Bruce Springsteen doc ‘Road Diary’ is a beautiful behind-the-scenes look at a genius at work: review
movie review
ROAD DIARY: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE
E STREET BAND
Running time: 99 minutes. Out Oct. 25 on Hulu and Disney+
TORONTO — Lake Ontario turned into the Jersey Shore Sunday night.
Bruce Springsteen and Steven Van Zandt came north of the border for the world premiere of their documentary “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band” at the Toronto International Film Festival.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy was there, too, faraway from his jurisdiction. Fans were chanting “Bruuuuuuce!” and afterward some devoted Canadians chased his black SUV down the street clutching their LPs.
“The light doesn’t change for 15 seconds!” yelled one diehard at a crosswalk, desperate for an autograph.
Springsteen was in high spirits. Sitting next to Van Zandt in the front mezzanine of Roy Thompson Hall — a sort of royal box — he bopped along to his own classics. He even grooved to the the ads before the film.
It was moving to observe a 74-year-old music icon still be so pumped up by what he’s put into the world. Bruce is the opposite of indifferent and checked out, as this portrait of a genius proves.
“Road Diary,” as the title suggests, is an enlightening behind-the-scenes glimpse at the E Street Band’s current tour, which began in 2023 after a six-year hiatus.
Because of the long gap, the doc directed by Thom Zimny lets viewers uniquely into Springsteen’s creative process: Choosing a set list, adjusting tempos, collaborating with background singers. In short: Getting the band back together.
“I made a promise to myself that if I got through this, I’d throw the biggest party I could,” Springsteen says of the pandemic in a narration. He fulfills his pledge.
This tour, which continues through 2025, is unlike those of the past, though. Less extemporaneous and more thoughtfully concocted, Springsteen planned a 28-song set list that the band has stuck with.
Drummer Max Weinberg says in the doc that Springsteen’s Broadway show and its woven narrative “informed what he wanted to do” this time when it came to storytelling.
Watching Bruce and the E Street Band rehearse is special — and humanizing.
“We played ‘She’s The One’ so slow, it was a ballad!,” Weinberg laments early on in a studio.
Much of the responsibility for keeping that in check now falls on Van Zandt, who has been named the band’s music director.
After obsessively working out the kinks, they have a dress rehearsal in an eerily empty arena in Trenton.
The doc then heads on tour, with a bit of biography scattered throughout and a heartfelt tribute to Clarence Clemons, the E Street Band saxophonist who died in 2011. “Road Diary” is also a well-made concert film, with “Night Shift” and “Last Man Standing” being highlights.
While “Road Diary” does not concern Springsteen’s personal life as much as “Springsteen on Broadway” or his 2016 memoir “Born to Run” so sublimely did, we sadly learn that his wife, Patti Scialfa, has been suffering from multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, since 2018.
Nowadays, she joins him onstage only occasionally for one or two songs.
“That’s the new normal for me right now, and I’m OK with that,” Scialfa says.
But the Boss goes on. As he has in recent weeks, Springsteen doubles down here about not retiring anytime soon.
“I plan on continuing till the wheels come off,” he says. “After 50 years on the road, it’s too late to stop now.”
But onstage after the premiere, Bruce was more reflective. “If I went tomorrow, it’s OK,” he said. “What a
f–kin’ ride.”
