springsteen and robyn: i guess his name was probably bruce
Bruce Springsteen nearly loses himself in the crowd at UBS Arena (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
When I started dating the woman who would become my wife, it was a package deal. Ellen came with Goat, one of the all-time-great cats, and Robyn Hitchcock, the Paddington-born singer-songwriter who has led the Soft Boys, the Egyptians, and the Venus 3 and is an exceptional solo performer.
I came with a cat allergy, the New York Rangers, and the New Jersey-born rocker Bruce Springsteen, who leads the E Street Band and is an exceptional solo performer.
As it turned out, Ellen and I soon discovered that we had been to a bunch of the same concerts before we knew each other, including Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club at Forest Hills, the Replacements at Irving Plaza, and Springsteen at Giants Stadium. When I was introduced to Ellen at my first job after college, I immediately knew that I was going to marry her. (It took more than a year of what might today be considered stalking to convince her to even go out with me.)
I believe that my love-at-first-sight was the result of our having been together in some form in a previous life and that we had laid out a path to meet again in this existence. We didn’t connect at those concerts but ultimately met at work, at a job I was pretty much unqualified for but got anyway. (There’s a lot more about that, but it will have to be saved for another time.)
When I was a kid, I watched a litter of kittens born two doors down from our house, the home of my baby-sitter, Carol. I begged my parents to let me have one of the kitties, the runt of the litter, and for seven years Slippers was my treasured companion, until my father’s allergies, as well as my own, got extremely worrisome. I was basically given an ultimatum: Either my father or my cat would have to go. After long consideration, I drove Slippers to the North Shore Animal League and, tears gushing, said goodbye. (A few weeks later I received a postcard telling me that Slippers had been adopted by another family.)
Using some kind of mind over matter, I got rid of my cat allergy for Goat and quickly became a fan of Hitchcock’s, a large poster of whom hung in Ellen’s bedroom. We went to see him play at various venues, from the much-lamented Maxwell’s in Hoboken to City Winery when it was on Varick St.
Meanwhile, Ellen allowed me my Bruce obsession, accompanying me to many shows over the years, most memorably surprising me with tickets to a pair of concerts at Earl’s Court in London in May 1999 for my birthday.
During the pandemic, both musicians were active. Springsteen hosted the radio show “From My Home to Yours,” played in his barn, did numerous virtual interviews, and cohosted the “Renegades” podcast with President Barack Obama. A voracious Facebook poster, Hitchcock kicked off “Live from Tubby’s House,” an online concert series with his partner, singer-songwriter Emma Swift, livestreamed from their Nashville living room and named after one of their Scottish Folds, Tubby Vincent, who makes regular appearances with their other cat, Ringo M. Stardust (as well as Perry the lobster).
Robyn Hitchcock shows off his trademark storytelling skills at Bowery Ballroom (video by twi-ny/mdr)
On April 1, we went to see Hitchcock at Bowery Ballroom, touring behind his terrific new album, Shufflemania! Kelley Stolz was supposed to open up for him and then back Hitchcock with Bart Davenport, but they both got Covid, so Hitchcock opened for himself on acoustic guitar, joined by Swift, then played the main electric set with guitarist Kurt Bloch, bassist Julia Rydholm, drummer Patrick Berkery, and Swift.
On April 11, Ellen was supposed to go with me to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the UBS Arena (home of the dreaded Islanders hockey team) in Elmont, touring behind his last two records, the terrific Letter to You and the not-quite-so-terrific Only the Strong Survive, an album of soul covers. One of Ellen’s closest friends came in from out of town and she went with her to the opera instead; I headed to UBS with a longtime friend and fellow Bruce junkie from Queens. It was another great show, if overly predictable, as always highlighted by Springsteen’s giant, infectious grins as he rocked the night away.
Earlier on the tour, several members of the E Street Band had contracted Covid, leading to three shows actually being canceled. The full eighteen-piece band (with horns and backup singers) was intact at UBS except for Springsteen’s wife, Patti Scialfa, who has missed several concerts for unspecified reasons.
