The Boss sounds the alarm

THE '08 presidential campaign made a two-night stop at the Wachovia Center last weekend. Instead of a bevy of candidates, there was a band of musicians. Instead of a smiling front-runner there was a strutting front man. And instead of massaged messages, there was open talk of lies and lost liberties.

It wasn't Hillary or Barack or Rudy or Fred onstage. It was Bruce. Springsteen, that is, along with his comrades from the E Street Band. It was rock 'n' roll, not politics, but only someone who wasn't listening closely could say it was only rock 'n' roll. And I liked it even more because it wasn't.

Springsteen mentioned no candidate, and, unlike the "Vote for Change" tour backing John Kerry, offered no endorsements. Instead, he used the metaphors and imagery of art to sound an alarm, singing in a new song, "Woke up Election Day, skies gunpowder and shades of gray." The song is called "Livin' in the Future," and you can tell Springsteen hopes this ominous forecast doesn't come true.

That number has a bright bounce to go with a sunny refrain: "Don't worry, darlin' . . . none of this has happened yet." But it's a false shine, and that's the point. This song's about denial, about how we proclaim success in the face of defeat and impugn those who disagree.

He might not admit it, but Springsteen's framed the debate of the next year for us. It's all about telling the truth, counting the cost and living up to ideals. "Is there anybody alive out there?" screams his new song "Radio Nowhere," a tone-setter for his current tour. Saturday night, I heard it as a wake-up call to see the shadows surrounding us and hold our leaders, and ourselves, accountable.

Springsteen's music came of age alongside the betrayal of Watergate and the admission of American malaise from perhaps the last real truth-teller in the White House. But his characters didn't need a president to tell them things weren't working. They saw it in the factory and felt it behind the wheel as they raced toward a promised land fading from reach. Somehow, though, they still believed they'd get there.

If the music grew up in the dark night of the '70s, it flexed its muscle in the gleam of the '80s, against the glossy façade of Ronald Reagan's Morning in America. Reagan tried to co-opt the grit of the Boss' "Born in the U.S.A." in his '84 campaign, blithely ignoring the irony of the lyrics and embracing only the patriotic-sounding title. Springsteen's been on guard ever since, his songs less anthems of faith, more cautionary tales of surviving falsehood.

So there he was Saturday night, giving a shout-out to the Constitution in its hometown, pointing his Telecaster and taking aim at the truth-twisting of those in power. But with his legendary knack for fusing rock revival with a tent meeting for serious business, he enlarged the conversation past party or personality, which he never discussed.

Instead, he sang of a fallen soldier mourned by his buddies, a huckster illusionist ready to saw us in half and the "long walk home" between the choices we've made and the values we profess.

He closed the show with "American Land," a Seegeresque tribute to "the hands that built the country" that are "still dyin' now."

There was no mistaking the gap he sees between where we stand as a nation and where we could be.

Years ago, the young rebels in Springsteen's songs had faith in spirits in the night, whose magic held out the possibility of change, the idea of transformation.

SATURDAY NIGHT, introducing the title song of his new album, "Magic," by criticizing politicians who turn truth into lie and lie into truth, Springsteen exposed the underside of the enchantment.

"This ain't about magic," he stated, "it's about tricks."

Be warned, he seemed to say. We're in the shadows of a precarious night, and it's an open question whether we can really change.

Are we up for a fight or content with a show? In what will we put our faith - real transformation or hollow tricks?

Is there anybody alive out there? *

David Bradley is a writer, theater artist and educator who lives in West Mount Airy.