The Boss returns to Denver
by Tim Dunbar
The Metropolitan

On May 22, 1974, music critic and future record and film producer Jon Landau wrote these immortal words: “Last Thursday, at the Harvard Square Theatre, I saw my rock ‘n’ roll past flash before my eyes. And I saw something else: I saw rock ‘n’ roll’s future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.”

Last Thursday night at Invesco Field at Mile High, I saw rock ‘n’ roll’s past, present and future and its name is still Bruce Springsteen.

“The Boss” kicked off the show 50 minutes late with a song not his own. At 8:20 p.m. the lights dimmed and the familiar riff of Bob Seger’s “Get Out of Denver” rang through every crevice of the acoustically imperfect Invesco Field. Heavy, at first, on the high end, Bruce and the E Street Band made adjustments to the sound and plowed through a three-hour concert with all the verve and spirit of a teenage garage band.

Springsteen, who turned 54 last month, strutted the stage like a man 30 years younger and only seemed winded while singing “Badlands,” a song in which the first sentence of the chorus features a whopping 17 words followed by another 13 in the next sentence.

To the cheers of “BRUUUUCE,” which sounded like boos but certainly were not, Springsteen did some fine gymnastics moves, including a back-flip off the microphone stand that would have made Bart Connors envious. Later, during “Waiting on a Sunny Day” — one of nine songs the band performed off the 2002 release, “The Rising” — Springsteen sprinted across the stage and did a fabulous knee-slide into the left wing of the stage.
The E Street Band, which features drummer Max Weinberg (who also fronts Conan O’Brien’s band); Roy Bittan and Danny Federici on keyboards; Nils Lofgren, Steven “Little Stevie” Van Zant (“The Sopranos’” Silvio Dante) and Patti Scialfa on guitars and Clarence “The Big Man” Clemons on saxophone and percussion don’t just back Springsteen.

They serve as band, cheering section and family, both literally — Scialfa is Springsteen’s wife of 12 years — and figuratively, to the Oscar and multiple Grammy Award winner.

Springsteen is notorious for stretching his performances into three-hour affairs and Thursday’s show was no exception, but the concert, a seamless event that segued from one tune to the next, never felt that long.

Though the majority of the music came from the latest album and was less familiar than something from, say, “Born in The USA” or “The River,” his two most commercially successful albums, Springsteen, through sheer passion for his songs and an unfettered love of performing them, kept the audience riveted.

The set list, which included “Leap of Faith” from 1992’s “Lucky Town;” “Brilliant Disguise” and the title cut from 1987’s “Tunnel of Love;” “Night” and the title cut to the 1975 release “Born To Run;” and “Kitty’s Back” and “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” from Springsteen’s second album “The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle;” among many others, was enough to keep even the slightest of Bruce fans entertained.

Springsteen’s showmanship never appeared to be forced or insincere, but instead looked, and probably was, fresh, genuine and for the most part, spontaneous, as he ran from — to steal a line from his “Growin’ Up” — wing to wing, basking in the adoration of his audience and band.

Whether the songs themselves were familiar seemed to matter little to the nearly packed lower third of the stadium. Springsteen’s song lyrics are tight, compact, literary masterpieces, short stories in song form.

Stripped of cliché and hyperbole, they convey the raw, sometimes unspoken, emotion of the common man and woman, and are delivered in their simplest form by a man who understands those emotions and those stories because they come from his very soul.

Jon Landau, after praising him so mightily in his 1974 review, became, and remains to this day, Bruce Springsteen’s manager.

Because no one said it better and because they mirrored my sentiments exactly, it is Landau, with the sentence following his prophetic announcement on “rock ‘n’ roll’s future,” who will get the last word on this concert: “And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time.”

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Some trends in music have been simply unforgivable—rap metal, disco, the Macarena—but some are just so bad that they are too good to resist. Break out the tight pants and neon headbands because indie electronica favorites Ladytron will be hosting a new wave rock party Oct. 5 at Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom. Mira Aroyo of Ladytron will be spinning cuts from Softcore Jukebox, an 18-track compilation of danceable hits from such acts as My Bloody Valentine, Wire, The Fall, !!!, and also, for the aching fan, two previously unreleased tracks from Ladytron.

The event will be all ages and will also feature touring band I.H.Y.W.Y.P. and local dance rock punkers Mr. Pacman as openers. Doors open at 7 p.m. and for a measly $6 this party will be too fun to miss.

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There are a rare few opening bands that can upstage the headliner and get away with it. In the case of Lightning Bolt, the two-piece post-rock noise mayhem from Providence, R.I., they have modestly been that band at least once before.

Their most recent Denver appearance was last summer at the Gothic Theatre as openers for sassy thrashers The Locust.

