Hitting the shelves tomorrow, the Boss-tastic new issue of Hot Press contains a special Springsteen In Ireland feature going all the way back to Slane ’85, and drawing on archive interviews with Steve, Clarence, Patti, Jake and Bruce himself.
Our man Stuart Clark also spent a very convivial hour the other day conversing with Mr. Van Zandt who tells us: “This has been our best tour since the original River one. We're on fire and really looking forward to these Irish shows.
“The audiences in America have been the most enthusiastic I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if it’s because this particular album is most people’s favourite – I’m referring to the three million hardcore fans who bought The River as opposed to the 17 million who visited for Born In The USA – or whether they’re valuing living rock ‘n’ rollers more because of all these awful deaths. We literally started off this tour with ‘Rebel Rebel’, three days later did ‘Take It Easy’ and a couple of nights back covered ‘Purple Rain’. David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Prince, Lemmy… it’s just been a ridiculous year for our people.”
Amongst plenty of other E Street Band chatter, he reflects on Bruce’s decision to cancel their North Carolina gig because of the so-called bathroom law.
“It’s so annoying to be distracted by this ridiculous stuff that you would hope we are past, but we’re not,” he reflects. “Who’s the most vulnerable part of society that they can discriminate against? They find the gay and transgender people and it’s like, ‘Jesus Christ, when is this going to stop? When is it going to get into your thick, bigoted head that discrimination of any kind is un-American?”
While he’s a Hillary man, Steve says The Donald isn't the total right-wing ogre he appears to be.
"Trump is saying these things that he doesn't really mean to chime with his ridiculous Republican base who are 65% evangelicals,” he suggests. “I know him a little bit and he's a very practical guy in the end.”
Also up for discussion are his mentoring of the wonderful Darlene Love, Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Van Morrison, penis size, the new BANG! The Story Of Bert Berns documentary he’s narrating, current TV projects and his Dublin City 103.2 radio show which goes out every Saturday at 3pm.
If you're Croke Park-bound this weekend, you can't afford to be without it!