THE SHOWS IN
QUESTION:
Bruce Springsteen
and the E Street Band
Rose Garden Arena, Monday, April 3
Oasis
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Thursday, April 6
The Make-Up
Crystal Ballroom, Sunday, April 9
Springsteen wins
points for being the best-dressed senior rock star I've
ever seen, pulling off a look of rugged elegance: Black
jeans, boots, blue dress shirt rakishly opened at the collar,
black riverboat-gambler vest. Dead cool.
The other members
of the E Street Band, unfortunately, looked like they were
dressed for a gig at a Holiday Inn Lounge--except for the
snaky Steven Van Zandt, who dressed like the last
man you'd ever want a daughter of yours to date.
New local band
TV Eye did itself more than proud opening for the
Make-Up.
I have been to the riverside. I have washed in the blood of
the lamb.
It's been a big week in the messiah industry, rock and
roll division. First, there was the traveling tent revival
calling itself Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
With a pliable congregation of thousands assembled under
the vast vaulted ceiling of Our Lady of Arvydas, his Bruceness
attempted to inject a new definition into the concept of
lay pastor.
The 50-year-old Springsteen cavorted like a newborn satyr,
vaulting around the Rose Garden's wide stage. The entranced
little lambs in attendance squealed anew with every well-timed
thrust of the Boss' remarkably toned pelvis. Throughout
the three hours of mega-rock ecstasy, Springsteen made no
secret of his self-appointed vocation.
"Unlike my competitors, I can't promise you life everlasting,"
he said at one point, in his faux-soul bark. "But I can
promise you life right now."
Springsteen is probably the last man in America who takes
the old rock-as-religion conceit seriously. Not only can
he claim "the ministry of rock and roll" with a semi-straight
face, he delivers with real blood conviction. Springsteen
has always embraced the half-articulated utopian promise
of old-time rock: that vision of a racially harmonious,
socially just, sexually ambitious paradise where beer is
cheap.
He still sings his early-'80s anthems of shitty little
union towns, only now he talks about "the working poor who
the good economy isn't getting down to." He sings about
outlaws and talks about the initiative effort to repeal
Oregon's death penalty. He doesn't have to do this; his
crowds would be satisfied if he just played "Born in the
USA" for three hours.
Between these straightforward political messages and the
half-serious preacher schtick lies Springsteen's core plea
for a broad-hearted America. It doesn't take a genius to
figure that Springsteen is another in the long line of white
rock singers who can sound black when the occasion demands.
It's especially plain when he spends half his show doing
his best impression of Rev. Al Green. While others
have used this sly ability for cynical commercial purposes,
I'm inclined to think Springsteen really believes he's spreading
the word.
Springsteen reserved the night's biggest fanfare for Clarence
Clemons, one of the few non-Caucasians in the building.
That was no accident; neither was his show-ending embrace
of the massive sax player. To cop the old movie line, the
Boss is on a mission from God. If he has to play "Born to
Run" a few million times to get to the mountaintop, so be
it.
Oasis, on the other hand, worships at an uncertain
altar. The bad lads of Manchester put an adoring Schnitzer
crowd on an hourlong sugar high Thursday night. The fact
that every British male under 30 now living in Portland
was on hand helped crank things up, certainly. It was terribly
evident, though, that the band is coasting on stale adrenalin.
Their old hits remained as rad as ever, and "Supersonic"
still has the dumbest/best lyric in rock ("I know a girl
called Elsa/ She's into Alka-Seltz-ah"). Still, the set
was tossed off. The four new sidemen played with spunkless
competence; they probably only show emotion when they cash
their paychecks. And when the best song of the night is
an actual Beatles cover ("Helter Skelter," no less), you
know that this always-derivative band is, finally and unalterably,
on its way to Planet U2.
After watching Oasis' positively Anglican performance,
it was a joy to bask in the unholy pentecostal fire of The
Make-Up. The pseudo-gospel mods from DC stormed past
the superegos of a healthy Crystal Ballroom crowd on the
Sabbathday, turning the old dance shack into a temple of
howling dervishes.
The band's ragged punk rehab of soul is fleshier than ever.
The addition of a new guitarist allows James Canty
to concentrate on barrelhousing electric piano and organ,
while bassist Michelle Mae still rules the mix with
her rampaging Dionysian rumble. As always, lead singer Ian
Svenonius seized the willpower of the crowd in his two
bony hands.
As the Make-Up's crazed finale unfolded, Svenonius mounted
the heads and hands of the first few rows for one of his
patented reptilian crowd-crawls. With the mic clenched between
his jagged teeth, the sallow soul controller screamed Yeah!,
and five hundred hands flew up, and the crowd also screamed
Yeah!
And it was largely without irony. And it was good.
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Willamette Week | originally
published April 12,
2000
|
