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Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band review – still blowing minds after 50 years
Thom Zimny deftly weaves archive footage, recent live performance, candid interviews and fan tributes to create a rich portrait of a modern icon and his legendary band
Crank the volume for the performances, which, though truncated, thunder out to good effect, and allow you to dwell on details closeup: Springsteen gurning ecstatically as he solos; the way he loves to let notes soar with minimalist purity before consuming them in a crash of noise. But amid the golden circle’s mire of abandoned ethics were Springsteen lifers who spoke with evangelistic fervour about their icon, and Zimny captures this hardcore quotient with individual vox pops at home in their cities, be it Monza or Oslo, as well as plenty of loving footage of upturned faces mid-gig. Zimny’s film-making style is certainly less adventurous, but his weaving of archive footage is deftly done – it’s fun to see the terrible sleeping arrangements on early E Street Band outings – and you’re left with the sense that this is a unit of people for whom rocking out and blowing minds is an irresistible lifetime pursuit.
Or read this on The Guardian
