Social Distortion's Mike Ness joins Bruce Springsteen at Sports Arena

Bruce Springsteen is all about community -- in his songs and his actions. Besides giving publicity to local service organizations during concerts at each city he visits on tour -- in L.A., it's the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural & Bookstore -- the Boss often reaches out to the local music community as well.

At Wednesday's opening of his two-night stand at the venerable L.A. Sports Arena, Springsteen welcomed Tom Morello of the Nightwatchman, Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave for help with "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and Stephen Foster's "Hard Times." On Thursday he turned to one of the stalwarts of the Southland punk scene, Social Distortion singer and songwriter Mike Ness.

The two paired for Springsteen's post-9/11 anthem "The Rising" and Social D's standard "Bad Luck." "The crowd response when Mike came on stage was amazing," Social Distortion road manager Shane Trulin said Friday. "I think we all were pretty surprised."

Ness met Springsteen backstage at the Honda Center in Anaheim on his last swing through Southern California. Springsteen invited him to call when Ness' solo tour reached New Jersey and wound up joining Ness for four songs when his band played in Asbury Park.

So Ness was invited to return the favor when the Boss got back to L.A.

"It was one thing for him to come out and play four songs with the Mike Ness Band in Asbury Park," Ness said Friday. "But for me to do two songs with the E Street Band in front of his crowd, that's an entirely different thing."

Ness said it was Springsteen's choice to do "Bad Luck." "He likes to solo on that riff."

That was to be their only duet, but after rehearsal, as Springsteen thanked him and started to leave, Ness said, "I learned 'The Rising' last night!' " So into the set it went.

"What a nice group of guys -- every one of them -- including the crew," he said. "I'll never forget it."

Springsteen is not the first classic rocker to display his admiration for Orange County's punk torch-bearer. Neil Young tapped Ness & Co. to open for him nearly two decades ago on a tour that also placed him onstage at the Sports Arena.

 -- Randy Lewis

Photo by Christine Marie

It was no accident that on tax-reckoning day, the same day Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was holding a forum in downtown L.A. to address the Golden State's buckling economy, Bruce Springsteen put a decidedly California spin on his overarching musical message about holding onto hope even in the face of such hard times.

Springsteen invited local political firebrand Tom Morello, of Rage Against the Machine/the Nightwatchman fame, to join him on stage Wednesday at the first of two consecutive nights at the Los Angeles Sports Arena for a savage duet on "The Ghost of Tom Joad," the Boss' 1995 Steinbeck- inspired treatise on those who've been let down or forgotten in the promised land:

He pulls a prayer book out of his sleeping bag
Preacher lights up a butt and takes a drag
Waiting for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last
In a cardboard box 'neath the underpass

He and Morello traded impassioned verses, with E Street Band guitarists "Miami" Steve Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren ceding the spotlight to Morello for a rapid-fire solo that screamed outrage. During the encore segment, Morello returned for a choir-like reading of Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More."

Springsteen might have stumped for Barack Obama and played at the White House following his election, but he knows that systemic change doesn't happen overnight and that hope remains a fragile thing in troubled times.

Rifling through his ever-expanding songbook, he stitched together a set focused less on promoting his latest album, “Working on a Dream,” than on shoring up hope while acknowledging how much work still needs to be done to fulfill the American dream.

"We're here with a mighty purpose in mind!" the 59-year-old Jerseyite told a sea of cheering onlookers after the first handful of songs. "We're gonna rock the house! But we're not only going to rock the house, we're going to build a house. We're going to take fear and build a house of love; we're going to take sadness and build a house of joy; we're going to take doubt and build a house of faith; we're going to take despair and build a house of hope."

As he and the E Street Band kick off a world tour, the troubadour for troubled times reflects on where he’s been and where he’s headed.

"There are a lot of ghosts in this place," Bruce Springsteen said as his boots clomped on an ancient staircase at the Asbury Park Convention Hall. It was here in this old seaside venue that Springsteen, as a teenager, watched Jim Morrison prowl the stage and Keith Moon thunder away on drums for the Who. It was also in the corridors here that he brushed past a wild-child named Janis Joplin. "Our elbows, they came this close," said Springsteen, somehow still amazed that a Jersey kid could come within arm's reach of rock history.

Unlike those lost icons, Springsteen was built for the long haul. He will turn 60 in September, and he'll do so while on the road with the E Street Band supporting their latest album, "Working on a Dream." The world tour (which comes to the Los Angeles Sports Arena on April 15 and 16) officially began Wednesday in San Jose, but it was in late March, here at this creaky boardwalk venue, that Springsteen began working on "the conversation" of the concert tour, as he calls it, trying out the new songs in front of a live audience for the first time.

On a blustery Monday afternoon, just hours before the first of two charity shows, Springsteen arrived at the venue with a 155-year-old surprise for his bandmates. During sound check he told the singers in the group to line up along the lip of the stage and, looking down at the lyrics, Springsteen coached them through a late addition to their opening-night lineup, a Civil War-era lament by Stephen Foster called "Hard Times Come Again No More":

It's a song that the wind blows across the troubled wave

It's a cry that is heard along the shore.

It's the words that are whispered beside the lowly grave

When hard times will come again no more.

It's a song and a sigh of the weary.

Hard times, hard times, come again no more.

Guitars, like their owners, aren’t immortal, which is one reason why Eric Clapton decided to donate his celebrated “Blackie” Fender Stratocaster for a charity auction five years ago. (It fetched just under a cool $1 million.) Years on the road and in the studio had taken its toll, he said, so it was time to move on.

Bruce Springsteen, the subject of a Sunday Calendar profile, may be feeling the same way about his most famous Telecaster, the one he’s holding on to on the cover of the “Born to Run” album, which was fairly road-tested when that album came out 34 years ago. The Boss recently started exploring the idea of getting a clone to take on tour so the original doesn’t suffer further abuse, asking the folks at Fender’s Custom Shop about building him a doppelganger.

One of the Custom Shop’s innovations has been its Tribute series of replica guitars, which are copies of famous instruments duplicated down to the nick, scuff, scratch and cigarette stain. Currently the company has an Andy Summers Telecaster and a Rory Gallagher Strat copied from those players’ own guitars. They’ve also mirrored guitars played by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Clapton and other guitar heroes.

After Springsteen expressed interest in a copy of his signature Tele, Custom Shop marketing director Mike Eldred suggested a limited run of the iconic guitar, with maybe 100 instruments from which proceeds could be donated to the charity of Springsteen’s choice.

“He sent us a note back, saying, ‘That sounds like about 99 too many,' ” Eldred said recently. They’re still awaiting word on whether the Boss wants to move forward with just the one. In any case, fans may never know if he ever does get one, since the copies are virtually indistinguishable from the original. That one is currently on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland as part of a Springsteen exhibit, where you can look, but you'd better not touch.

— Randy Lewis

UPDATE: An earlier version stated that Springsteen has the "Born To Run" Telecaster with him on his current tour. It is on loan to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for an exhibit that opened this week. 

Sure, we're deep into a miserable economy that has already taken down one music festival so far this year, and yes, well-known ticketing agencies are merging to create one giant behemoth specially designed to swallow your entire paycheck in new and innovative ways, but a hot ticket is still a hot commodity in 2009, lest you forget. 

Case in point?

How about the upcoming Flight of the Conchords gig at the Greek Theatre. Tickets just went on sale Saturday and will likely sell out today. “There are about 95 tickets left,” says Janette Baxa, director of publicity for Nederlander Concerts. 

Baxa also mentioned that the second night, April 16, of Bruce Springsteen’s two-night stand at the Memorial Sports Arena is now selling well after brisk sales of the April 15 engagement over the weekend. (Nederlander is helping out Live Nation for the back-to-back Bruce dates this spring.)

Live Nation's SoCal director of publicity, Greg Terlizzi, confirms that the Springsteen shows are nearly sold out. "The 4/15 [show] is sold out with exception of single tickets," he said today, adding that the April 16 show is "over 90% sold."

Procrastinators, purchase thy tickets now ... or prepare to pay the hefty price later (or perhaps sooner, according to a lawsuit recently filed in Canada).

-- Charlie Amter
Photo: Flight of the Conchords. Credit: Craig Blankenhorn / HBO

Bruce Springsteen has posted a letter of apology his camp has received from Irving Azoff, the CEO of Ticketmaster. It concerns last week's incident in which many fans were unable to log on to Ticketmaster when tickets to some 2009 tour dates went on sale, but were quickly redirected to Ticketmaster's resale site, TicketsNow, where tickets to those shows were being sold at a steep markup.

Springsteen and his management posted their response on his website, calling the relationship between Ticketmaster and TicketsNow "a pure conflict of interest." Complaints from more than 250 fans have prompted the New Jersey attorney general's office to launch an investigation.

"Consumers are questioning what transpired and if they had an equal opportunity to purchase these concert tickets. We share these concerns and are investigating this matter," Atty. Gen. Anne Milgram said.

