Bruce Springsteen thwarts expectations on ‘Plugged’ (1992)

This story originally appeared in the Asbury Park Press on Nov 11, 1992.

Bruce Springsteen has been plagued by expectations almost from the day he strummed his first guitar.

In the “Bruce Springsteen Rockumentary” that MTV will air at 9 p.m. today, the late John Hammond, the talent scout who signed Springsteen to Columbia Records, recalls his first meeting with Springsteen and Springsteen’s then-manager, Mike Appel.

“The first thing (Appel) asked me was, `You’re the man who’s supposed to have discovered Bob Dylan, aren’t you?’ ” Hammond says.

“I said, `I guess so.’

“And he said, `I wanna see if you have any ears. I’ve got an artist better than Bob Dylan.’ “

Ugh.

Sitting next to Hammond as Hammond talks, Springsteen lets out one of his trademark nervous laughs.

“That was pretty rough,” the singer remembers. “Because I haven’t played a note and, like, I was already hailed as, ya know, the greatest thing that ever hit the planet.”

Anyone who has spent any time following Springsteen’s career knows this isn’t hyperbole. From the start, he was hailed as the next Bob Dylan. Time and Newsweek put him on their covers before he had recorded a single hit. The hype around Springsteen would have sunk a lesser man, but, as Hammond recalls thinking the day he met Springsteen, this was the greatest talent of the decade.

The expectations have followed Springsteen ever since, and criticism of Springsteen has, as often as not, addressed what he should have done instead of what he actually did.

Example: Before all but a few hundred fans — those who were there in Los Angeles on Sept. 22 — heard the concert that MTV will broadcast at 10 p.m. today as “Bruce Springsteen Plugged,” Springsteen already had been pilloried by a lot of others for playing the show with full electricity. After all, it had been billed as an acoustic “Unplugged” performance.

But as he has done so many times in his career — often with amazing results — Springsteen thwarts expectations on “Plugged,” which runs for an hour and 45 minutes. He plays one song, an unrecorded, saucy love song to his wife, “Red Headed Woman,” solo acoustic, while standing in front of equipment for a full band.

Then he announces, “That was the unplugged part of the show,” and goes on, with his five-piece backing band and five backup singers, to perform an abbreviated version of the concert with which he has been touring the United States since July.

Although Springsteen has performed on live radio several times throughout his career, this is his first televised concert. Good (though not great) a concert as it is, it does come across as a bit of a letdown. For one thing, it relies heavily on the inferior material of Springsteen’s two recent albums, “Human Touch” and “Lucky Town,” with a few hits (“Glory Days”) and nuggets (“Growin’ Up,” “Atlantic City”) thrown in.

For another thing, the knee-jerk critics may have been right this time. The true strength of MTV’s acoustic-rock series “Unplugged,” for which this concert was originally intended, is not that it gets a lot of famous rock’n’rollers to simply show up, but that it gets them to bring out a side of their music fans don’t often hear.

A mesmerizing singer and soulful songwriter, Springsteen was a perfect candidate for “Unplugged.” He’s also a renowned perfectionist, and he reportedly nixed the idea after acoustic rehearsals that didn’t meet his own expectations.

There could have been a bout of nervousness, too. Performing “Red Headed Woman” alone on “Plugged,” Springsteen looks wholly uncomfortable.

Only when the band joins him does he appear to loosen up. Much later, Springsteen the rock ‘n’ roll preacher makes a giddy, crazed appearance in the middle of “Light of Day,” howling into the camera: “I want you to get up off your couch! I want you to put the popcorn down! I want you to come over to the TV set! I want you to turn it up real loud! I want you to take off aaaawwwlll your clothes!”

But that’s a high point the show rarely lives up to. If you saw Springsteen’s concert this summer or fall, you’ve seen it already: a soulful, even-tempered, pretty good show that hits more middles than peaks.

The hourlong “Rockumentary” that precedes the concert adds little (except for lots of video footage) to the Springsteen story you don’t already know, but is a well-done, occasionally surprising, summary of the basic Springsteen history.

It covers his career from his first band, the Castiles, whose 1966 single, “Baby I,” you almost surely will have never heard before the teasing tidbit of it MTV plays, through today. It includes interviews with Springsteen, manager-producer Jon Landau and several E Streeters.

“Bruce Springsteen Rockumentary” will be repeated at 7 p.m. Sunday. “Bruce Springsteen Plugged” will be repeated at 7 p.m. Saturday and 10 p.m. Sunday.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Bruce Springsteen plays Plugged rockumentary, 1992