A joyous celebration of American roots music.
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Because DVD Town is a movie site, our policy has been to review music DVDs and HD products only if they have a significant documentary element. But we will make an exception for exceptional cases, and that's just what this Blu-ray of "Live in Dublin: Bruce Springsteen with the Sessions Band" is: truly exceptional. I've seen a lot of concerts in my time, and I can't remember one that had this level of sustained energy and unbridled joy, with the performers enjoying the music even more than the audience. Nine cameras capture the action, with deft editing that also contributes to the concert's level of you-are-there excitement. According to Springsteen's manager, there's a wordless documentary element too, because this concert series filmed in HD over three days in November 2006 chronicles the development of Springsteen's grasp of American roots music.
I just returned from Ireland, where I was surprised to learn that American country music is really popular. In almost every pub I visited, you could hear country music played right alongside traditional Irish music. Why, I wondered aloud. "Simple," said one poet from Dublin. "They're both folk musics that use some of the same instruments and rely heavily on a grassroots tradition."
That's certainly evident in this concert by Springsteen and his multi-talented Sessions crew, which shifts almost imperceptibly from country/bluegrass-style fiddle work to the kind of fiddling that calls to mind The Chieftains or a more contemporary traditional Irish group like Lünasa. A tin whistle even pops up during several numbers, as does a bass drum that seems to substitute for the traditional Irish bodhrán.
It probably bears mentioning that I have never been a Bruce Springsteen fan. His "Born in the U.S.A." material always struck me as a facile anthem well suited for Chevy truck commercials. But his energy and musical range--both vocally and instrumentally--really stand out in this concert, which finds Springsteen and the Sessions Band blending elements of folk, blues, country, Texas swing, gospel, rock, and New Orleans'-style Dixieland jazz.
The set-list is long, too, with less than a handful of slow ballads, so no one has much of a breather. It's a real party Blu-ray. As the liner notes explain, the songs include "fan favorites from The Seeger Sessions, radical interpretations from The Springsteen Songbook and rare songs appearing for the first time on any Springsteen release."
What's amazing to me is how many of the songs are traditional folk-country songs given new life by Springsteen & Co. Springsteen's arrangements of songs like "Old Dan Tucker," "Jesse James," and "Erie Canal" are so vital that you begin to suspect the wily old rocker could turn anything into a rousing and rollicking good song--even "Roll On, Columbia" and songs that children listened to in school that seemed so slow and methodical that the sheer joy that the composer felt when he gave birth to the songs were lost in translation. That's certainly not the case with this concert. Every song seems a celebration, and every song is a synthesis of styles, with Springsteen wandering the stage so that others can take the spotlight. At one point in the concert he even physically pushes his banjo player forward on the stage to put him in the limelight. Other times, performers take their cue from Springsteen's showmanship, with one fiddle player fiddling over his head and bending backwards until his bow practically touches the ground, and guitar players holding their instruments above their heads while they pick away, everyone moving around the stage at all times.
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