Azoff has now issued an open letter of apology to Springsteen and his fans, saying that the ticket service "was trying to do the right thing" but "we clearly missed the mark." As a result, Azoff's letter states that "we will never again link to TicketsNow in a manner that can possibly create any confusion during a high-demand on-sale."

The full letter:

The National Football League announced in September that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band would provide the halftime entertainment at today's Super Bowl. Last week, Springsteen released an album that surely warmed the hearts of NFL and NBC execs. His "Working on a Dream" is largely an upbeat and positive pop record -- one without any deep political implications and plenty of PG-safe proclamations of love.

In the post Nipplegate-era of halftime entertainment, that's just the way the NFL likes it. No risks, no surprises and nothing that's going to slow the momentum of one of the biggest rah-rah moments on American television. Oh, and keep the new stuff to a minimum.

Springsteen got in a couple verses of the title track off his album, but it was straight into "Glory Days" just as the crowd was warming up to the cut's gospel groove. When you have 12 minutes, better go keep them wanting more, especially when dabbling with the unfamiliar.

It was apparent that Springsteen and the E Street Band -- introduced as "booty-shaking" in a pre-taped reel of NFL personalities -- understood the game from the moment the performance started. "Step back from the guacamole dip," Springsteen yelled through gritted teeth. He then followed it up with this impassioned order: "Put! The! Chicken! Fingers! Doooowwwwwwwn!"

Love him or hate him, is this what we want from one of our most celebrated songwriters? Springsteen's always been at the very least an artist who's unafraid to tackle big topics. He shouldn't be faulted for trying to drum up some excitement for his new album, but is it necessary for him to have to deliver jokes for the NFL to do so?

Bruce Springsteen is the quintessential album-era rock star. Hear me out, ye who would argue Beatles-Dylan-Marvin-Brian Wilson-Who-Pink Floyd-Stones: Those artists might have made superior individual efforts, but none has used the long-player form itself more powerfully over the arc of a long career, not only to establish a world through song, but to inhabit an enduring persona.

A string of hit singles alone wouldn't have made Springsteen the bard of America's slide from industrial-era swagger into service economy anomie. He needed the track-by-track architecture of albums to flesh out characters, relate each to the other, extend metaphors to express what they could say and build a palpable, detail-strewn landscape through which they could travel.

The album format also has allowed Springsteen to build a sound, both with his stalwart E Street Band (a metaphor itself for the family connections and community spirit his songs celebrate or lament) or in more minimalist projects. Three is the magic number throughout this Catholic boy's huge oeuvre -- classic rock romanticism meets big band congeniality meets troubadour folk lyricism and is transfigured.

On his greatest albums, Springsteen rode the energies of these different styles through peaks and valleys, aurally encapsulating late 20th century Americana with a rain shower of guitars and a howlin' whoop.

Show Tracker brings us the following item:

A slew of A-list talent has signed on to kick off next week’s presidential inauguration festivities. The official organizing committee announced today that “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial,” which will air Sunday on HBO, will feature performances from the likes of Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Josh Groban, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am and Stevie Wonder.

Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington will read historical passages at the two-hour free event. HBO will televise the celebration at 7 p.m. on an open signal, so it will be accessible to anyone with cable or satellite television.

"This is a great opportunity to capture an historic event in a very meaningful setting," said producer and director Don Mischer, whose past credits include the Olympic ceremonies and Super Bowl halftime shows. "We will have the statue of Abraham Lincoln looking down on our stage and a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people lining the mall -- a tableau any director would relish."

-- Matea Gold

(Photo courtesy AP)

Possibly the single most telling thing about this sweetly uplifting first offering and title track from Bruce Springsteen's new album, due Jan. 27, isn't the reality-rooted optimism of the lyrics or even the stately, sweeping classic rock music, but a brief musical interlude between verses.

What would typically offer room for a scorching guitar solo or blistering sax contribution from Clarence Clemons instead has a passage that is whistled. When was the last time life in these United States gave Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band reason to whistle?

    The sunrise come, I climb the ladder
    The new day breaks and I'm working on a dream

Not surprisingly, the new-day-dawning number was introduced to the public during a Barack Obama rally just before the election. (The recording by the Super Bowl-bound rocker got a partial airing on Nov. 16 during the broadcast of an NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins, as part of a halftime highlights package, and it's also available as a free download today, Nov. 24, at Springsteen's web site.)

When he reaches that verse, more than halfway through the chiming rock tune, it's the most chipper he's sounded in ages. But in the lead-up to it, telegraphed musically by those always heart-rending suspended-fourth chords that open the track, Springsteen acknowledges the struggle that won't magically disappear even with a new leader, even when it's one of whom he approves.

There isn't any overt political bent to the song, but the celebratory message is hard to miss. Brendan O'Brien's ringing production is refreshingly clear, especially on the heels of the distressing sonic muddiness that seriously compromised the appeal of last year's "Magic" album, which O'Brien also produced.

     I'm working on a dream
    Though trouble can feel like it's here to stay
    I'm working on a dream
    Our love will chase the trouble away

Springsteen sounds a hopeful note, for his fans, and Americans in general.

--Randy Lewis

Bruce Springsteen
"Working on a Dream"
Columbia
*** (3 stars)

Photo: Associated Press

Bruce Springsteen returns to Los Angeles with a 'Dream' tour*

It was no accident that on tax-reckoning day, the same day Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was holding a forum in downtown L.A. to address the Golden State's buckling economy, Bruce Springsteen put a decidedly California spin on his overarching musical message about holding onto hope even in the face of such hard times.

Springsteen invited local political firebrand Tom Morello, of Rage Against the Machine/the Nightwatchman fame, to join him on stage Wednesday at the first of two consecutive nights at the Los Angeles Sports Arena for a savage duet on "The Ghost of Tom Joad," the Boss' 1995 Steinbeck- inspired treatise on those who've been let down or forgotten in the promised land:

He pulls a prayer book out of his sleeping bag
Preacher lights up a butt and takes a drag
Waiting for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last
In a cardboard box 'neath the underpass

He and Morello traded impassioned verses, with E Street Band guitarists "Miami" Steve Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren ceding the spotlight to Morello for a rapid-fire solo that screamed outrage. During the encore segment, Morello returned for a choir-like reading of Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More."

Springsteen might have stumped for Barack Obama and played at the White House following his election, but he knows that systemic change doesn't happen overnight and that hope remains a fragile thing in troubled times.

Rifling through his ever-expanding songbook, he stitched together a set focused less on promoting his latest album, “Working on a Dream,” than on shoring up hope while acknowledging how much work still needs to be done to fulfill the American dream.

"We're here with a mighty purpose in mind!" the 59-year-old Jerseyite told a sea of cheering onlookers after the first handful of songs. "We're gonna rock the house! But we're not only going to rock the house, we're going to build a house. We're going to take fear and build a house of love; we're going to take sadness and build a house of joy; we're going to take doubt and build a house of faith; we're going to take despair and build a house of hope."

As he and the E Street Band kick off a world tour, the troubadour for troubled times reflects on where he’s been and where he’s headed.

"There are a lot of ghosts in this place," Bruce Springsteen said as his boots clomped on an ancient staircase at the Asbury Park Convention Hall. It was here in this old seaside venue that Springsteen, as a teenager, watched Jim Morrison prowl the stage and Keith Moon thunder away on drums for the Who. It was also in the corridors here that he brushed past a wild-child named Janis Joplin. "Our elbows, they came this close," said Springsteen, somehow still amazed that a Jersey kid could come within arm's reach of rock history.

Unlike those lost icons, Springsteen was built for the long haul. He will turn 60 in September, and he'll do so while on the road with the E Street Band supporting their latest album, "Working on a Dream." The world tour (which comes to the Los Angeles Sports Arena on April 15 and 16) officially began Wednesday in San Jose, but it was in late March, here at this creaky boardwalk venue, that Springsteen began working on "the conversation" of the concert tour, as he calls it, trying out the new songs in front of a live audience for the first time.

On a blustery Monday afternoon, just hours before the first of two charity shows, Springsteen arrived at the venue with a 155-year-old surprise for his bandmates. During sound check he told the singers in the group to line up along the lip of the stage and, looking down at the lyrics, Springsteen coached them through a late addition to their opening-night lineup, a Civil War-era lament by Stephen Foster called "Hard Times Come Again No More":

It's a song that the wind blows across the troubled wave

It's a cry that is heard along the shore.

It's the words that are whispered beside the lowly grave

When hard times will come again no more.

It's a song and a sigh of the weary.

Hard times, hard times, come again no more.

Guitars, like their owners, aren’t immortal, which is one reason why Eric Clapton decided to donate his celebrated “Blackie” Fender Stratocaster for a charity auction five years ago. (It fetched just under a cool $1 million.) Years on the road and in the studio had taken its toll, he said, so it was time to move on.

Bruce Springsteen, the subject of a Sunday Calendar profile, may be feeling the same way about his most famous Telecaster, the one he’s holding on to on the cover of the “Born to Run” album, which was fairly road-tested when that album came out 34 years ago. The Boss recently started exploring the idea of getting a clone to take on tour so the original doesn’t suffer further abuse, asking the folks at Fender’s Custom Shop about building him a doppelganger.

