The Boss' advice: Learn how to play live, Bruce Springsteen tells young performers

We are living in an age when music can be released and performed digitally, pandemic or not. But nothing trains you better than playing in front of a live audience, according to Bruce Springsteen, somebody who knows a bit about music and performing.

Springsteen turned 71 in September. But he remains a rock music colossus who can fill stadiums. A few days ago, he told The New York Times that he was lucky to be born in an era when up-and-comers had many opportunities to play live.

“I grew up in a golden age for rock bands,” Springsteen said. “Back in 1967, if the beach club wanted to hire a band, they had to hire teenagers. And so you played the Elks Club, the firemen’s fairs, high schools, bowling alleys, pizza parlours; you played every place where they could move chairs and create a dance floor on Saturday night. And you played hundreds of those shows.”

The Boss added, “The level of craft that we bring to live shows is a result of playing a thousand nights before I signed a record contract. When I see young bands, I tell them, you’ve got to learn how to play live. It’s still important, and it’s an experience that cannot yet be simulated.”

Springsteen also gave some insight into staying relevant and tipped his trucker hat to ‘Pretty Woman’ singer Roy Orbison. Though a 60s star, Orbison sounded current even in the 1980s, Springsteen remembered. The trick was even when Orbison was singing an old song, he sang it with the attitude that it was a current number.

“I think if you keep the inner spirit of what you’re doing alive you remain relevant,” Springsteen said. “I remember playing behind Roy Orbison in 1988, I was surprised at how incredibly present and current his music felt, and it was all because that was the way he was singing it. I realised it was not old to Roy. It was not nostalgia to him. It was as alive in his heart and in his spirit in 1988 as it was in 1960.”