ROAD DIARY: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND

Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Hulu

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 24, 2024

Near the end of Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Bruce Springsteen confidently says that he's not finished yet. The man may be in his 70s, but we believe him for sure. Other famous musicians have staved off and continue to avoid retirement, because it's not about the money, the celebrity, or the legacy for the few people fortunate enough to find themselves in Springsteen's position. The money, celebrity, and legacy are pretty much cemented for the man at this point in his career.

No, he loves the music, the fans, and putting on a show—a show that, in this case, can tell a specific story about where his mind is at the moment. The world tour of that concert started in early 2023, after being postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that combined with his age meant this particular show would be about looking back—at all of the losses life puts in front of us—while also proving that there could be a way forward—even for a music act that has been together for five decades.

There are several points during director Thom Zimny's documentary in which one wonders if a concert movie might not have served Springsteen's own story at this moment of his career better. The filmmaker was clearly given free access to the entirety of the band and the tour, starting with rehearsals beforehand and going all the way through Springsteen and the E Street Band, his accompanying artists, European leg of the tour months later.

The director more or less pieces together a compilation of performances from various stops that gives a broad notion of what any given show on the tour might have been like. Obviously, the movie comes to life in its performance scenes, when Springsteen shows what a showman he is, bringing a crowd of thousands to near-complete silence with some hand gestures, and the band proves how attuned they are to their headliner's flights of spontaneity at a concert. The songs here aren't the greatest hits, since Springsteen does have a particular narrative in mind (Plus, there are a couple of newer albums to market), so when the man says there is something deeper driving him, we believe it. Someone in it for the income and adulation would just do the easy thing.

There's nothing easy about Springsteen and the E Street Band's return to touring, either, and that gets to the other fascinating element of Zimny's project. His cameras are there during the rehearsals for the show, following an unexpected six-year hiatus from performing together. Their previous had ended in 2017, and then, Springsteen had a solo show on Broadway. The pandemic delayed the original tour dates, and now, the sizeable band—made up of multiple guitarists, keyboardists, horns, and a choir—has to get used to playing these songs and with each other again.

It's not simple, and there's footage of everyone playing one of Springsteen's selected tunes at a slower tempo than usual. They all look visibly uncomfortable and worried, especially bassist Garry Tallent, who explains he only knows how to play to the appropriate beat. Watching the band figure all of this out, knowing that their reputation as one of the most reliable acts in the business is on the line, is a series of those behind-the-scenes moments that adds some tension to the forthcoming gigs.

They do get their act in order, of course, under the guidance of guitarist Steven Van Zandt, who's grateful for Springsteen making him the musical director of this tour—although he's quick to add a "finally" to that bit of gratitude, since that's basically been his unofficial role with the E Street Band for about 50 years. If there are tensions or conflicts or feuds among the members, they're incredibly good at hiding them, but considering how quickly the show comes together and how skillful their displays of improvisation are when the boss—sorry, the Boss—wants that spontaneity, the members of the band clearly just know and respect each other on a foundational level.

We can feel that in the music and the performances, which makes Zimny's continual explanations for why that is kind of redundant. This isn't just a concert movie or a behind-the-scenes documentary. It's also a brief history lesson of Springsteen and the band's career, talking about their days living and gigging out of vehicles of increasing size, memorializing two members who have died, and explaining how important the fans are, not only to their success, but also to how Springsteen puts on a show. There's nothing much of depth here, and there's little those fans won't already know about the group—or that anyone with a basic understanding of the course of a famous rock band couldn't assume about the narrative.

The movie keeps stopping for these diversions, anyway, and it's odd for Zimny to keep telling us how first-rate the band is and how loyal the fans are when the evidence is right there in the footage on stage and in the crowd. Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band becomes an indecisive account of its title subjects, as it simply can't determine what kind of documentary it wants to be. Springsteen may have a story to tell with this show, but the movie hesitates in letting them speak for themselves.

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