One of the Custom Shop’s innovations has been its Tribute series of replica guitars, which are copies of famous instruments duplicated down to the nick, scuff, scratch and cigarette stain. Currently the company has an Andy Summers Telecaster and a Rory Gallagher Strat copied from those players’ own guitars. They’ve also mirrored guitars played by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Clapton and other guitar heroes.

After Springsteen expressed interest in a copy of his signature Tele, Custom Shop marketing director Mike Eldred suggested a limited run of the iconic guitar, with maybe 100 instruments from which proceeds could be donated to the charity of Springsteen’s choice.

“He sent us a note back, saying, ‘That sounds like about 99 too many,' ” Eldred said recently. They’re still awaiting word on whether the Boss wants to move forward with just the one. In any case, fans may never know if he ever does get one, since the copies are virtually indistinguishable from the original. That one is currently on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland as part of a Springsteen exhibit, where you can look, but you'd better not touch.

— Randy Lewis

UPDATE: An earlier version stated that Springsteen has the "Born To Run" Telecaster with him on his current tour. It is on loan to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for an exhibit that opened this week. 

Sure, we're deep into a miserable economy that has already taken down one music festival so far this year, and yes, well-known ticketing agencies are merging to create one giant behemoth specially designed to swallow your entire paycheck in new and innovative ways, but a hot ticket is still a hot commodity in 2009, lest you forget. 

Case in point?

How about the upcoming Flight of the Conchords gig at the Greek Theatre. Tickets just went on sale Saturday and will likely sell out today. “There are about 95 tickets left,” says Janette Baxa, director of publicity for Nederlander Concerts. 

Baxa also mentioned that the second night, April 16, of Bruce Springsteen’s two-night stand at the Memorial Sports Arena is now selling well after brisk sales of the April 15 engagement over the weekend. (Nederlander is helping out Live Nation for the back-to-back Bruce dates this spring.)

Live Nation's SoCal director of publicity, Greg Terlizzi, confirms that the Springsteen shows are nearly sold out. "The 4/15 [show] is sold out with exception of single tickets," he said today, adding that the April 16 show is "over 90% sold."

Procrastinators, purchase thy tickets now ... or prepare to pay the hefty price later (or perhaps sooner, according to a lawsuit recently filed in Canada).

-- Charlie Amter
Photo: Flight of the Conchords. Credit: Craig Blankenhorn / HBO

Bruce Springsteen has posted a letter of apology his camp has received from Irving Azoff, the CEO of Ticketmaster. It concerns last week's incident in which many fans were unable to log on to Ticketmaster when tickets to some 2009 tour dates went on sale, but were quickly redirected to Ticketmaster's resale site, TicketsNow, where tickets to those shows were being sold at a steep markup.

Springsteen and his management posted their response on his website, calling the relationship between Ticketmaster and TicketsNow "a pure conflict of interest." Complaints from more than 250 fans have prompted the New Jersey attorney general's office to launch an investigation.

"Consumers are questioning what transpired and if they had an equal opportunity to purchase these concert tickets. We share these concerns and are investigating this matter," Atty. Gen. Anne Milgram said.

Azoff has now issued an open letter of apology to Springsteen and his fans, saying that the ticket service "was trying to do the right thing" but "we clearly missed the mark." As a result, Azoff's letter states that "we will never again link to TicketsNow in a manner that can possibly create any confusion during a high-demand on-sale."

The full letter:

The National Football League announced in September that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band would provide the halftime entertainment at today's Super Bowl. Last week, Springsteen released an album that surely warmed the hearts of NFL and NBC execs. His "Working on a Dream" is largely an upbeat and positive pop record -- one without any deep political implications and plenty of PG-safe proclamations of love.

In the post Nipplegate-era of halftime entertainment, that's just the way the NFL likes it. No risks, no surprises and nothing that's going to slow the momentum of one of the biggest rah-rah moments on American television. Oh, and keep the new stuff to a minimum.

Springsteen got in a couple verses of the title track off his album, but it was straight into "Glory Days" just as the crowd was warming up to the cut's gospel groove. When you have 12 minutes, better go keep them wanting more, especially when dabbling with the unfamiliar.

It was apparent that Springsteen and the E Street Band -- introduced as "booty-shaking" in a pre-taped reel of NFL personalities -- understood the game from the moment the performance started. "Step back from the guacamole dip," Springsteen yelled through gritted teeth. He then followed it up with this impassioned order: "Put! The! Chicken! Fingers! Doooowwwwwwwn!"

Love him or hate him, is this what we want from one of our most celebrated songwriters? Springsteen's always been at the very least an artist who's unafraid to tackle big topics. He shouldn't be faulted for trying to drum up some excitement for his new album, but is it necessary for him to have to deliver jokes for the NFL to do so?

Bruce Springsteen is the quintessential album-era rock star. Hear me out, ye who would argue Beatles-Dylan-Marvin-Brian Wilson-Who-Pink Floyd-Stones: Those artists might have made superior individual efforts, but none has used the long-player form itself more powerfully over the arc of a long career, not only to establish a world through song, but to inhabit an enduring persona.

A string of hit singles alone wouldn't have made Springsteen the bard of America's slide from industrial-era swagger into service economy anomie. He needed the track-by-track architecture of albums to flesh out characters, relate each to the other, extend metaphors to express what they could say and build a palpable, detail-strewn landscape through which they could travel.

The album format also has allowed Springsteen to build a sound, both with his stalwart E Street Band (a metaphor itself for the family connections and community spirit his songs celebrate or lament) or in more minimalist projects. Three is the magic number throughout this Catholic boy's huge oeuvre -- classic rock romanticism meets big band congeniality meets troubadour folk lyricism and is transfigured.

On his greatest albums, Springsteen rode the energies of these different styles through peaks and valleys, aurally encapsulating late 20th century Americana with a rain shower of guitars and a howlin' whoop.

Show Tracker brings us the following item:

A slew of A-list talent has signed on to kick off next week’s presidential inauguration festivities. The official organizing committee announced today that “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial,” which will air Sunday on HBO, will feature performances from the likes of Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Josh Groban, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am and Stevie Wonder.

Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington will read historical passages at the two-hour free event. HBO will televise the celebration at 7 p.m. on an open signal, so it will be accessible to anyone with cable or satellite television.

"This is a great opportunity to capture an historic event in a very meaningful setting," said producer and director Don Mischer, whose past credits include the Olympic ceremonies and Super Bowl halftime shows. "We will have the statue of Abraham Lincoln looking down on our stage and a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people lining the mall -- a tableau any director would relish."

-- Matea Gold

(Photo courtesy AP)

Possibly the single most telling thing about this sweetly uplifting first offering and title track from Bruce Springsteen's new album, due Jan. 27, isn't the reality-rooted optimism of the lyrics or even the stately, sweeping classic rock music, but a brief musical interlude between verses.

What would typically offer room for a scorching guitar solo or blistering sax contribution from Clarence Clemons instead has a passage that is whistled. When was the last time life in these United States gave Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band reason to whistle?

    The sunrise come, I climb the ladder
    The new day breaks and I'm working on a dream

Not surprisingly, the new-day-dawning number was introduced to the public during a Barack Obama rally just before the election. (The recording by the Super Bowl-bound rocker got a partial airing on Nov. 16 during the broadcast of an NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins, as part of a halftime highlights package, and it's also available as a free download today, Nov. 24, at Springsteen's web site.)

When he reaches that verse, more than halfway through the chiming rock tune, it's the most chipper he's sounded in ages. But in the lead-up to it, telegraphed musically by those always heart-rending suspended-fourth chords that open the track, Springsteen acknowledges the struggle that won't magically disappear even with a new leader, even when it's one of whom he approves.

There isn't any overt political bent to the song, but the celebratory message is hard to miss. Brendan O'Brien's ringing production is refreshingly clear, especially on the heels of the distressing sonic muddiness that seriously compromised the appeal of last year's "Magic" album, which O'Brien also produced.

     I'm working on a dream
    Though trouble can feel like it's here to stay
    I'm working on a dream
    Our love will chase the trouble away

Springsteen sounds a hopeful note, for his fans, and Americans in general.

--Randy Lewis

Bruce Springsteen
"Working on a Dream"
Columbia
*** (3 stars)

Photo: Associated Press

Bruce Springsteen, tour 2009: working on a dream

As he and the E Street Band kick off a world tour, the troubadour for troubled times reflects on where he’s been and where he’s headed.

"There are a lot of ghosts in this place," Bruce Springsteen said as his boots clomped on an ancient staircase at the Asbury Park Convention Hall. It was here in this old seaside venue that Springsteen, as a teenager, watched Jim Morrison prowl the stage and Keith Moon thunder away on drums for the Who. It was also in the corridors here that he brushed past a wild-child named Janis Joplin. "Our elbows, they came this close," said Springsteen, somehow still amazed that a Jersey kid could come within arm's reach of rock history.

