Bruce Springsteen | High HopesEmpty Bottle Evenings

Nov042015November 4, 2015November 7, 20151 Commentby Bake

Bruce Springsteen | High Hopes

Posted in Music

Not long ago I was watching live Springsteen videos again and I ended up watching a concert from his 2014 Australian Tour that lasted nearly 4 hours. Clearly not having a job has allowed me to keep busy. Regardless, I surprised see that playing guitar with the band was not only The Boss and Stevie Van Zandt, but Tom Morello. Naturally I was pretty surprised as you wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) expect to see the guitar DJ responsible for songs like “Killing in the Name” or “Vietnow” to be playing on stage with the man responsible for songs like “Hungry Heart” or “Human Touch”. Yeah Springsteen can rock out at times and his live shows are like religious experiences but I can’t exactly see most of his fans being into political rap metal from the ’90s.

I spent the next day re-examining Rage Against the Machine’s work and couldn’t help but feel that they were popular in the wrong decade. By the time Dubya was settling into his presidency they were already winding down as a band. I know that individual bands members continued to create political music and pursue other activist causes but I would think that their music would have been even more celebrated in the era of rising right wing politics and the counteracting wave of progressivism that followed and continues today. Everything is hysterically political these days, yet the band from my generation most political have played only a handful of reunion shows in the last decade or so? Maybe, they feel they aren’t needed anymore. Maybe they are just afraid that everyone will hate them because peoples’ most lasting impression of rap-metal was Limp Bizkit. It’s hard to say for sure.

I did check out an album and a half of Audioslave as well to find any clues on how Morello’s guitar might fit in with Springsteen but all I found was some cock-rock overpowered by Chris Cornell’s voice. I just couldn’t get into it at all and really couldn’t figure out how I ever did. The RATM stuff was a little dated but it did still made me feel something. The Audioslave stuff was just not for me, and really not much like Bruce either. Even when Springsteen veers too far in the heart of his heartland rock songs he never sounds like Soundgarden b-sides. Meanwhile, Morello’s Nightwatchman project shares a folk sound & sensibility (isn’t that the name of a chick flick?) that some of Springsteen’s more mellow, introspective songs possess, but that still doesn’t explain how weird it is to have Morello strumming along to “Rosalita” like it’s old hat.

Apparently Morello filled in for Van Zandt on a 2013 tour and recorded with Springsteen & the E Street Band for 8 of the 12 songs on High Hopes (2014). How the hell did I miss this? Okay, I did mostly ignore this album because I heard it was just covers, unreleased tracks, and re-recorded stuff, but if I knew Morello was going to play guitar on it I wouldn’t be able to ipass on it. Even if it was due more to curiousity than high expectations. Now that I’ve listen to the album several times in the past week or two I have to say..I wasn’t really missing much. Honestly there’s a little too much on here that sounds like it belongs on Ford Truck commercial.

But it does have it’s moments, and for me, while I can’t say I’d recommend this album as a whole, you should definitely check out a few tracks. First off, the title track; it’s pretty crazy and horn heavy but it shows how Morello’s guitar can fit amongst the full band of 574 people that Springsteen has on stage with him. Seriously, Zach De La Rocha, Tim Commerford, Brad Wilk, an Chris Cornell might all be on stage playing with the E Street band too and you probably couldn’t find them behind all the horn players and back-up singers. Okay, Cornell would probably try too hard to overpower everyone else on the harmonies but the point remains that there are a huge amount of people on stage during the live show. On High Hopes, you can hear Morello’s work more subtly on decent tracks like “Heaven’s Wall” and “sadsdsad”. My favorite however from this duo is by far “The Ghost of Tom Joad”. I know Rage covered it on Renegades and the Springsteen original version from the mid ’90s is well known, but to me, whether live or on the album, their reimagination of this track is their best combined work with Morello distorting the shit out of it.

Overall, I was a little disappointed by High Hopes. Yes, I’m aware of how stupid that sounds. But regardless of the title, I was particularly interested to see what came out of this non-traditional Springsteen offering. And honestly, I should be happy with just a few really good songs. In all honesty, even some of the classic Springsteen albums aren’t my favorite. I really do love some of his songs, but when he releases over 300 of them they can’t all be gems. On his albums there will be some great tracks and some forgetable ones, but it’s the live show where he thrives. And as suprising as it seems, Morello fits in pretty damn well playing Springsteen songs for hours at a time. Hell, they can even rock Bee Gees tunes.

The Drink: What’s the most political drink? Apparently Rum is the most bi-partisan drink and since we’re going with two very different musicians coming together, that will be our choice tonight.