ROAD DIARY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND: 4 STARS. “Bruuuuuce!”
SYNOPSIS: Like The Boss’s best work, “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band,” a brand new doc now streaming on Disney+, has a good beat and you can dance to it, but closer examination reveals a deeper understanding of what make Bruce tick.
CAST: Bruce Springsteen, Steven Van Zandt, Jon Landau, Thom Zimny, Nils Lofgren, Patti Scialfa, Danny Federici, Roy Bittan, Garry Tallent, Max Weinberg, Clarence Clemons. Directed by Thom Zimny.
REVIEW: First and foremost, “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band” is a celebration of half a century of music and live shows. Archival footage of Springsteen thrashing around the stage like a spinning top is butted up against footage from the band’s recent US and European tour, captures the excitement of a lifetime of his live performances.
“I made a promise to myself that if I got through this,” Springsteen says of touring after the pandemic lockdowns, “I’d throw the biggest party I could,” and he did, in a worldwide tour captured by director Thom Zimny’s cameras.
And the good times roll, but while watching the 73-year-old Springsteen form these familiar songs into a carefully curated set list, it becomes clear he’s a man on a mission to tell a story, through the lyrics, that act as a treatise on mortality and an examination of a life spent making music. The cumulative effect is joyfully melancholic, a memorial to youth with a nod to mortality.
The doc’s more conventional aspects—the slightly self-congratulatory tone of some of the testimonials and the profiles of fans from around the world—feel unnecessary, but they are minor annoyances in a sincere movie that offers music fans interesting behind-the-scenes footage of the Springsteen’s creative process, the band blowing off the cobwebs after a six-year layoff from playing live and heartfelt tributes to dearly departed E-Streeters Clarence “Big Man” Clemons and organist Danny Federici.
There is plenty of fan service in “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band,” but it isn’t just about nostalgia. It’s about friendship, age, mortality and, as Springsteen says, playing music “until the wheels come off.”
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