Unlike those lost icons, Springsteen was built for the long haul. He will turn 60 in September, and he'll do so while on the road with the E Street Band supporting their latest album, "Working on a Dream." The world tour (which comes to the Los Angeles Sports Arena on April 15 and 16) officially began Wednesday in San Jose, but it was in late March, here at this creaky boardwalk venue, that Springsteen began working on "the conversation" of the concert tour, as he calls it, trying out the new songs in front of a live audience for the first time.

On a blustery Monday afternoon, just hours before the first of two charity shows, Springsteen arrived at the venue with a 155-year-old surprise for his bandmates. During sound check he told the singers in the group to line up along the lip of the stage and, looking down at the lyrics, Springsteen coached them through a late addition to their opening-night lineup, a Civil War-era lament by Stephen Foster called "Hard Times Come Again No More":

It's a song that the wind blows across the troubled wave

It's a cry that is heard along the shore.

It's the words that are whispered beside the lowly grave

When hard times will come again no more.

It's a song and a sigh of the weary.

Hard times, hard times, come again no more.

Guitars, like their owners, aren’t immortal, which is one reason why Eric Clapton decided to donate his celebrated “Blackie” Fender Stratocaster for a charity auction five years ago. (It fetched just under a cool $1 million.) Years on the road and in the studio had taken its toll, he said, so it was time to move on.

Bruce Springsteen, the subject of a Sunday Calendar profile, may be feeling the same way about his most famous Telecaster, the one he’s holding on to on the cover of the “Born to Run” album, which was fairly road-tested when that album came out 34 years ago. The Boss recently started exploring the idea of getting a clone to take on tour so the original doesn’t suffer further abuse, asking the folks at Fender’s Custom Shop about building him a doppelganger.

One of the Custom Shop’s innovations has been its Tribute series of replica guitars, which are copies of famous instruments duplicated down to the nick, scuff, scratch and cigarette stain. Currently the company has an Andy Summers Telecaster and a Rory Gallagher Strat copied from those players’ own guitars. They’ve also mirrored guitars played by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Clapton and other guitar heroes.

After Springsteen expressed interest in a copy of his signature Tele, Custom Shop marketing director Mike Eldred suggested a limited run of the iconic guitar, with maybe 100 instruments from which proceeds could be donated to the charity of Springsteen’s choice.

“He sent us a note back, saying, ‘That sounds like about 99 too many,' ” Eldred said recently. They’re still awaiting word on whether the Boss wants to move forward with just the one. In any case, fans may never know if he ever does get one, since the copies are virtually indistinguishable from the original. That one is currently on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland as part of a Springsteen exhibit, where you can look, but you'd better not touch.

— Randy Lewis

UPDATE: An earlier version stated that Springsteen has the "Born To Run" Telecaster with him on his current tour. It is on loan to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for an exhibit that opened this week. 

Sure, we're deep into a miserable economy that has already taken down one music festival so far this year, and yes, well-known ticketing agencies are merging to create one giant behemoth specially designed to swallow your entire paycheck in new and innovative ways, but a hot ticket is still a hot commodity in 2009, lest you forget. 

Case in point?

How about the upcoming Flight of the Conchords gig at the Greek Theatre. Tickets just went on sale Saturday and will likely sell out today. “There are about 95 tickets left,” says Janette Baxa, director of publicity for Nederlander Concerts. 

Baxa also mentioned that the second night, April 16, of Bruce Springsteen’s two-night stand at the Memorial Sports Arena is now selling well after brisk sales of the April 15 engagement over the weekend. (Nederlander is helping out Live Nation for the back-to-back Bruce dates this spring.)

Live Nation's SoCal director of publicity, Greg Terlizzi, confirms that the Springsteen shows are nearly sold out. "The 4/15 [show] is sold out with exception of single tickets," he said today, adding that the April 16 show is "over 90% sold."

Procrastinators, purchase thy tickets now ... or prepare to pay the hefty price later (or perhaps sooner, according to a lawsuit recently filed in Canada).

-- Charlie Amter
Photo: Flight of the Conchords. Credit: Craig Blankenhorn / HBO

Bruce Springsteen has posted a letter of apology his camp has received from Irving Azoff, the CEO of Ticketmaster. It concerns last week's incident in which many fans were unable to log on to Ticketmaster when tickets to some 2009 tour dates went on sale, but were quickly redirected to Ticketmaster's resale site, TicketsNow, where tickets to those shows were being sold at a steep markup.

Springsteen and his management posted their response on his website, calling the relationship between Ticketmaster and TicketsNow "a pure conflict of interest." Complaints from more than 250 fans have prompted the New Jersey attorney general's office to launch an investigation.

"Consumers are questioning what transpired and if they had an equal opportunity to purchase these concert tickets. We share these concerns and are investigating this matter," Atty. Gen. Anne Milgram said.

Azoff has now issued an open letter of apology to Springsteen and his fans, saying that the ticket service "was trying to do the right thing" but "we clearly missed the mark." As a result, Azoff's letter states that "we will never again link to TicketsNow in a manner that can possibly create any confusion during a high-demand on-sale."

The full letter:

The National Football League announced in September that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band would provide the halftime entertainment at today's Super Bowl. Last week, Springsteen released an album that surely warmed the hearts of NFL and NBC execs. His "Working on a Dream" is largely an upbeat and positive pop record -- one without any deep political implications and plenty of PG-safe proclamations of love.

In the post Nipplegate-era of halftime entertainment, that's just the way the NFL likes it. No risks, no surprises and nothing that's going to slow the momentum of one of the biggest rah-rah moments on American television. Oh, and keep the new stuff to a minimum.

Springsteen got in a couple verses of the title track off his album, but it was straight into "Glory Days" just as the crowd was warming up to the cut's gospel groove. When you have 12 minutes, better go keep them wanting more, especially when dabbling with the unfamiliar.

It was apparent that Springsteen and the E Street Band -- introduced as "booty-shaking" in a pre-taped reel of NFL personalities -- understood the game from the moment the performance started. "Step back from the guacamole dip," Springsteen yelled through gritted teeth. He then followed it up with this impassioned order: "Put! The! Chicken! Fingers! Doooowwwwwwwn!"

Love him or hate him, is this what we want from one of our most celebrated songwriters? Springsteen's always been at the very least an artist who's unafraid to tackle big topics. He shouldn't be faulted for trying to drum up some excitement for his new album, but is it necessary for him to have to deliver jokes for the NFL to do so?

Bruce Springsteen is the quintessential album-era rock star. Hear me out, ye who would argue Beatles-Dylan-Marvin-Brian Wilson-Who-Pink Floyd-Stones: Those artists might have made superior individual efforts, but none has used the long-player form itself more powerfully over the arc of a long career, not only to establish a world through song, but to inhabit an enduring persona.

A string of hit singles alone wouldn't have made Springsteen the bard of America's slide from industrial-era swagger into service economy anomie. He needed the track-by-track architecture of albums to flesh out characters, relate each to the other, extend metaphors to express what they could say and build a palpable, detail-strewn landscape through which they could travel.

The album format also has allowed Springsteen to build a sound, both with his stalwart E Street Band (a metaphor itself for the family connections and community spirit his songs celebrate or lament) or in more minimalist projects. Three is the magic number throughout this Catholic boy's huge oeuvre -- classic rock romanticism meets big band congeniality meets troubadour folk lyricism and is transfigured.

On his greatest albums, Springsteen rode the energies of these different styles through peaks and valleys, aurally encapsulating late 20th century Americana with a rain shower of guitars and a howlin' whoop.

Show Tracker brings us the following item:

A slew of A-list talent has signed on to kick off next week’s presidential inauguration festivities. The official organizing committee announced today that “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial,” which will air Sunday on HBO, will feature performances from the likes of Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Josh Groban, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am and Stevie Wonder.

Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington will read historical passages at the two-hour free event. HBO will televise the celebration at 7 p.m. on an open signal, so it will be accessible to anyone with cable or satellite television.

"This is a great opportunity to capture an historic event in a very meaningful setting," said producer and director Don Mischer, whose past credits include the Olympic ceremonies and Super Bowl halftime shows. "We will have the statue of Abraham Lincoln looking down on our stage and a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people lining the mall -- a tableau any director would relish."

-- Matea Gold

(Photo courtesy AP)

Possibly the single most telling thing about this sweetly uplifting first offering and title track from Bruce Springsteen's new album, due Jan. 27, isn't the reality-rooted optimism of the lyrics or even the stately, sweeping classic rock music, but a brief musical interlude between verses.

What would typically offer room for a scorching guitar solo or blistering sax contribution from Clarence Clemons instead has a passage that is whistled. When was the last time life in these United States gave Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band reason to whistle?

    The sunrise come, I climb the ladder
    The new day breaks and I'm working on a dream

Not surprisingly, the new-day-dawning number was introduced to the public during a Barack Obama rally just before the election. (The recording by the Super Bowl-bound rocker got a partial airing on Nov. 16 during the broadcast of an NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins, as part of a halftime highlights package, and it's also available as a free download today, Nov. 24, at Springsteen's web site.)

