'STICK !!!'

Aradhna and I just returned from a one-time screening of 'The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town' at Chadstone. Theatre packed with middle-aged white guys like me, Aradhna an exotic sweet in a carton of eggs. Her Bruce Blind Spot is one of our relationship's more remarkable anecdotes. She was familiar with his name when we met in 2004 the way people are familiar with the date their car registration is next due, or the name of a kid they sat beside in 3rd grade but changed schools before the beginning of 4th. Her familiarity with his music remains ... abysmal ... but she understands his place in the telling of my life's story and is therefore open to multi-media exposure. I provided context for the documentary during the 15-minute drive to Chaddie but contemporary commentary by Springsteen, Mike Appel, Jon Landau, Jimmy Iovine and members of the E Street Band made preparation moot. Not surprising I devoured every second of 32-year-old black & white studio footage with crack addict intensity, especially snippets of Bruce yelling 'STICK!' at a flustered Max Weinberg before Chuck Plotkin came along and solved their collective snare drum conundrum. Afterwards, Aradhna said she enjoyed the doco. It's a start.

The CD/DVD box set releases 19/11 here in Australia. Here's remarkable footage of Bruce and the E Street Band performing a complete studio version of 'The Promise' -- keep an eye out for a cool 'Miami' Steve Van Zandt looking like he's in-between visits to a smack dealer uptown.