Close Encounters Of The Bruce Kind

“I was heading over to Grafton St. to go busking. The bus from Ballymun drops off on Parnell Square, so I had to walk past the Gresham Hotel where this pink Cadillac was parked. Having never seen an American car close up before, I stopped for a look and bumped into this dude – I had me guitar on me back – and he said, ‘Sorry!’ and it was Bruce. It was fucking amazing. He was in town for Slane, which we went to the next day and I’ve been an obsessive fan ever since!”

Glen Hansard is recalling his first meeting with Bruce Springsteen in August, 1985. There was no reason to think it then, but the pair have subsequently become close friends and confidantes. Talking to Hot Press earlier this year, Glen explained how The Boss had helped him come to terms with his Oscar-winning success: “He said something really great to me – ‘For the past 20 years you’ve been a guy in a band, a guy on the street, you’ve been working your way up, you against the world… That guy has just died! The guy you’ve always been, the only guy you had to turn to, is now dead and you’re wearing a new suit. You’re mourning the passing of your old self. Don’t worry about it – take some time to adjust’. He was absolutely right.”
Their paths crossed again last week, when Glen re-configured his European tour in order to make the RDS.
“There’s no way you can miss Bruce in Dublin,” he laughs. “We changed our travel plans and flew in on Tuesday, caught the show and flew out again at 5am the following morning. I’d love to have stayed for the second gig, which I’m told was completely different and probably better, but we had a festival in Bologna to play.”
Did he hear about the sneeze-related incident, which led to his pal Jake Clemons taking to the stage the following night in a wheelchair?
“I was with Jake on Tuesday and everything was fine, and then, bang! His knees went as well as his back, so the poor guy was fucked and in a lot of pain. Bruce said a very interesting thing to Jake when he was considering having him in the band, which was: ‘Not only do you have to be as good as Clarence, but you’ve got to be as good as people’s memory of Clarence’. No pressure there! It’s kind of ironic about the wheelchair ‘cos it was his uncle who was in one when I met Jake for the first time in the RDS in July 2009. He was there really to be ready; it was touch-and-go whether Clarence would be able to complete the tour. Through some superhuman effort he managed it, but he didn’t look at all well.”
What’s the atmosphere like behind the scenes at a Boss show?
“Very relaxed,” he reveals. “The first time I met Bruce, I was talking to him five minutes before stage. Mid-sentence he suddenly remembers where he is and says, ‘Oh, I’d better go on!’ There are a lot of bands that get super uptight and hide themselves away, but nothing phases Bruce or the guys. Steve Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren are amazing characters and stars in their own right too.”
If Glen had fears about Jake rising to the E Street Band challenge, they evaporated the minute ‘Twist & Shout’ came out of the Showgrounds’ PA last week.
“Bruce was really cautious about taking Jake on and put him through the wringer in terms of telling him, ‘I don’t want you to be learning as we go along. I want you to be as good as you can be on every fucking song’. And Jake’s risen to that. He’s had a cut on his lip for four of five months, which hasn’t healed because he’s been playing sax non-stop. Nephew or not, he wouldn’t have got the gig unless he was 100% up to it.”
Sat there the following morning at Dublin Airport waiting for his flight to Bologna, Glen tweeted: “Bruce Springsteen in Dublin. The best show I’ve EVER seen! There’s no-one on the planet who sings or gives as much.” Anything to add to those 140 characters?
“Lots! Apart from the fact he’s physically and mentally an extraordinarily strong man, he has that elixir of life thing where he basically gives himself over to the audience. He’s not afraid of being completely cheesy, he’s not afraid of being heroic. He puts himself and his ego out of the equation and becomes a man of the people. That’s what gives him that relentless energy to keep going. There’s no one on this earth who can do that except, in a very different way, Leonard Cohen.”
What struck me at the RDS was: whether mocking Westminister Council with a bit of slapstick or paying tribute to Clarence, Bruce always instinctively gets it right.
“Absolutely,” he nods. “The beautiful pause during ‘10th Avenue Freeze Out’ and the band waiting for the crowd to clap and cheer… it was euphoric without being overly sentimental, which is how you suspect Clarence would’ve wanted it.”
I’m sure it changes every day, but what’s his favourite Bruce song?
“‘Spirit In The Night’ was immense last week – Thin Lizzy obviously listened to him because ‘Dancing In The Moonlight’ is literally the same riff. ‘Sandy’ from The Wild, The innocent & The E Street Band Shuffle is another favourite; ‘Jack Of All Trades’ from the new record’s a fucking great song as is ‘Devils & Dust’ but it’s ‘Drive All Night’ that I keep going to. When Jake toured with The Swell Season, we played ‘Drive It All Night’ every gig and joked that one day we’d do it with Bruce... perhaps we will!”
Is Glen still mad at himself for blowing a previous opportunity to jam with The Boss?
“Oh, man!” he rues. “Both of us were doing separate gigs at SXSW in Texas this year, which happened to coincide with my dad’s anniversary. I sang ‘The Parting Glass’ for him and, well, rule number one: never order a whisky from the stage with a few hundred people in the room ‘cos they’re all very kind and seven or eight of ‘em are going to oblige. I ended up getting drunk by accident, and at Bruce’s show was passed out in my seat when he texted and said, ‘Do you want to come up and sing ‘This Land Is Your Land’ at the end?’ I felt a right fucking gobshite later when I saw the message!”

Glen Hansard’s Rhythm & Repose gets a live Electric Picnic airing on September 2.