‘professional torture.’
Describing it as a hostile ‘boys’ club atmosphere’ on the set of the show, Curry complained to friends that many of her male co-workers would often be intentionally mean to her.
At one point, the Times reports that Today Executive Producer Jim Bell had a blooper reel made poking fun at Curry’s most egregious on-air mistakes.
On a separate occasion, Bell called staffers into his office to make fun of a gaffe Curry made. Bell, however, has denied both incidents.
In yet another slight against her, a box of Curry’s belongings were shoved by someone into a coat closet as if she had already been ousted.
According to an unnamed Today Show employee, staffers working in the control room would routinely poke fun at Curry’s fashion choices and generally make her the butt of their jokes.
In one instance, Curry wore a bright yellow dress, which drew comparisons from her critics on staff to the Big Bird.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2311120/Ann-Curry-tortured-Today-staff-given-chance-clothes-compared-Big-Bird–producer-plotted-oust-Operation-Bambi.html#ixzz2QtyqeYlC
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Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Everyone! :-) Rik, Springsteen’s music has been a much needed BALM this week. Thank you.
Really need him tonight. It’s a crazy night. NRA, rot in a hole.