Lots Of Bruce Juice

1) Best wishes for a speedy recovery to Nils Lofgren, guitarist for the E Street Band. He underwent double hip replacement surgery and expects to be laid up for a month. This is the same guy who pulled off back flips while doing his guitar solo on Because The Night during the last tour!

2) Bruce and Billy Joel will be doing a benefit concert for Barack Obama in New York City. Only 2,500 seats in the theatre and the pricing is steep. I imagine it’s probably solo Bruce. Rockers are already debating which Barack ‘n’ Roll extravaganza to shell out for: Bruce/Billy in NYC or the Dead/Allman Bros. benefit show at Penn State? I hate to be sacrilegious, but I think I’d go see the Dead and The Allmans. The Dead doesn’t get together too often anymore and the Allmans just keep getting better (what band wouldn’t kill to have both Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes?)

3) It’s official. Bruce will be the halftime show
at the 2009 Super Bowl. Of all the comments I read, the best was from Gary Susman on the Entertainment Weekly blog PopWatch:

As a bigger music fan than football fan, I wish I could say that Bruce Springsteen is bigger than the Super Bowl, that he should have better things to do than play a hasty 12-minute medley of his hits, as a sideshow to a sporting event, for an audience that didn’t show up just to see him. But the truth is, he’s not, and after the likes of the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson, Prince, Tom Petty, U2, and others have paved the way, there’s no way Springsteen can say he’s above performing at this winter’s Superbowl halftime show.

4) Of course, the Super Bowl gig has spawned a new parlor game in the Springsteen community: You’ve got about 12 minutes, what do you play? My best guess:
Girls In Their Summer Clothes (4:20)
Promised Land (4:33)
Ramrod (4:05)

5) Bruce is also playing a free show in Philly as an inducement/reward for Obama’s final voter registration push on Saturday October 4th.

Obama Locks Down the Crucial Dead Head Vote

Obama Locks Down the Crucial Dead Head Vote

Originally uploaded by Phil At Sun

Looks like Bobby. Phil, Mickey and Bill locked right-wing lyricist
Robert Hunter in the VW van.