Bruce Springsteen asks audience to meet him out in the street at UBS Arena (shaky video by twi-ny/mdr)
During Bruce’s show, he paid tribute to organist Danny Federici, who passed away in 2008, and saxman Clarence Clemons, who died in 2011. Hitchcock honored drummer Bill Rieflin, a member of the Venus 3 who passed away in 2020. On April 1, Hitchcock opened with an acoustic set that included one of my wife’s favorite songs of his, “My Wife and My Dead Wife,” in which he admits, “I can’t decide which one I love the most / the flesh and blood or the pale, smiling ghost.” On April 11, after the lights came on and fans started to leave the arena, Springsteen returned to the stage by himself for a final encore, armed with an acoustic guitar, and played “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” the Letter for You closer in which he states, “For death is not the end.” Earlier, with the full band, he had performed that same album’s “Ghosts,” declaring, “It’s just your ghost moving through the night / Your spirit filled with light / I need, need you by my side / Your love and I’m alive.”
Every night, Springsteen plays “Kitty’s Back,” a jazzy tune from his 1973 album The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle that isn’t about felines but does feature such characters as Catlong and Kitty and mentions Bleecker St. In 2011, Ellen and I went to Le Poisson Rouge on Bleecker St. to see “Chinese White Bicycles,” where Hitchcock teamed up with legendary producer Joe Boyd (Richard Thompson, R.E.M.) to share songs and stories about Greenwich Village. When Ellen traveled to Europe after college, she stayed for a time in Boyd’s apartment in Chelsea while he was away.
Both Springsteen, seventy-three, and Hitchcock, seventy, play guitar, piano, and harmonica, tell moving and funny stories, and are heavily influenced by Bob Dylan, who came of age in the Village. They both often cover Dylan songs; in 2003, we saw Dylan join the E Street Band at Shea Stadium for “Highway ’61 Revisited.” We’ve seen Hitchcock play “Simple Twist of Fate” and, on April 1, “She Belongs to Me,” which contains the line “She wears an Egyptian ring / It sparkles before she speaks,” as if referencing one of Robyn’s former bands.
Robyn Hitchcock rocks out with Kurt Bloch, Patrick Berkery, and Emma Swift at Bowery Ballroom (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
My favorite Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians song is “Balloon Man,” from 1988’s Globe of Frogs, which he played as part of his acoustic set right after “My Wife and My Dead Wife” on April 1, singing, “I was walking up Sixth Ave. when Balloon Man came right up to me / He was round and fat and spherical / with the biggest grin I’d ever seen / He bounced on up toward me / but before we could be introduced / he blew up very suddenly / I guess his name was probably Bruce.”
On February 21, 1995, Ellen and I were at Tramp’s, having bribed our way into the video shoot for “Murder Incorporated,” which turned into a five-hour affair as Bruce and the E Street Band, together for the first time since the 1988 Tunnel of Love Express Tour, played that song six times while jamming on a dozen other tunes in between setups. The video was directed by Jonathan Demme, who had directed the 1984 Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense (about the tour we saw separately at Forest Hills) and would go on to make 1998’s Storefront Hitchcock, in which Robyn performed live in an abandoned storefront on West Fourteenth St.
Tickets for Bruce Springsteen at Earl’s Court and Robyn Hitchcock at Maxwell’s (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
At Tramp’s, Demme, who also helmed The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, and Something Wild, determinedly walked up to me. I thought he was going to throw me out, since everyone else there appeared to be invited friends and family of the artists and guests of the record company, but instead he grabbed my shoulders, planted a big kiss on my bald head, and said, “It’s great to see you. I’m so glad you’re here”
I had never met Demme before — I still wonder who he thought I was — and would never encounter him again. I said hello to Bruce once in a restaurant during his first Broadway run, and I interviewed Hitchcock over the phone twenty years ago. Memorably, after catching “Chinese White Bicycles” at LPR, I snapped a picture of Robyn from up close at the merch table but stupidly had the flash on, causing him to understandably bark at me, a bad memory I can’t seem to shake.
Otherwise, it’s been nothing but fond memories of seeing Springsteen and Hitchcock over the decades, two expert raconteurs still making exceptional new music in their seventies and putting on unforgettable live shows. As long as they keep doing what they do, my wife and I will be there, doing what we do, riding the bizarre train of synchronicities, coincidences, and the indecipherable patterns of life.