While The Locust entertained the audience with their insect costumes and their destructively loud beats and grinding guitar hooks, it was clearly Lightning Bolt who stole the show.

Choosing not to play on the stage but instead setting up on the floor, Lightning Bolt amazed and stunned the unprepared crowd as they blasted through their energetic set of deafening bass lines and non-stop tribal-like drumming.

Lightning Bolt’s Brian Chippendale furiously drummed until the sweat dripped from his body while screaming incomprehensible vocals through a microphone fastened by cloth in his mouth. The other half of Lightning Bolt, Brian Gibson also pummeled the crowd with his heavy reverberating bass guitar.

Back in 1995, Lightning Bolt was a three-piece band with the then vocalist Hisham Barhoocha. Barhoocha eventually left the group to drum for Black Dice, a band from Brooklyn also known for their abrasive mixture of hardcore and noise rock. It was then that Chippendale took on the dual role of drummer and vocalist.

The group has released a number of singles and three full-lengths. Their newest album, “Wonderful Rainbow” was released on Load Records.

In support of this release, Lightning Bolt has embarked on their own headlining tour.
They will be assaulting ears, heads and bodies Oct. 3 at Monkey Mania.

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While file-sharing and illegal downloading of music seem to be a focus of national attention sparked by the Recording Industry Association of America’s 261 lawsuits, Metro’s computer network is encountering troubles of a different nature.

Clyde Hoadley, who works as a security and disaster recovery coordinator for Metro’s information technology department, says that file-sharing has been a problem on the school’s computer network, but “it seems to have lightened up a little bit.”

While file-sharing at Metro may not merit music industry lawsuits, it “continues to be a problem,” Hoadley said.

The IT department has focused recent attention on issues such as the blaster worm that disrupted the school’s network for several weeks as the semester opened. Hoadley’s main concern has been to protect the system from weaknesses making it vulnerable to outside operators. He says that the blaster worm affected the school’s network after being released from a personal computing device. “Once it was released on our network we started having a great deal of difficulty,” Hoadley said.

Laptops, PDAs and other PC devices may have music file-sharing programs previously installed by the owner which begin operating automatically in the school’s computer labs. There is little the school can do when these computing devices are employed by users to download music from the internet.

Specifically addressing this risk is the task at hand for Metro’s IT department. “It has been made a high priority to address protecting our network from personal operating devices. We are looking at a couple of different things we can do to protect our network,” Hoadley said.
Measures that have no budget requirements will be enacted quickly, according to Hoadley. The immediate effect will be the registration of personal computing devices such as PDAs and laptops. Operators using these devices on Metro’s network will have to register with the school. The school will certify that a user’s device meets the school’s requirements, which include a having a name-brand virus detector installed, a personal firewall (which protects both the device and the school’s network from malicious programs), agreement to abide by the school’s guidelines, and registration of Macintosh addresses. The unique serial number on the network card of Macintosh devices is entered into the school’s system; if the system does not recognize a user it will simply not communicate with it.

Since December 2001, Metro’s official policy has specifically prohibited file swapping on any Metro computer or network. The system, however, does have vulnerabilities.

Hoadley said the school does maintain some liability in illegal downloading situations, but takes measures to limit such occurrences. As its primary defense, the school’s IT department has ensured that students using the school’s computers are unable to install file-sharing programs such as Kazaa.

Another preventive measure includes “limiting the type of network activity of anonymous users or roving users on our network,” Hoadley said.

When the IT department detects illegal file-sharing or downloading activity a simple series of steps is set in motion. “We will attempt to locate where it’s coming from. When we do find where that’s coming from we’ll first try to identify who that person is. They are sent a copy of the school’s policy and that person is asked to come into compliance with that policy,” Hoadley said.

Usually, that is enough action to halt the activity, according to Hoadley. He says Metro’s computer system is in a safe position to deal with the issues presented by illegal file-sharing. “We don’t go searching for these things; it comes to our attention,” he said.

Hoadley says that a list of recommendations is being drawn up to further secure the school’s network. The department’s next step is to submit proposals to Mike Barnett, vice president of administration and finance, who will then present the list to the cabinet. At a time when the school’s budget is already stressed, proposals that cost money may not be implemented for some time.

No matter what the school is able to implement, “We’re always under the threat of somebody releasing another kind of blaster,” Hoadley said. “We’re always under the threat of malicious intent. We’re always under the threat of someone connecting to our network and using our network to send out spam.”

Overall, the school is focusing attention on the problems presented by downloading files containing harmful viruses or worms. The specific legalities regarding music file-sharing, the subject of the RIAA lawsuits, are not affecting the school at this point. Hoadley said the school has not been contacted in two years about illegal file-sharing.

“We do continue to have problems with it. We try to shut it down when we do find it. But it has reduced significantly,” Hoadley said.

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