Shortly before his 40th birthday in November 1998, Bob Benjamin, an artist manager in the music industry, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. His good friends threw him a surprise party to mark the milestone bday, asking guests to make donations to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation instead of bringing gifts. The night was so successful, Benjamin and his friends were inspired to launch the Light of Day Foundation in 2000, whose mission is to utilize “the awesome power of music to raise money and awareness in our continuing quest to end Parkinson’s disease and related neuro-degenerative diseases.”
The Foundation has always been New Jersey-based, so between that and the name being taken from a Bruce Springsteen song, The Boss has consistently shown up for Light of Day. He was a reliable “surprise” performer at their Winterfest concerts nearly every year for the first 15 years. Since then, Bruce has made sure to be there for milestone years. So it really was a surprise when Bruce took the stage last Saturday for the 26th anniversary at the Count Basie Theater in Red Bank, NJ. What wasn’t a surprise, was Bruce speaking out against this abomination of an administration:
But whispers began filling the theater around 9:00 pm that Springsteen was in the house, and he took the stage not long afterwards to play the anthemic “One Guitar” with Willie Nile as screams of “Brooooce” echoed through the theater, fans rushed towards the stage, and just about every cellphone in the house shot up into the air.
[Goo Goo Dolls frontman John] Rzeznik had the very difficult job of following that, but he kept the crowd entertained with solo renditions of Goo Goo Dolls classics like “Slide,” “Black Balloon,” “Broadway,” and the inevitable “Iris,” which had the entire crowd singing along. “You didn’t come here to hear a fuckin’ TED talk,” he told the crowd. “But we are living in interesting times. And that doesn’t mean they’re good. But it doesn’t mean that we don’t have each other. This is a room full of love. You can feel love. I just want you guys to take all that love and get the f–k out in the streets…We’re all in this together. That’s what makes us strong. And what’s going on…I’m not saying anything because I’m not rich enough to alienate theoretically half my audience.”
Springsteen had no such concerns, and shortly before playing “The Promised Land” with Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers, he delivered some frank remarks. “I wrote this song as an ode to American possibility,” he said. “Right now we are living through incredibly critical times. The United States, the ideals and the value for which it stood for the past 250 years, is being tested like it has never been in modern times. Those values and those ideals have never been as endangered as they are right now.”
He continued, “If you believe in the power of law and that no one stands above it, if you stand against heavily-armed masked federal troops invading an American city, using gestapo tactics against our fellow citizens, if you believe you don’t deserve to be murdered for exercising your American right to protest, then send a message to this president, as the mayor of the city said: ICE should get the f–k out of Minneapolis. This song is for you and the memory of the mother of three and an American citizen, Renee Good.”
Yass, Brooooce! Honestly, it’s the dedicated push-back of non-famous citizens combined with highly-visible celebrities like Bruce speaking out that’s keeping me going these days. Bruce has always read Trump for the filth he is (otherwise known as accurately describing the baby-fisted man). We’re now one year in to Trump 2.0 (shudder), and with each new heinous low, Bruce has been vocal in opposition. While this administration endlessly screeches “Believe what we tell you, not what you see!”, Bruce plainly and loudly confirms that we know what we’re seeing is real, and that it’s criminal, cruel, and grounds for impeachment and/or use of the 25th Amendment. With all due respect to John Rzeznik, it matters that people with wide, diverse audiences speak up now; they potentially have the greatest power to get fans to listen.
On an entirely different note (music pun!), elsewhere during this concert, Bruce went on a little tangent to vehemently deny that he’s a billionaire. I participated in the spreading of that news — I’m sorry, Bruce! I thought I could trust Forbes! But really, I’m not super mathily inclined, but either Forbes needs to talk to their reporters or Bruce with his business managers, cause something’s not adding up.
photos credit: Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon, Getty and via Instagram
I love him so much! He has been speaking out and speaking up forever.
Forever! And the hilarious thing is that Born in the USA has been misunderstood for just as long.
Forever the Boss.