Bruce Springsteen performed with Tangiers Blues Band Monday, June 18, to celebrate the re-opening of Asbury Lanes. Asbury Park Press
Bruce Springsteen is a weekend warrior.
The Boss extolled the virtues of weekends on the Wednesday, March 31, edition of his “Bruce Springsteen: From My Home to Yours” SiriusXM show on the E Street Radio channel.
It was called “Here Comes the Weekend,” and every song had a weekend connection.
“What is better than the weekend? Friday, Saturday, Sunday,” said Springsteen to open the show, which he started with the Easybeats’ “Friday On My Mind.” “Even a non-working bum like me can remember being in school and counting the days, hours, minutes and seconds before that 3 o’clock bell rang on Friday afternoon, and I was free. Free of anybody running my life, telling me where I had to be, when I had to be there.”
Some kids liked school. Not Springsteen.
“I would burst through the school doors,” Springsteen said. “Walk that happy mile from school, down through town, throw my books on the kitchen table, run to my room, rip myself out of my school clothes, deposit them on the floor, settle in for 2½ days of blissful freedom. Oh, yes. Oh, yes, the weekend — my God, how I lived for it!”
Weekends for the teenage Springsteen were split at the local CYO dances and, after a bus ride, in Greenwich Village.
“Friday night was the CYO dance,” Springsteen said. “I’d be there in front of the band, not dancing, but doing my real homework of the week: studying, studying, studying that lead guitarist’s hands. Inscrutably watching every riff and run he made, and then I would run home while the other kids were getting their pizza down at Federici’s, chasing the girls. I would run up to my room. Early into Saturday morning I would be trying to replicate what I had seen down at the dance until I dropped to sleep with the guitar in my hands.”
Saturdays, starting when he was 16, would be spent in the Village.
“I lived in the Village on weekends,” Springsteen said. “As a teenager, anything to get me from that big boot pressing down on my neck in my lovely little redneck town. That piece of MacDougal (Street) I guess from about Washington Square to Bleecker (Street), I think is the only piece of the authentic ’60s Village that’s still intact. I lived on that piece of concrete for, I don’t know, ’65, ’66, ’67. If you go there now, you can see it exactly as it was when Steve Van Zandt and I together tramped the concrete, from the park to the Cafe Wha? Check it out.”
More: Bruce Springsteen, Obama Spotify podcast: Boss, Patti took baby steps to making a family
More: Nick Jonas of Jonas Brothers: I want to play Bruce Springsteen in a movie
More: Want to own Springsteen’s jeans? Bette Midler’s gown? Elton’s glasses? Here’s your shot
The early Springsteen band the Castiles played often at Cafe Wha? from ’66 to ’68. Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Lenny Bruce, Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor also played there in the ’60s. In 2012, Van Halen played there. Manny Roth, the uncle of David Lee Roth, was the former owner. Visit cafewha.com for more info.
Springsteen did not do drugs and drink alcohol in his teens and early ’20s, he said. That changed when he went to the Osprey in Manasquan.
“As I got older, I’d spent my Friday and Saturday nights at the Stone Pony or in other clubs in Asbury Park,” said Springsteen in the lead up to “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” by Kris Kristofferson. “Never took a drink till I was 24 years old (until) tequila at the Osprey in Manasquan, compliments of my great friend Big Danny (Gallagher). After that, for quite a while, I tried to make up for lost time. So when I woke up on a Sunday morning, feeling hazy, exposed and guilty, was when I felt terrible but knew I had had a good time. Ouch.”
Springsteen played 14 songs in all on Wednesday.
“Saturday night,” said Springsteen before spinning “Saturday Night at the Movies” by the Drifters. “That’s the night the weekend was centered upon. The night when it’s supposed to happen. You’re supposed to meet that girl, play that killer set with your band, hang with your boys, go to the movies, and wait, wait, wait for transcendence.”
“Bruce Springsteen: From My Home to Yours” has aired alternate Wednesdays, for the most part, since April 2020.
Setlist
“Friday On My Mind” by the Easybeats
“Friday I’m in Love” by the Cure
“Saturday in the Park” by Chicago
“Saturday Waits” by Loney Dear
“Saturdays are the Greatest” by Kristina Train
“Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night of the Week)” by Frank Sinatra
“Saturday Night at the Movies” by the Drifters
“Another Saturday Night” by Cat Stevens
“Saturday Night in Oak Grove, Louisiana” by Tony Joe White
“Sunday Morning” by Acid House Kings
“Sunday Morning Comin’ Down” by Kris Kristofferson
“Working for the Weekend” by Loverboy
“Seven Day Weekend” by Gary U.S. Bonds
“Here Comes the Weekend” by Dave Edmunds
Subscribe to app.com for the latest on Bruce Springsteen and the Jersey music scene.
Chris Jordan, a Jersey Shore native, covers entertainment and features for the USA Today Network New Jersey. Contact him at @chrisfhjordan; cjordan@app.com.
Read or Share this story: https://www.app.com/story/entertainment/music/2021/03/31/bruce-springsteen-siriusxm-weekend-warrior-e-street-radio-show/4824515001/