“Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band” - TIFF24 Film Review
This review was originally posted on Film Obsessive.
The first time I heard a song by Bruce Springsteen, I was fifteen years old. I was sitting at the family computer in the basement of my home in the suburbs of Baltimore. That first song was “Thunder Road,” and it was as though I had just discovered that magic is real. The gentle opening notes of the harmonica and piano still give chills after all these years. At the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, a new documentary, Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, premiered to offer fans new and old a look at the legendary rock & roll star.
courtesy of TIFF
For the first time in seven years, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band hit the road again in 2023. Longtime collaborator of Bruce, Thom Zimny, went along for the ride. Road Diary is a blend of concert footage, interviews of the band and fans, and words written by Bruce himself about what this tour has meant to him. The film begins at the rehearsals and continues through the European leg of the tour. It serves as an introduction to members of the E Street Band who have been there since the beginning and those who are new to the group. Perhaps the film skews more toward those who are already fans, but it would be impossible to leave the theater not, at the very least, understanding why Bruce Springsteen has become the man that he is.
It’s impossible to write from an unbiased perspective when it comes to Road Diary. I grew up on Bruce. The very first song I could actually play on the guitar (before I gave it up) was “Growin’ Up.” I fell in love for the first time with “Born to Run” playing in the background. My first post-Covid concert was Bruce Springsteen’s one-man show on Broadway, where I promptly started tearing up as he strummed the opening notes to “Growin’ Up.” Just last month, my dad, my cousin, and I went to see Bruce and the E Street Band at a rescheduled date from the tour that’s featured in Road Diary. I cannot untie his music from my lived experiences and I am not alone.
Much of Road Diary focuses on the length of Bruce’s career and the number of lives that have been impacted by his music. He has been life-changing, not just to fans, although there is a charming montage of fans across the world expressing what his music means to them, but to members of the E Street Band. They’ve been touring and playing together for over fifty years, most of them are in their ‘70s now, and some are no longer with us. Bruce ensures that these past members will not be forgotten by talking about them every chance he gets. Beloved saxophone player Clarence Clemons lives on through his nephew Jake, who is adamant that he play his uncle’s sax and use his mouthpiece. A piece of Clarence comes back to life every time the sounds of his saxophone float through the air.
Courtesy of TIFF
Mortality is one of Road Diary’s most talked-about themes. It’s been something on Springsteen’s mind for a few years now as his memoir, Broadway show, and album Letter to You speak to what he’s feeling. One of the film’s, and concert’s, standout moments is when Springsteen is alone on stage with an acoustic guitar to play “Last Man Standing.” He wrote the song after the death of George Theiss. George’s death makes Springsteen the last living member of his first band, The Castiles. Road Diary and this recent tour with the E Street Band is not a farewell though. It is Springsteen recapturing the magic of the 1970s all over again. Sure, he’s not as young as he once was, but he doesn’t love performing any less. He may even love it more now, knowing what’s ahead. The band’s main concern was that they didn’t want to look like a bunch of old guys up there chasing after their adolescence, and they don’t. In fact, they’d give the younger versions of themselves a run for their money with the amount of joy that comes to life each night on stage.
Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band is a piece for posterity. Part of the reason we all go to concerts is to see if the magic of the music we love is real. As Springsteen says in his Broadway show, it’s “a song-fueled rumor.” It is the musician’s job to provide “proof of life” to this rumor and Springsteen, alongside his trusty bandmates, provides it in spades. Road Diary captures Springsteen not at his youngest, but with just as much, if not more, fire in his heart, as he puts on the Greatest Show on Earth.
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