Editor's Note
Editor’s Note: Today’s guest blogger is friend of the blog and long-time Springsteen fan Barry Rebo. Even if you don’t know his name (and many of you certainly do), if you read this blog I guarantee you’re familiar with his work.
Having once lived down the Jersey Shore, Barry is one of Bruce’s earliest fans (since 1969), and more importantly: he’s pretty mean with a camera. That footage of Bruce and the band in the studio recording “Jungleland” in the Wings for Wheels documentary? Barry shot that.
The boys rehearsing “Save My Love” at Bruce’s house in the summer of ’76? Barry shot that (along with all the archival footage included in The Promise: Darkness on the Edge of Town).
The River Tour rehearsal video that accompanied the The River anniversary box set, and the multi-camera Live in Tempe concert? Barry shot those too.
Barry filmed Bruce’s legendary 1975 shows at The Bottom Line and The Roxy, and he filmed Bruce’s 1972 acoustic showcase at Max’s Kansas City. In a jaw-dropping 1973 clip that I’ve never seen outside of the 2019 Springsteen Archives event, Barry captured the original E Street Band performing a glorious “New York City Serenade.”
How did he manage to get such great footage? I asked him that, too, when I spoke to him by phone recently. Credit the right place, the right time, and very importantly: the know-how and inspiration to adapt some low-light security cameras into early portable video cameras that operated so unobtrusively and in such dim settings that very often no one even realized he was filming. As fans, we all share a debt of gratitude to Barry.
Barry moved on to a successful and storied career in documentary film-making and was an early HDTV pioneer. He’s still a Springsteen fan, though, and on the way to a film festival in 2016, he had the opportunity to see Bruce and the boys in Europe for the first time.
And he still captured moments on video (this time with an iPhone). Here’s his story.
The Locarno Film Festival (Locarno, Switzerland) always plays the first week of August. It mixes the passion of the Italians with the organization and graciousness of the Swiss. Experienced together you have a wonderful right brain/left brain celebration of auteur cinema.
Sitting outdoors on the Grande Plaza amongst three thousand passionate film aficionados–especially in those pre-Covid days–is, to me, a perfect Summer evening. And in 2016 it was to be even more special.
To get to Locarno from New York you can go through Milan or Zurich. So when I noticed Bruce’s The River Tour of 2016 was slated to have its last European show in Zurich on July 31 it was a no-brainer to book myself to be there before heading on to Locarno.
Despite having been around Bruce & The E Street Band since the early ‘70s, I’d never before seen him perform in Europe and wanted to have that experience while and where I could. It was indeed, needless to say, well worth the effort.
To me, especially that evening, it’s about the fans. There’s little hope to capture the power of their performance with just one iPhone but with the right credentials (that they graciously provided me) you can indeed mill around and take in Bruce and the band’s pre-show backstage “meet & greets” as well as roam the arena from behind and in front of the stage during the show.
What's your story?
Want to share your story on E Street Shuffle? Drop me a line if you’d like to be our next guest blogger!
Barry’s footage, among all others, was amazing in his capture of “The Promise” (NYC, 1978). We got to see and hear Garry’s skillful fingering on the base and some of Steve’s intricate embellishments on the Fender. Wow!
(Continuing on Ken’s first video inclusion above, “The Promise” rehearsal can be found.)