When he reaches that verse, more than halfway through the chiming rock tune, it's the most chipper he's sounded in ages. But in the lead-up to it, telegraphed musically by those always heart-rending suspended-fourth chords that open the track, Springsteen acknowledges the struggle that won't magically disappear even with a new leader, even when it's one of whom he approves.

There isn't any overt political bent to the song, but the celebratory message is hard to miss. Brendan O'Brien's ringing production is refreshingly clear, especially on the heels of the distressing sonic muddiness that seriously compromised the appeal of last year's "Magic" album, which O'Brien also produced.

     I'm working on a dream
    Though trouble can feel like it's here to stay
    I'm working on a dream
    Our love will chase the trouble away

Springsteen sounds a hopeful note, for his fans, and Americans in general.

--Randy Lewis

Bruce Springsteen
"Working on a Dream"
Columbia
*** (3 stars)

Photo: Associated Press

Time for a replica of Bruce Springsteen's 'Born to Run' Telecaster?*

Guitars, like their owners, aren’t immortal, which is one reason why Eric Clapton decided to donate his celebrated “Blackie” Fender Stratocaster for a charity auction five years ago. (It fetched just under a cool $1 million.) Years on the road and in the studio had taken its toll, he said, so it was time to move on.

Bruce Springsteen, the subject of a Sunday Calendar profile, may be feeling the same way about his most famous Telecaster, the one he’s holding on to on the cover of the “Born to Run” album, which was fairly road-tested when that album came out 34 years ago. The Boss recently started exploring the idea of getting a clone to take on tour so the original doesn’t suffer further abuse, asking the folks at Fender’s Custom Shop about building him a doppelganger.

One of the Custom Shop’s innovations has been its Tribute series of replica guitars, which are copies of famous instruments duplicated down to the nick, scuff, scratch and cigarette stain. Currently the company has an Andy Summers Telecaster and a Rory Gallagher Strat copied from those players’ own guitars. They’ve also mirrored guitars played by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Clapton and other guitar heroes.

After Springsteen expressed interest in a copy of his signature Tele, Custom Shop marketing director Mike Eldred suggested a limited run of the iconic guitar, with maybe 100 instruments from which proceeds could be donated to the charity of Springsteen’s choice.

“He sent us a note back, saying, ‘That sounds like about 99 too many,' ” Eldred said recently. They’re still awaiting word on whether the Boss wants to move forward with just the one. In any case, fans may never know if he ever does get one, since the copies are virtually indistinguishable from the original. That one is currently on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland as part of a Springsteen exhibit, where you can look, but you'd better not touch.

— Randy Lewis

UPDATE: An earlier version stated that Springsteen has the "Born To Run" Telecaster with him on his current tour. It is on loan to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for an exhibit that opened this week. 

Sure, we're deep into a miserable economy that has already taken down one music festival so far this year, and yes, well-known ticketing agencies are merging to create one giant behemoth specially designed to swallow your entire paycheck in new and innovative ways, but a hot ticket is still a hot commodity in 2009, lest you forget. 

Case in point?

How about the upcoming Flight of the Conchords gig at the Greek Theatre. Tickets just went on sale Saturday and will likely sell out today. “There are about 95 tickets left,” says Janette Baxa, director of publicity for Nederlander Concerts. 

Baxa also mentioned that the second night, April 16, of Bruce Springsteen’s two-night stand at the Memorial Sports Arena is now selling well after brisk sales of the April 15 engagement over the weekend. (Nederlander is helping out Live Nation for the back-to-back Bruce dates this spring.)

Live Nation's SoCal director of publicity, Greg Terlizzi, confirms that the Springsteen shows are nearly sold out. "The 4/15 [show] is sold out with exception of single tickets," he said today, adding that the April 16 show is "over 90% sold."

Procrastinators, purchase thy tickets now ... or prepare to pay the hefty price later (or perhaps sooner, according to a lawsuit recently filed in Canada).

-- Charlie Amter
Photo: Flight of the Conchords. Credit: Craig Blankenhorn / HBO

Bruce Springsteen has posted a letter of apology his camp has received from Irving Azoff, the CEO of Ticketmaster. It concerns last week's incident in which many fans were unable to log on to Ticketmaster when tickets to some 2009 tour dates went on sale, but were quickly redirected to Ticketmaster's resale site, TicketsNow, where tickets to those shows were being sold at a steep markup.

Springsteen and his management posted their response on his website, calling the relationship between Ticketmaster and TicketsNow "a pure conflict of interest." Complaints from more than 250 fans have prompted the New Jersey attorney general's office to launch an investigation.

"Consumers are questioning what transpired and if they had an equal opportunity to purchase these concert tickets. We share these concerns and are investigating this matter," Atty. Gen. Anne Milgram said.

Azoff has now issued an open letter of apology to Springsteen and his fans, saying that the ticket service "was trying to do the right thing" but "we clearly missed the mark." As a result, Azoff's letter states that "we will never again link to TicketsNow in a manner that can possibly create any confusion during a high-demand on-sale."

The full letter:

The National Football League announced in September that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band would provide the halftime entertainment at today's Super Bowl. Last week, Springsteen released an album that surely warmed the hearts of NFL and NBC execs. His "Working on a Dream" is largely an upbeat and positive pop record -- one without any deep political implications and plenty of PG-safe proclamations of love.

In the post Nipplegate-era of halftime entertainment, that's just the way the NFL likes it. No risks, no surprises and nothing that's going to slow the momentum of one of the biggest rah-rah moments on American television. Oh, and keep the new stuff to a minimum.

Springsteen got in a couple verses of the title track off his album, but it was straight into "Glory Days" just as the crowd was warming up to the cut's gospel groove. When you have 12 minutes, better go keep them wanting more, especially when dabbling with the unfamiliar.

It was apparent that Springsteen and the E Street Band -- introduced as "booty-shaking" in a pre-taped reel of NFL personalities -- understood the game from the moment the performance started. "Step back from the guacamole dip," Springsteen yelled through gritted teeth. He then followed it up with this impassioned order: "Put! The! Chicken! Fingers! Doooowwwwwwwn!"

Love him or hate him, is this what we want from one of our most celebrated songwriters? Springsteen's always been at the very least an artist who's unafraid to tackle big topics. He shouldn't be faulted for trying to drum up some excitement for his new album, but is it necessary for him to have to deliver jokes for the NFL to do so?

Bruce Springsteen is the quintessential album-era rock star. Hear me out, ye who would argue Beatles-Dylan-Marvin-Brian Wilson-Who-Pink Floyd-Stones: Those artists might have made superior individual efforts, but none has used the long-player form itself more powerfully over the arc of a long career, not only to establish a world through song, but to inhabit an enduring persona.

A string of hit singles alone wouldn't have made Springsteen the bard of America's slide from industrial-era swagger into service economy anomie. He needed the track-by-track architecture of albums to flesh out characters, relate each to the other, extend metaphors to express what they could say and build a palpable, detail-strewn landscape through which they could travel.

The album format also has allowed Springsteen to build a sound, both with his stalwart E Street Band (a metaphor itself for the family connections and community spirit his songs celebrate or lament) or in more minimalist projects. Three is the magic number throughout this Catholic boy's huge oeuvre -- classic rock romanticism meets big band congeniality meets troubadour folk lyricism and is transfigured.

On his greatest albums, Springsteen rode the energies of these different styles through peaks and valleys, aurally encapsulating late 20th century Americana with a rain shower of guitars and a howlin' whoop.

Show Tracker brings us the following item:

A slew of A-list talent has signed on to kick off next week’s presidential inauguration festivities. The official organizing committee announced today that “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial,” which will air Sunday on HBO, will feature performances from the likes of Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Josh Groban, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am and Stevie Wonder.

Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington will read historical passages at the two-hour free event. HBO will televise the celebration at 7 p.m. on an open signal, so it will be accessible to anyone with cable or satellite television.

"This is a great opportunity to capture an historic event in a very meaningful setting," said producer and director Don Mischer, whose past credits include the Olympic ceremonies and Super Bowl halftime shows. "We will have the statue of Abraham Lincoln looking down on our stage and a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people lining the mall -- a tableau any director would relish."

-- Matea Gold

(Photo courtesy AP)

Possibly the single most telling thing about this sweetly uplifting first offering and title track from Bruce Springsteen's new album, due Jan. 27, isn't the reality-rooted optimism of the lyrics or even the stately, sweeping classic rock music, but a brief musical interlude between verses.

What would typically offer room for a scorching guitar solo or blistering sax contribution from Clarence Clemons instead has a passage that is whistled. When was the last time life in these United States gave Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band reason to whistle?

    The sunrise come, I climb the ladder
    The new day breaks and I'm working on a dream

Not surprisingly, the new-day-dawning number was introduced to the public during a Barack Obama rally just before the election. (The recording by the Super Bowl-bound rocker got a partial airing on Nov. 16 during the broadcast of an NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins, as part of a halftime highlights package, and it's also available as a free download today, Nov. 24, at Springsteen's web site.)

