{"id":84414,"date":"2023-02-07T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-07T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=84414"},"modified":"2023-02-06T19:51:08","modified_gmt":"2023-02-07T01:51:08","slug":"when-the-breakdown-hit-at-midnight-there-was-nothing-left-to-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=84414","title":{"rendered":"When The Breakdown Hit At Midnight There Was Nothing Left To Say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Backstreets <\/em>magazine, which has been covering all things Springsteen and setting the standard for high-music fanzines since 1980, is going out for a ride and not coming back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like so much in modern music, it&#8217;s Ticketmaster&#8217;s fault:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>If you read the editorial Backstreets published last summer in the aftermath of the U.S. ticket sales, you have a sense of where our heads and hearts have been: dispirited, downhearted, and, yes, disillusioned. It&#8217;s not a feeling we&#8217;re at all accustomed to while anticipating a new Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band tour. If you haven&#8217;t yet read that editorial (<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.backstreets.com\/newsarchive120.html#freezeout\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Freeze-out,&#8221; July 24, 2022<\/a>), or the crux of&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/backstreetsmag\/status\/1593679098013835264\" target=\"_blank\">Springsteen&#8217;s response to&nbsp;<em>Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a>&nbsp;in November, we encourage you to do so; we don&#8217;t want to rehash those issues, but we stand behind our positions and points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;re not alone in struggling with the sea change. Judging by the letters we&#8217;ve received over recent months, the friends and longtimers we&#8217;ve been checking in with, and the response to our editorial, disappointment is a common feeling among hardcore fans in the Backstreets community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Side note: loath as I am to either commend Senator Klobuchar for, well, anything, or to recommend anything from WNYC&#8217;s generally loathsome <em>On The Media<\/em>, this past week&#8217;s episode breaks down the history of Ticketmaster&#8217;s toxic impact on music.  Don&#8217;t tell anyone, but it&#8217;s worth a listen:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" height=\"130\" width=\"100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wnyc.org\/widgets\/ondemand_player\/otm\/#file=\/audio\/json\/1296087\/&amp;share=1\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>As to Springsteen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve seen him probably half a dozen times over the years.  I&#8217;m not sorry to say some of those shows were pivotal moments in my life &#8211; in some ways, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=44499\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"44499\">I wouldn&#8217;t be who or where I am today if I hadn&#8217;t been there<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While my interest in his music has waxed and waned over the years &#8211; his first two and 2-3 most recent albums are very good, most of his stuff since about 2005 sailed right past me, the records from his break from the E-Street Band (<em>Human Touch, Lucky Town <\/em>and <em>Ghost of Tom Joad) <\/em>were a swing and a miss, and the &#8220;Holy Trinity&#8221; (<em>Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town <\/em>and <em>The River), Nebraska, Tunnel of Love <\/em>and <em>The Rising <\/em>are as good as popular music gets, and in comparison <em>Born in the USA <\/em>is merely great &#8211; underneath it all i&#8217;ve been fascinating to watch how Springsteen has kept himself and his fans in a state of creative churn trying not to turn into a nostalgia act dragging a troupe of nostalgia act fans around the world.  And even though I might go ten years without enjoying (or buying) one of his records, for that, I&#8217;m grateful.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I&#8217;m not going to say I&#8217;m <em>not <\/em>going to keep an eye peeled for a much, much better price for next month&#8217;s shows at the X, for old times sake.   He won&#8217;t be touring forever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the extent to which even Bruce &#8211; who, 40 years ago, was gutting Big Scalper before there <em>was <\/em>a Pearl Jam &#8211; has been assimilated is&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;well, <em>Backstreets<\/em>&#8216;s op-ed calls it &#8216;disappointing&#8221;, and I can&#8217;t disagree.  Bruce sounds a lot like a politician in explaining his position, stuck between the most loyal fan base in music and Ticketmaster and Live Nation&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;You don&#39;t like to be criticized&quot;: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Springsteen?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Springsteen<\/a> addresses the cost to see the Boss with <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/greeneandy?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@greeneandy<\/a> for <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RollingStone?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@RollingStone<\/a>, including a direct response to our 7\/4\/22 &quot;Freeze-out&quot; editorial (<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/zbDygQpzwQ\">https:\/\/t.co\/zbDygQpzwQ<\/a>). Thoughts? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/OEH0jcEE7P\">https:\/\/t.co\/OEH0jcEE7P<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sI4WPda7WA\">pic.twitter.com\/sI4WPda7WA<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Backstreets Magazine (@backstreetsmag) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/backstreetsmag\/status\/1593679098013835264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 18, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;who are no less greedy and soulless a bunch of &#8220;bosses&#8221; as the musachioed villains in the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/We_Shall_Overcome:_The_Seeger_Sessions\">Pete Seeger songs Bruce memorialized<\/a> (checks notes) 17 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Disappointing.  I&#8217;ll stick with that.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Note:  Don&#8217;t like Bruce?  Take it up elsewhere.  Bruce hate will be culled without mercy or comment.  Take it up with JB Doubtless &#8211; if you can find him.   As the sage said, I&#8217;m still here, he&#8217;s all gone). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Backstreets magazine, which has been covering all things Springsteen and setting the standard for high-music fanzines since 1980, is going out for a ride and not coming back. Like so much in modern music, it&#8217;s Ticketmaster&#8217;s fault: If you read the editorial Backstreets published last summer in the aftermath of the U.S. ticket sales, you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[172],"class_list":["post-84414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-favorites","tag-springsteen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84414"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84428,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84414\/revisions\/84428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}