In its sixth summer in Asbury Park, Danny Clinch’s Sea.Hear.Now Festival snags a Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band headlining set, and Jersey shore history is made with a legendary deep-cut ’70s song selection.
Jay Weinberg, drummer and visual artist, was among the multidisciplinary artists showcased at a gallery tent in Asbury Park this past weekend.
On Sunday night, he was stationed stageside on the beach, several feet behind his father, the Mighty Max. He panned his phone video from the left of the stage to the center, focusing on the leader of a sonic sermon. Before him was a sea of 35,000 disciples, waving their arms side to side in perfect unison. The proverbial preacher said nothing, pointing his microphone towards the throng as everyone sang:
‘Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back
Like a river that don’t know where it’s flowin’,
I took a wrong turn and I just kept goin’
Everybody’s got a hungry heart
Everybody’s got a hungry heart
Lay down your money and you play your part
Everybody’s got a hu-uh-ungry he-a-art’
The band kicked in on the second verse. And we all knew we were witnessing New Jersey history. Bruce Springsteen was headlining Danny Clinch’s Sea.Hear.Now Festival in its fourth year in Asbury, and finally the Boss was back in town.
Sea.Hear.Now is something of a magical Second Summer in Asbury, compacted into three glorious days in mid-September.
Thousands flock to the boardwalk in the last vestiges of tank top weather before the air takes a cool turn. Dozens of local vendors, historic institutions and sponsoring companies set up tents and mini-exhibits along the grass and parking lots just off the main drag in Asbury. The Casino Building is shuttered, too brittle to safely occupy, but Tillie the clown still bares his garish smile over the proceedings. The sounds of local musicians ricochet like the pinballs at the Silverball museum, from venues like the Wonder Bar and the Stone Pony. At the latter, Bruce cut his teeth as a teenage bar musician and he’s still known to pop in for a guest set every now and then. Three temporary stages are erected, one on the lawn beside the Asbury hotel and two others on the beach itself. The festival is the brainchild of noted local rock photographer Danny Clinch, who operates a gallery in Asbury and who has had a working relationship with Springsteen and countless other rock notables for decades. In years past, Clinch has booked major headliners – Pearl Jam, Green Day, Stevie Nicks and Foo Fighters – but for 2024, Clinch cinched the E Street band.
The Springsteen legend looms impossibly large in town and permeated the sets of many other festival performers. On Saturday night, Noah Kahan took to the stage and quipped, “I can’t believe I’m headlining the same festival as Bruce f*in’ Springsteen! I’m even dressed like him… your eyes will adjust to the denim.” Kahan took the stage with Bruce and Clinch at a surprise Stone Pony set later in the evening, embodying a Gen Z version of Springsteen’s “rough around the edges” persona. The following morning, the phenomenal Joy Oladokun joked, “I used to call myself the Black Bruce Springsteen because I never wanted to retire!” Waxing poetic about their career and unabashedly highlighting the Black blues and rock artists who defined the Nashville scene, Oladokun’s main stage beach set was sensational.
Next up, Kool and the Gang, still featuring their eponymous bassist Robert “Kool” Bell hitting all the iconic licks that propel their greatest hits. From “Hollywood Swinging” to “Get Down On It” and perhaps their best-known songs, Ladies Night and Celebration, the ensemble was airtight and electrifying. We dutifully chimed in on the backup “woo-hoo!”/ “Get down, get down”/ “tonight…alright”s, and paid Bell his due reverence as he heralded the band’s impending induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in late October. Facing an impossible choice – Action Bronson with a full rhythm section or Norah Jones on the grass – I opted for the latter and caught some breezy, Wurlitzer-tinged renditions of her signature songs.
In the midst of the action, Bruce was darting between multiple stages for multiple cameo sets before his beach headliner.
Trey Anastasio took to Instagram to recount a legendary Springsteen show he attended at the age of fourteen. Now, here he was onstage playing a song Bruce had skipped that night, “Kitty’s Back.” Then, a cameo beside Gaslight only an hour before the main action; Bruce quipped “I’m stayin’ here, I’m gettin’ a pay raise!” Between these stints and his spot at the Pony, Bruce did four total shoreside sets- but the best was yet to come.
