Before we count this off, know one thing. I love Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. I am, in fact, a white man of a certain age raised near the Jersey Shore—loving Bruce is a congenital condition. (I even know where real E Street is! I used to swim and play Galaga a short walk away.) As such, I admit that much of Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band hit my pleasure and nostalgia sensors with all the subtlety of a Max Weinberg cymbal crash.
Despite that—and accepting that I will likely watch this documentary a second time after it makes its debut on Hulu Oct. 25—I can not deny an aftertaste of melancholy from the whole affair, and not one triggered by The Boss’s minor-key ballads “Backstreets” and “I’ll See You In My Dreams.”
Bruce Springsteen’s whole project has been about authenticity, and there is ample evidence that this persona springs from reality. (He still regularly visits the same humble ice cream shop and hot dog stand because they’re mom-and-pop shops that offer quality goods—I vouch for them both.) But this documentary, the latest from in-house hagiographer Thom Zimny, is another in a series of cosmically wasted access. It feels vetted and authorized in ways that are anathema to everything I love about the man and his music.
Zimny has been making films with Springsteen since 2005—recutting old concerts, reflecting on classic albums, capturing Springsteen on Broadway, presenting the Western Stars project and hanging out in the studio during the recording of Letter to You. (He has also done doc projects with Sylvester Stallone and Willie Nelson.) Everything is watchable because the performance footage is good and these stars know how to lean in when a camera is in the room. But there’s rarely an unpolished moment. Everything has a palpable “approved” stamped on it, and that’s particularly depressing in the case of Road Diaries, when members of the E Street Band spend so much time expressing how Bruce strives to achieve spontaneity on stage every night.
This film is a commercial, like the one Zimny made with Springsteen for Jeep, and the product is a ticket to the next Bruce Springsteen show. Longtime producer/manager Jon Landau goes over the setlist, explaining the genius in each transition, and E Street members describe how audiences keep having out-of-body-experiences everywhere from Amsterdam to Zurich. Anyone who missed the recent tour (I went twice) will collapse from FOMO watching this and certainly hit the Live Nation app next time the circus comes to town. Bruce himself offers narration, speaking in poetic audio-book form about his intentions, set against awkward close-ups of the bandleader posing for Zimny’s market-tested camera.
Road Diary’s debut at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this season made a tiny bit of news, as in it the E Street Band’s backing vocalist (and Springsteen’s wife) Patti Scialfa revealed that she is undergoing treatment for multiple myeloma, and has a weakened immune system. This explained why her appearances on the current tour have been infrequent. (Fans had many theories; I figured it was because she was a new grandma and wanted to stay home.) What is not mentioned is the peptic ulcer Bruce suffers from, which caused a great deal of scheduling chaos in late 2023. There’s certainly not a peep about the controversy involving Springsteen’s tour and Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing scheme that forced The Boss to issue a rare quasi-apology.
One can only wonder and weep at what someone from the Frederick Wiseman school would do with access to Springsteen’s worldwide tour. Conversations between the musicians would unfold naturally, not summed up via talking-head explanations afterwards. Barring that, how about a movie like Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense that’s just the concert captured in an exuberant way? In case you haven’t heard, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band put on a pretty good show!