When he reaches that verse, more than halfway through the chiming rock tune, it's the most chipper he's sounded in ages. But in the lead-up to it, telegraphed musically by those always heart-rending suspended-fourth chords that open the track, Springsteen acknowledges the struggle that won't magically disappear even with a new leader, even when it's one of whom he approves.

There isn't any overt political bent to the song, but the celebratory message is hard to miss. Brendan O'Brien's ringing production is refreshingly clear, especially on the heels of the distressing sonic muddiness that seriously compromised the appeal of last year's "Magic" album, which O'Brien also produced.

     I'm working on a dream
    Though trouble can feel like it's here to stay
    I'm working on a dream
    Our love will chase the trouble away

Springsteen sounds a hopeful note, for his fans, and Americans in general.

--Randy Lewis

Bruce Springsteen
"Working on a Dream"
Columbia
*** (3 stars)

Photo: Associated Press

Flight of the Conchords, Bruce Springsteen gigs nearly sold out

Sure, we're deep into a miserable economy that has already taken down one music festival so far this year, and yes, well-known ticketing agencies are merging to create one giant behemoth specially designed to swallow your entire paycheck in new and innovative ways, but a hot ticket is still a hot commodity in 2009, lest you forget. 

Case in point?

How about the upcoming Flight of the Conchords gig at the Greek Theatre. Tickets just went on sale Saturday and will likely sell out today. “There are about 95 tickets left,” says Janette Baxa, director of publicity for Nederlander Concerts. 

Baxa also mentioned that the second night, April 16, of Bruce Springsteen’s two-night stand at the Memorial Sports Arena is now selling well after brisk sales of the April 15 engagement over the weekend. (Nederlander is helping out Live Nation for the back-to-back Bruce dates this spring.)

Live Nation's SoCal director of publicity, Greg Terlizzi, confirms that the Springsteen shows are nearly sold out. "The 4/15 [show] is sold out with exception of single tickets," he said today, adding that the April 16 show is "over 90% sold."

Procrastinators, purchase thy tickets now ... or prepare to pay the hefty price later (or perhaps sooner, according to a lawsuit recently filed in Canada).

-- Charlie Amter
Photo: Flight of the Conchords. Credit: Craig Blankenhorn / HBO

Bruce Springsteen has posted a letter of apology his camp has received from Irving Azoff, the CEO of Ticketmaster. It concerns last week's incident in which many fans were unable to log on to Ticketmaster when tickets to some 2009 tour dates went on sale, but were quickly redirected to Ticketmaster's resale site, TicketsNow, where tickets to those shows were being sold at a steep markup.

Springsteen and his management posted their response on his website, calling the relationship between Ticketmaster and TicketsNow "a pure conflict of interest." Complaints from more than 250 fans have prompted the New Jersey attorney general's office to launch an investigation.

"Consumers are questioning what transpired and if they had an equal opportunity to purchase these concert tickets. We share these concerns and are investigating this matter," Atty. Gen. Anne Milgram said.

Azoff has now issued an open letter of apology to Springsteen and his fans, saying that the ticket service "was trying to do the right thing" but "we clearly missed the mark." As a result, Azoff's letter states that "we will never again link to TicketsNow in a manner that can possibly create any confusion during a high-demand on-sale."

The full letter:

The National Football League announced in September that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band would provide the halftime entertainment at today's Super Bowl. Last week, Springsteen released an album that surely warmed the hearts of NFL and NBC execs. His "Working on a Dream" is largely an upbeat and positive pop record -- one without any deep political implications and plenty of PG-safe proclamations of love.

In the post Nipplegate-era of halftime entertainment, that's just the way the NFL likes it. No risks, no surprises and nothing that's going to slow the momentum of one of the biggest rah-rah moments on American television. Oh, and keep the new stuff to a minimum.

Springsteen got in a couple verses of the title track off his album, but it was straight into "Glory Days" just as the crowd was warming up to the cut's gospel groove. When you have 12 minutes, better go keep them wanting more, especially when dabbling with the unfamiliar.

It was apparent that Springsteen and the E Street Band -- introduced as "booty-shaking" in a pre-taped reel of NFL personalities -- understood the game from the moment the performance started. "Step back from the guacamole dip," Springsteen yelled through gritted teeth. He then followed it up with this impassioned order: "Put! The! Chicken! Fingers! Doooowwwwwwwn!"

Love him or hate him, is this what we want from one of our most celebrated songwriters? Springsteen's always been at the very least an artist who's unafraid to tackle big topics. He shouldn't be faulted for trying to drum up some excitement for his new album, but is it necessary for him to have to deliver jokes for the NFL to do so?

Bruce Springsteen is the quintessential album-era rock star. Hear me out, ye who would argue Beatles-Dylan-Marvin-Brian Wilson-Who-Pink Floyd-Stones: Those artists might have made superior individual efforts, but none has used the long-player form itself more powerfully over the arc of a long career, not only to establish a world through song, but to inhabit an enduring persona.

A string of hit singles alone wouldn't have made Springsteen the bard of America's slide from industrial-era swagger into service economy anomie. He needed the track-by-track architecture of albums to flesh out characters, relate each to the other, extend metaphors to express what they could say and build a palpable, detail-strewn landscape through which they could travel.

The album format also has allowed Springsteen to build a sound, both with his stalwart E Street Band (a metaphor itself for the family connections and community spirit his songs celebrate or lament) or in more minimalist projects. Three is the magic number throughout this Catholic boy's huge oeuvre -- classic rock romanticism meets big band congeniality meets troubadour folk lyricism and is transfigured.

On his greatest albums, Springsteen rode the energies of these different styles through peaks and valleys, aurally encapsulating late 20th century Americana with a rain shower of guitars and a howlin' whoop.

Show Tracker brings us the following item:

A slew of A-list talent has signed on to kick off next week’s presidential inauguration festivities. The official organizing committee announced today that “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial,” which will air Sunday on HBO, will feature performances from the likes of Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Josh Groban, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am and Stevie Wonder.

Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington will read historical passages at the two-hour free event. HBO will televise the celebration at 7 p.m. on an open signal, so it will be accessible to anyone with cable or satellite television.

"This is a great opportunity to capture an historic event in a very meaningful setting," said producer and director Don Mischer, whose past credits include the Olympic ceremonies and Super Bowl halftime shows. "We will have the statue of Abraham Lincoln looking down on our stage and a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people lining the mall -- a tableau any director would relish."

-- Matea Gold

(Photo courtesy AP)

Possibly the single most telling thing about this sweetly uplifting first offering and title track from Bruce Springsteen's new album, due Jan. 27, isn't the reality-rooted optimism of the lyrics or even the stately, sweeping classic rock music, but a brief musical interlude between verses.

What would typically offer room for a scorching guitar solo or blistering sax contribution from Clarence Clemons instead has a passage that is whistled. When was the last time life in these United States gave Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band reason to whistle?

    The sunrise come, I climb the ladder
    The new day breaks and I'm working on a dream

Not surprisingly, the new-day-dawning number was introduced to the public during a Barack Obama rally just before the election. (The recording by the Super Bowl-bound rocker got a partial airing on Nov. 16 during the broadcast of an NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins, as part of a halftime highlights package, and it's also available as a free download today, Nov. 24, at Springsteen's web site.)

When he reaches that verse, more than halfway through the chiming rock tune, it's the most chipper he's sounded in ages. But in the lead-up to it, telegraphed musically by those always heart-rending suspended-fourth chords that open the track, Springsteen acknowledges the struggle that won't magically disappear even with a new leader, even when it's one of whom he approves.

There isn't any overt political bent to the song, but the celebratory message is hard to miss. Brendan O'Brien's ringing production is refreshingly clear, especially on the heels of the distressing sonic muddiness that seriously compromised the appeal of last year's "Magic" album, which O'Brien also produced.

     I'm working on a dream
    Though trouble can feel like it's here to stay
    I'm working on a dream
    Our love will chase the trouble away

Springsteen sounds a hopeful note, for his fans, and Americans in general.

--Randy Lewis

Bruce Springsteen
"Working on a Dream"
Columbia
*** (3 stars)

Photo: Associated Press

Ticketmaster to Springsteen: 'We sincerely apologize'

Bruce Springsteen has posted a letter of apology his camp has received from Irving Azoff, the CEO of Ticketmaster. It concerns last week's incident in which many fans were unable to log on to Ticketmaster when tickets to some 2009 tour dates went on sale, but were quickly redirected to Ticketmaster's resale site, TicketsNow, where tickets to those shows were being sold at a steep markup.

Springsteen and his management posted their response on his website, calling the relationship between Ticketmaster and TicketsNow "a pure conflict of interest." Complaints from more than 250 fans have prompted the New Jersey attorney general's office to launch an investigation.

"Consumers are questioning what transpired and if they had an equal opportunity to purchase these concert tickets. We share these concerns and are investigating this matter," Atty. Gen. Anne Milgram said.