The beach and boardwalk were both packed to the brim. It was 7:30 pm when a familiar voice heralded “Greetings Asbury Park!” Kicking into Lonesome Day, the E-Street Band was in exceptional form and swept up in something of a seventies-tinged magic. When the roar of a royal reception dulled, Springsteen opined, “I wrote this song about 500 yards north… we’re gonna try to f*ing remember how to play it. We’re gonna try to remember how to play a lot of these f*ing songs.” And then, we were “Blinded By The Light”! The first song on the first side of the first Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band album, the track rarely gets a live outing and was last played live in 2017. (Incidentally, the Manfred Mann version of ‘Blinded’ is one of two number 1 hits written, but not performed by the Boss). Bruce narrated a realtime flashback, checking off street names: “Driving down Kingsley, no one on cookman avenue, nobody on Main Street, nobody anywhere – and then I fell into a dream state and when I woke up I said ‘where did all these f*ing people come from?'”
With guitar solos playing against sax solos, organ-splashed flourishes and the once-signature compound poetry verses of yore, “Beanie Bruce,” as he cut his teeth on these shores over 50 years ago, had returned- who would think that next week, he’d turn 75? Certainly not Bruce as he brayed like a werewolf – “I see that moon shining- awooooo-come on give me a good Asbury park howl!” The set was extremely seventies-and-rarities heavy; when the preamble of “Thundercrack” rang out I could scarcely believe my ears; ditto for “Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street,” and “The E Street Shuffle.”
Surely, though, “Sandy” was a prerequisite, as its full title is “Sandy (4th of July, Asbury Park),” and there it was, accordion and all. The lyric referencing Madam Marie, famed beachfront psychic, got a little holler from a crowd that was “in the know.” As Bruce recounted a Freehold thrift store encounter of a black velvet painting that inspired “Local Hero,” the sentiment was lighthearted but incredibly apt; Local Hero is a mild honorific for Bruce Springsteen.
Patti Scialfa, Bruce’s wife and E-Street bandmate since the early ’80s, made a surprise appearance in the wake of her recent announcement of a multiple myeloma diagnosis. The couple dueted on “Tougher Than The Rest,” and Patti is. Bruce didn’t slow down for anyone, least of all Max Weinberg. About half a dozen times throughout the set, he delegated “Max, tempo, max, start it!” Weinberg didn’t miss a beat. Professor Roy Bittan graced us with a lush and sprawling piano solo on “Racing in The Street.” Then, a hit song – but not the version demoed by the E-Street Band – as “Because the Night,” made famous by Patti Smith, provided a welcome dramatic turn as the sky grew darker.
Wistful, Springsteen quipped, “I feel f*in’ old tonight in a good way!” His speech took a more earnest turn, however, when he mused, “I never thought I’d live to see the sight in my lifetime. The band we were, here on that little street corner when nobody was here, and I didn’t know when I’d see folks in this town again. So I want to thank all the good people who have invested in Asbury park, the east side, the west side, the LGBTQ+ community for the last 25 years, Danny Clinch for this wonderful event and all of you for being here tonight.” And the beach roared.
Jake Clemons has ably filled his late uncle’s saxophone seat for over 15 years, but Sea.Hear.Now was treated to an additional horn and a rare cut from Born to Run – “Meeting Across The River.” The dramatic penultimate cut from the record, it serves as a preamble to a first-time-on-the-tour treat and staple saxaphone showcase, the legendary “Jungleland.” From here, the momentum built to a fever pitch, hit after hit, “Born to Run,” “Rosalita” (this time around, I finally remembered every verse in order), “Dancing in the Dark”! Remembrances were dutifully played to departed E-Streeters Danny Federici and Clarence Clemons with massive screen projections during “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out.” Little Steven Van Zandt, multi-hyphenate entertainer and musical director, was granted his main moment to shine with a bit of schtick. Midway through a cover of Twist and Shout, Bruce and Steve mugged for the crowd and joked, “It looks to me like they’re getting tired. They might wanna go home! Do you wanna go home Steve?”
“… Nah, I don’t wanna go home!”
“Then that must mean you think you can outlast the E-Street Band. You think you can outlast the E-Street Band? We’ve been doing this for 50 f*in years!”
Nothing this kinetic can last forever. As the town’s noise ordinance of 10:30 PM was stretched by 15 minutes, Bruce serenaded the crowd with one final tune, a cover of Tom Waits’ “Jersey Girl.” Couples swayed, an accordion played, and the last few summer breezes wafted away off the Asbury Boardwalk. The Boss had done it – headlined a festival in the namesake town of his debut album, the streets which forged the E-Street Band into something indelible, iron-clad and eternal, something that could move even the most static concertgoer to dance. Something that united 35,000 people gathered around the boardwalk and etched their sandal prints into concert history. With one last turn of phrase, they were gone.
“God bless you and god bless Asbury Park, the E street band loves you”!
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© Aidan Moyer
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