Born to Run Over and Jobsworths

Bruce may never have done an MTV Unplugged performance - after his scheduled unplugged performance ended by as his 1993 In Concert/MTV Plugged show. But the British media have been worked up by the plug being pulled on Bruce and Paul McCartney's Saturday night show at Hard Rock Calling.

For one thing, the plug-pulling ending seems incredibly unnecessary, and to show a stunning failure of imagination or basic common sense. Could the organisers not have cut off all the amplification except Bruce and Paul's microphone, so that they could explain to the crowd what was happening and sing a final few lines? Could Bruce and Paul not have been told what was happening, as they clearly were completely unaware for a while that the sound had been cut off? And how did the communication channels breakdown so far that Bruce couldn't decide how (if not when) to finish his set? It all seems incredibly odd, and really poor on the part of the promoters not to announce what was happening or let Bruce talk to his audience.

Having said that, the show's certainly received far more coverage than would other have been the case. Many newspapers reviewed the Sunderland date, as something of a trailer for the Hyde Park show, so would have been unlikely to do much more than they had for Bruce's Isle of Wight performance, which merited only a paragraph or so in most reviews of the festival as a whole.

But yesterday the papers screamed about how 'kill-joy organisers pulled the plug on the dream finale' and 'jobsworths unplug Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney'. For a 62-year-old and a 70-year-old to be given full-page coverage for their refusal to stop rocking could well be worth a lot more, in credibility if not financial terms, than having had the audience hear the last few bars of Twist and Shout. It would have been great to have heard the audience's tribute to Clarence Clemons in Tenth Avenue Freeze Out one more time, but it's certainly not harmed Bruce's image as a real rock star.

A special mention in the debate about why the organisers pulled the plug should go to the Health and Safety Executive's official response, including: 'It's ironic that this excuse has been used in relation to Bruce Springsteen, who certainly knows what real health and safety is all about - look at the words of 'Factory' from Darkness on the Edge of Town referring to the toll that factory work can take on the health of blue collar workers.' The full response is here: http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/record/2012/springsteen160712.htm