“You know your career is going well when Bruce Springsteen asks if he can sing a few lines from your song.”
So said Adam Sandler at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, shortly after Bruce and The Wallflowers teamed up to rock the house on “One Headlight,” the first song to hit Number One on the Alternative, Adult Alternative, and Mainstream Rock charts.
The Wallflowers’ hit was nominated for four VMAs that night (it didn’t win any, though), and it would go on to win the Grammy for Best Rock Song and Best Group Rock Performance a year later.
So it was a big moment when Bruce and The Wallflowers performed it together on MTV. (Although it wasn’t the first time they had performed together–that would have been six months earlier when when the band blew through the Jersey Shore.
For the band, it was a endorsement of their legitimacy by rock royalty; for Bruce, it was his re-introduction to the world as a rocker following his eighteen-month acoustic tour and four-year hiatus since his last rock album. (There’s some irony in that Bruce’s re-introduction was with (literally) “The New Dylan.”)
But most importantly, it was a killer performance, one that still holds up today.
One Headlight
First performed: September 4, 1997 (New York City, NY)
Last performed: September 4, 1997 (New York City, NY)
