Bruce Springsteen’s Tour de Force

LONDON—I have seen rock ‘n’ roll’s past, and its name is still Bruce Springsteen. I have seen Springsteen half a dozen times over five decades, indoors and outdoors, with and without the E Street Band, from the rafters and from the side of the stage. His albums have bored me for decades. I cannot stand his fake-Okie folk singer routine, with its mock-rambling raconteuring. My toes curl at his podcasting with Barack Obama. But his show at London’s Wembley Stadium on July 25 was the best Springsteen concert I have ever seen. He has made the most of future past.

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Where Everybody Knows Your Theme Song

You're going to have to trust me on the following math: Assume, for the purposes of this exercise, that you are piloting a small craft, no more than 30 feet in length, and you motor out of the Honolulu marina having charted a course for a three-hour tour. At some point, the weather starts getting rough, and your tiny ship is tossed. (Perhaps you're familiar, at this point, with this particular word problem?)

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They’re Still Alive

In 1996, the Chicago rock band Local H asked, "If I was Eddie Vedder / Would you love me any better?" It was a rhetorical question. For most of the 1990s, the charismatic singer and his bandmates in Pearl Jam were one of the most popular and acclaimed acts in rock, releasing five hit albums and spawning countless imitators. Although their cultural relevance faded with the 20th century, they still thrive as a touring band, becoming grunge's answer to the Grateful Dead. In Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation, rock critic Steven Hyden provides a deep and engaging analysis of Pearl Jam's remarkable career, and particularly what he considers its definitive identity as a live act.

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Never Missing a Beat

The English bassist and broadcaster Alyn Shipton has spent his life in jazz. Some might consider that a life sentence. If so, Shipton deserves time off for good behavior. He has devoted himself not just to keeping jazz alive in Britain, which is an uphill endeavor of Everest proportions, but also to preserving the memories […]

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The Doobies Are Just Alright

If Donald Rumsfeld were a rock critic, he might have observed that there are bands you know, bands you don't know, and bands you don't know you know. For many people, the Doobie Brothers fall into that third category. If you've listened to oldies or classic rock or even easy listening stations over the past 30 years, you may like multiple songs of theirs but not even realize that they're by the same band. That's because the Doobies pulled off one of the most remarkable second acts in rock.

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Country Music’s Original Outlaw

Johnny Cash's 1968 live album, At Folsom Prison, revitalized the Man in Black's career, but it was his New Year's Day performance years earlier at San Quentin, another notorious California state prison, that captivated a wayward, would-be country star. Merle Haggard, then the 22-year-old inmate number A-45200 serving a 15-year sentence for repeated arrests and escapes, would credit Cash's jailhouse concert as an inspiration to pursue a career in music.

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