Bruce Springsteen succinctly summarized his new documentary: “That’s how the sausage is made.”
The legendary rock musician from New Jersey made his TIFF debut on Sunday night with Road Diary: of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (the concert will premiere on Hulu on October 25). Zimny’s 14th film with Springsteen, other than 40 music videos, presents the band’s 2023-2024 world tour and reemergence on the road after the 2018-2019 run and showcases The Boss in command.
Springsteen’s account of narrating the show and how he rehearses his band is followed by the set list that plays the hits but also tells a story about age and mortality: “Last Man Standing,” from “Letter to You” released in 2020 being the only member of the first band that he is still alive.
The show “Road Diary” also states that Patti Scialfa, Springsteen’s wife and a member of the E Street Band, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2018, and due to the rare form of blood cancer, she can perform only a few songs at a concert once in a while. Then they perform together, singing ‘Fire’ and then performing a love scene, singing it as singers entangled in each other’s arms. She uses voice-over to comment that it shows a side of the relationship that people do not get to see, and she was sharing it with Springsteen.
During a Q&A session with the audience after the film was screened, Springsteen said: “We have the only job in the world where the people you went to high school with, at 75, you’re still with those people”. Producer Jon Landau, who has been working with Springsteen for half a century, stated that the movie reveals an essential aspect of the man and his band that helped them remain vigorous.
Following his 2019 album/film project Western Stars and his New York solo residency Springsteen on Broadway, Springsteen returned to band mode with ‘Letter to You’ and the current world tour detailed in Road Diary.
“I give everything I do my whole attention. But the band is the band,” Springsteen said. We’ve been promising for a long time. You are risking yourself during those nights out on stage because that is what you’re doing. You are coming out and talking to people about the things that matter the most to you. You are leaving yourself wide open – you’re not alone.