Azoff has now issued an open letter of apology to Springsteen and his fans, saying that the ticket service "was trying to do the right thing" but "we clearly missed the mark." As a result, Azoff's letter states that "we will never again link to TicketsNow in a manner that can possibly create any confusion during a high-demand on-sale."

The full letter:

The National Football League announced in September that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band would provide the halftime entertainment at today's Super Bowl. Last week, Springsteen released an album that surely warmed the hearts of NFL and NBC execs. His "Working on a Dream" is largely an upbeat and positive pop record -- one without any deep political implications and plenty of PG-safe proclamations of love.

In the post Nipplegate-era of halftime entertainment, that's just the way the NFL likes it. No risks, no surprises and nothing that's going to slow the momentum of one of the biggest rah-rah moments on American television. Oh, and keep the new stuff to a minimum.

Springsteen got in a couple verses of the title track off his album, but it was straight into "Glory Days" just as the crowd was warming up to the cut's gospel groove. When you have 12 minutes, better go keep them wanting more, especially when dabbling with the unfamiliar.

It was apparent that Springsteen and the E Street Band -- introduced as "booty-shaking" in a pre-taped reel of NFL personalities -- understood the game from the moment the performance started. "Step back from the guacamole dip," Springsteen yelled through gritted teeth. He then followed it up with this impassioned order: "Put! The! Chicken! Fingers! Doooowwwwwwwn!"

Love him or hate him, is this what we want from one of our most celebrated songwriters? Springsteen's always been at the very least an artist who's unafraid to tackle big topics. He shouldn't be faulted for trying to drum up some excitement for his new album, but is it necessary for him to have to deliver jokes for the NFL to do so?

Bruce Springsteen is the quintessential album-era rock star. Hear me out, ye who would argue Beatles-Dylan-Marvin-Brian Wilson-Who-Pink Floyd-Stones: Those artists might have made superior individual efforts, but none has used the long-player form itself more powerfully over the arc of a long career, not only to establish a world through song, but to inhabit an enduring persona.

A string of hit singles alone wouldn't have made Springsteen the bard of America's slide from industrial-era swagger into service economy anomie. He needed the track-by-track architecture of albums to flesh out characters, relate each to the other, extend metaphors to express what they could say and build a palpable, detail-strewn landscape through which they could travel.

The album format also has allowed Springsteen to build a sound, both with his stalwart E Street Band (a metaphor itself for the family connections and community spirit his songs celebrate or lament) or in more minimalist projects. Three is the magic number throughout this Catholic boy's huge oeuvre -- classic rock romanticism meets big band congeniality meets troubadour folk lyricism and is transfigured.

On his greatest albums, Springsteen rode the energies of these different styles through peaks and valleys, aurally encapsulating late 20th century Americana with a rain shower of guitars and a howlin' whoop.

Show Tracker brings us the following item:

A slew of A-list talent has signed on to kick off next week’s presidential inauguration festivities. The official organizing committee announced today that “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial,” which will air Sunday on HBO, will feature performances from the likes of Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Josh Groban, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am and Stevie Wonder.

Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington will read historical passages at the two-hour free event. HBO will televise the celebration at 7 p.m. on an open signal, so it will be accessible to anyone with cable or satellite television.

"This is a great opportunity to capture an historic event in a very meaningful setting," said producer and director Don Mischer, whose past credits include the Olympic ceremonies and Super Bowl halftime shows. "We will have the statue of Abraham Lincoln looking down on our stage and a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people lining the mall -- a tableau any director would relish."

-- Matea Gold

(Photo courtesy AP)

Possibly the single most telling thing about this sweetly uplifting first offering and title track from Bruce Springsteen's new album, due Jan. 27, isn't the reality-rooted optimism of the lyrics or even the stately, sweeping classic rock music, but a brief musical interlude between verses.

What would typically offer room for a scorching guitar solo or blistering sax contribution from Clarence Clemons instead has a passage that is whistled. When was the last time life in these United States gave Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band reason to whistle?

    The sunrise come, I climb the ladder
    The new day breaks and I'm working on a dream

Not surprisingly, the new-day-dawning number was introduced to the public during a Barack Obama rally just before the election. (The recording by the Super Bowl-bound rocker got a partial airing on Nov. 16 during the broadcast of an NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins, as part of a halftime highlights package, and it's also available as a free download today, Nov. 24, at Springsteen's web site.)

When he reaches that verse, more than halfway through the chiming rock tune, it's the most chipper he's sounded in ages. But in the lead-up to it, telegraphed musically by those always heart-rending suspended-fourth chords that open the track, Springsteen acknowledges the struggle that won't magically disappear even with a new leader, even when it's one of whom he approves.

There isn't any overt political bent to the song, but the celebratory message is hard to miss. Brendan O'Brien's ringing production is refreshingly clear, especially on the heels of the distressing sonic muddiness that seriously compromised the appeal of last year's "Magic" album, which O'Brien also produced.

     I'm working on a dream
    Though trouble can feel like it's here to stay
    I'm working on a dream
    Our love will chase the trouble away

Springsteen sounds a hopeful note, for his fans, and Americans in general.

--Randy Lewis

Bruce Springsteen
"Working on a Dream"
Columbia
*** (3 stars)

Photo: Associated Press

Bruce Springsteen at the Super Bowl: Were you sold?

The National Football League announced in September that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band would provide the halftime entertainment at today's Super Bowl. Last week, Springsteen released an album that surely warmed the hearts of NFL and NBC execs. His "Working on a Dream" is largely an upbeat and positive pop record -- one without any deep political implications and plenty of PG-safe proclamations of love.

In the post Nipplegate-era of halftime entertainment, that's just the way the NFL likes it. No risks, no surprises and nothing that's going to slow the momentum of one of the biggest rah-rah moments on American television. Oh, and keep the new stuff to a minimum.

Springsteen got in a couple verses of the title track off his album, but it was straight into "Glory Days" just as the crowd was warming up to the cut's gospel groove. When you have 12 minutes, better go keep them wanting more, especially when dabbling with the unfamiliar.

It was apparent that Springsteen and the E Street Band -- introduced as "booty-shaking" in a pre-taped reel of NFL personalities -- understood the game from the moment the performance started. "Step back from the guacamole dip," Springsteen yelled through gritted teeth. He then followed it up with this impassioned order: "Put! The! Chicken! Fingers! Doooowwwwwwwn!"

Love him or hate him, is this what we want from one of our most celebrated songwriters? Springsteen's always been at the very least an artist who's unafraid to tackle big topics. He shouldn't be faulted for trying to drum up some excitement for his new album, but is it necessary for him to have to deliver jokes for the NFL to do so?

Bruce Springsteen is the quintessential album-era rock star. Hear me out, ye who would argue Beatles-Dylan-Marvin-Brian Wilson-Who-Pink Floyd-Stones: Those artists might have made superior individual efforts, but none has used the long-player form itself more powerfully over the arc of a long career, not only to establish a world through song, but to inhabit an enduring persona.

A string of hit singles alone wouldn't have made Springsteen the bard of America's slide from industrial-era swagger into service economy anomie. He needed the track-by-track architecture of albums to flesh out characters, relate each to the other, extend metaphors to express what they could say and build a palpable, detail-strewn landscape through which they could travel.

The album format also has allowed Springsteen to build a sound, both with his stalwart E Street Band (a metaphor itself for the family connections and community spirit his songs celebrate or lament) or in more minimalist projects. Three is the magic number throughout this Catholic boy's huge oeuvre -- classic rock romanticism meets big band congeniality meets troubadour folk lyricism and is transfigured.

On his greatest albums, Springsteen rode the energies of these different styles through peaks and valleys, aurally encapsulating late 20th century Americana with a rain shower of guitars and a howlin' whoop.

Show Tracker brings us the following item:

A slew of A-list talent has signed on to kick off next week’s presidential inauguration festivities. The official organizing committee announced today that “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial,” which will air Sunday on HBO, will feature performances from the likes of Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Josh Groban, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am and Stevie Wonder.

Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington will read historical passages at the two-hour free event. HBO will televise the celebration at 7 p.m. on an open signal, so it will be accessible to anyone with cable or satellite television.

"This is a great opportunity to capture an historic event in a very meaningful setting," said producer and director Don Mischer, whose past credits include the Olympic ceremonies and Super Bowl halftime shows. "We will have the statue of Abraham Lincoln looking down on our stage and a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people lining the mall -- a tableau any director would relish."

-- Matea Gold

(Photo courtesy AP)

Possibly the single most telling thing about this sweetly uplifting first offering and title track from Bruce Springsteen's new album, due Jan. 27, isn't the reality-rooted optimism of the lyrics or even the stately, sweeping classic rock music, but a brief musical interlude between verses.

What would typically offer room for a scorching guitar solo or blistering sax contribution from Clarence Clemons instead has a passage that is whistled. When was the last time life in these United States gave Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band reason to whistle?

