Never Too Busy

It's just too busy, said the Missus yesterday evening on the highway into KL. But she wasn't referring to the traffic as the roads yesterday were pretty much clear all the way, making for an easy journey. No, her cause for complaint was Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in their 1975 incarnation Live at the Hammersmith Odeon, and more specifically what they got up to on an incendiary version of Lost in the Flood. Fortunately I managed to get to the end of the track before she demanded silence, but I must say I felt some sympathy. I don't know what the boys from New Jersey were on that night, pure adrenaline I suspect, but the levels of energy are enough to set your teeth on edge even if you love every moment, as I do. The tempi on everything seem half as fast again as what you usually get with them live. And boy do they let loose on Lost in the Flood giving a wonderfully melodramatic piece the blood and thunder it deserves.

For the sake of full disclosure, and because I like lists, the playlist to that point had comprised: Out of Time - REM; Automatic for the People - REM; the recent Crimson live album I just bought and am entirely besotted with - with this version of The Sailor's Tale being one of the best pieces of 'driving' music I've ever heard, by the way; and the latest CD from The Decemberists - What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World (lovely tunes!) The two REM CDs I picked up buckshee from the Exchange Corner in the staffroom where colleagues put stuff they no longer want. Astonishingly I'd never owned either up to grabbing them off the table, though I did once have a cassette of Out of Time.

Anyway, I just got back from kueh buying duty on the hill, driving solo, and I'm pleased to say I got through the next two numbers from The Boss and his minions as essayed all those years ago: She's The One (taken at an insane tempo I've never heard them match before) and Born To Run. Both played at a volume that would have made a lesser man's ears bleed - just to make up for missing them yesterday. Just realised how integral to the whole sound Clarence's sax was in those days - and what an entirely good thing that was.