    The sunrise come, I climb the ladder
    The new day breaks and I'm working on a dream

Not surprisingly, the new-day-dawning number was introduced to the public during a Barack Obama rally just before the election. (The recording by the Super Bowl-bound rocker got a partial airing on Nov. 16 during the broadcast of an NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins, as part of a halftime highlights package, and it's also available as a free download today, Nov. 24, at Springsteen's web site.)

When he reaches that verse, more than halfway through the chiming rock tune, it's the most chipper he's sounded in ages. But in the lead-up to it, telegraphed musically by those always heart-rending suspended-fourth chords that open the track, Springsteen acknowledges the struggle that won't magically disappear even with a new leader, even when it's one of whom he approves.

There isn't any overt political bent to the song, but the celebratory message is hard to miss. Brendan O'Brien's ringing production is refreshingly clear, especially on the heels of the distressing sonic muddiness that seriously compromised the appeal of last year's "Magic" album, which O'Brien also produced.

     I'm working on a dream
    Though trouble can feel like it's here to stay
    I'm working on a dream
    Our love will chase the trouble away

Springsteen sounds a hopeful note, for his fans, and Americans in general.

--Randy Lewis

Bruce Springsteen
"Working on a Dream"
Columbia
*** (3 stars)

Photo: Associated Press

Album review: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's 'Working on a Dream'

Bruce Springsteen is the quintessential album-era rock star. Hear me out, ye who would argue Beatles-Dylan-Marvin-Brian Wilson-Who-Pink Floyd-Stones: Those artists might have made superior individual efforts, but none has used the long-player form itself more powerfully over the arc of a long career, not only to establish a world through song, but to inhabit an enduring persona.

A string of hit singles alone wouldn't have made Springsteen the bard of America's slide from industrial-era swagger into service economy anomie. He needed the track-by-track architecture of albums to flesh out characters, relate each to the other, extend metaphors to express what they could say and build a palpable, detail-strewn landscape through which they could travel.

The album format also has allowed Springsteen to build a sound, both with his stalwart E Street Band (a metaphor itself for the family connections and community spirit his songs celebrate or lament) or in more minimalist projects. Three is the magic number throughout this Catholic boy's huge oeuvre -- classic rock romanticism meets big band congeniality meets troubadour folk lyricism and is transfigured.

On his greatest albums, Springsteen rode the energies of these different styles through peaks and valleys, aurally encapsulating late 20th century Americana with a rain shower of guitars and a howlin' whoop.

Show Tracker brings us the following item:

A slew of A-list talent has signed on to kick off next week’s presidential inauguration festivities. The official organizing committee announced today that “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial,” which will air Sunday on HBO, will feature performances from the likes of Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Josh Groban, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am and Stevie Wonder.

Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington will read historical passages at the two-hour free event. HBO will televise the celebration at 7 p.m. on an open signal, so it will be accessible to anyone with cable or satellite television.

"This is a great opportunity to capture an historic event in a very meaningful setting," said producer and director Don Mischer, whose past credits include the Olympic ceremonies and Super Bowl halftime shows. "We will have the statue of Abraham Lincoln looking down on our stage and a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people lining the mall -- a tableau any director would relish."

-- Matea Gold

(Photo courtesy AP)

Possibly the single most telling thing about this sweetly uplifting first offering and title track from Bruce Springsteen's new album, due Jan. 27, isn't the reality-rooted optimism of the lyrics or even the stately, sweeping classic rock music, but a brief musical interlude between verses.

What would typically offer room for a scorching guitar solo or blistering sax contribution from Clarence Clemons instead has a passage that is whistled. When was the last time life in these United States gave Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band reason to whistle?

    The sunrise come, I climb the ladder
    The new day breaks and I'm working on a dream

Not surprisingly, the new-day-dawning number was introduced to the public during a Barack Obama rally just before the election. (The recording by the Super Bowl-bound rocker got a partial airing on Nov. 16 during the broadcast of an NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins, as part of a halftime highlights package, and it's also available as a free download today, Nov. 24, at Springsteen's web site.)

When he reaches that verse, more than halfway through the chiming rock tune, it's the most chipper he's sounded in ages. But in the lead-up to it, telegraphed musically by those always heart-rending suspended-fourth chords that open the track, Springsteen acknowledges the struggle that won't magically disappear even with a new leader, even when it's one of whom he approves.

There isn't any overt political bent to the song, but the celebratory message is hard to miss. Brendan O'Brien's ringing production is refreshingly clear, especially on the heels of the distressing sonic muddiness that seriously compromised the appeal of last year's "Magic" album, which O'Brien also produced.

     I'm working on a dream
    Though trouble can feel like it's here to stay
    I'm working on a dream
    Our love will chase the trouble away

Springsteen sounds a hopeful note, for his fans, and Americans in general.

--Randy Lewis

Bruce Springsteen
"Working on a Dream"
Columbia
*** (3 stars)

Photo: Associated Press

Bono, Springsteen and Beyonce to appear in inauguration special

Show Tracker brings us the following item:

A slew of A-list talent has signed on to kick off next week’s presidential inauguration festivities. The official organizing committee announced today that “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial,” which will air Sunday on HBO, will feature performances from the likes of Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Josh Groban, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am and Stevie Wonder.

Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington will read historical passages at the two-hour free event. HBO will televise the celebration at 7 p.m. on an open signal, so it will be accessible to anyone with cable or satellite television.

"This is a great opportunity to capture an historic event in a very meaningful setting," said producer and director Don Mischer, whose past credits include the Olympic ceremonies and Super Bowl halftime shows. "We will have the statue of Abraham Lincoln looking down on our stage and a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people lining the mall -- a tableau any director would relish."

-- Matea Gold

(Photo courtesy AP)

Possibly the single most telling thing about this sweetly uplifting first offering and title track from Bruce Springsteen's new album, due Jan. 27, isn't the reality-rooted optimism of the lyrics or even the stately, sweeping classic rock music, but a brief musical interlude between verses.

What would typically offer room for a scorching guitar solo or blistering sax contribution from Clarence Clemons instead has a passage that is whistled. When was the last time life in these United States gave Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band reason to whistle?

    The sunrise come, I climb the ladder
    The new day breaks and I'm working on a dream

Not surprisingly, the new-day-dawning number was introduced to the public during a Barack Obama rally just before the election. (The recording by the Super Bowl-bound rocker got a partial airing on Nov. 16 during the broadcast of an NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins, as part of a halftime highlights package, and it's also available as a free download today, Nov. 24, at Springsteen's web site.)

When he reaches that verse, more than halfway through the chiming rock tune, it's the most chipper he's sounded in ages. But in the lead-up to it, telegraphed musically by those always heart-rending suspended-fourth chords that open the track, Springsteen acknowledges the struggle that won't magically disappear even with a new leader, even when it's one of whom he approves.

There isn't any overt political bent to the song, but the celebratory message is hard to miss. Brendan O'Brien's ringing production is refreshingly clear, especially on the heels of the distressing sonic muddiness that seriously compromised the appeal of last year's "Magic" album, which O'Brien also produced.

     I'm working on a dream
    Though trouble can feel like it's here to stay
    I'm working on a dream
    Our love will chase the trouble away

Springsteen sounds a hopeful note, for his fans, and Americans in general.

--Randy Lewis

Bruce Springsteen
"Working on a Dream"
Columbia
*** (3 stars)

Photo: Associated Press

Snap Judgment: Bruce Springsteen's 'Working On a Dream'

Possibly the single most telling thing about this sweetly uplifting first offering and title track from Bruce Springsteen's new album, due Jan. 27, isn't the reality-rooted optimism of the lyrics or even the stately, sweeping classic rock music, but a brief musical interlude between verses.

What would typically offer room for a scorching guitar solo or blistering sax contribution from Clarence Clemons instead has a passage that is whistled. When was the last time life in these United States gave Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band reason to whistle?

    The sunrise come, I climb the ladder
    The new day breaks and I'm working on a dream

Not surprisingly, the new-day-dawning number was introduced to the public during a Barack Obama rally just before the election. (The recording by the Super Bowl-bound rocker got a partial airing on Nov. 16 during the broadcast of an NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins, as part of a halftime highlights package, and it's also available as a free download today, Nov. 24, at Springsteen's web site.)

When he reaches that verse, more than halfway through the chiming rock tune, it's the most chipper he's sounded in ages. But in the lead-up to it, telegraphed musically by those always heart-rending suspended-fourth chords that open the track, Springsteen acknowledges the struggle that won't magically disappear even with a new leader, even when it's one of whom he approves.

There isn't any overt political bent to the song, but the celebratory message is hard to miss. Brendan O'Brien's ringing production is refreshingly clear, especially on the heels of the distressing sonic muddiness that seriously compromised the appeal of last year's "Magic" album, which O'Brien also produced.

     I'm working on a dream
    Though trouble can feel like it's here to stay
    I'm working on a dream
    Our love will chase the trouble away

Springsteen sounds a hopeful note, for his fans, and Americans in general.

--Randy Lewis

Bruce Springsteen
"Working on a Dream"
Columbia
*** (3 stars)

Photo: Associated Press