Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band have been making music together for over 50 years.
And a big part of their longevity comes from the band’s epic live performances, playing through their decades of hits for over three plus hours on stage.
Now, fans are getting a peek at the magic behind-the-scenes of their latest world tour in the new Disney+ documentary Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band.
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The documentary also showcases another part of the band’s longevity – the lifetime friendship between frontman Springsteen and guitarist Steven Van Zandt (or Stevie, as her prefers to be called).
“We’ve been friends since we were 15, you know, so it’s a long relationship and you can’t replace that, you can’t fake it,” Van Zandt, 73, tells 9honey Celebrity in a London hotel.
“So that’s there every night, I mean, that’s my role – clean rhythm guitar and best friend [or] second banana, as it’s known,” he laughs.
“I’m the Dean Martin to his Frank Sinatra, or I’m Bud Abbott to his Lou Costello, whatever is necessary, whatever is appropriate at the time – it could be something serious, it could be something fun, but it’s a brotherly relationship for sure.”
Van Zandt says the pair have only ever had three clashes in their 60-year friendship – one of which led to the guitarist and songwriter leaving the band in the ’80s for over a decade.
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In his 2021 memoir, Unrequited Infatuations, Van Zandt said he felt like Springsteen, also known as The Boss, wasn’t taking his advice and wasn’t giving him a seat at the decision-making table at that time.
Now, 40 years later, Van Zandt gets his long-awaited promotion to musical director during preparation for their current tour – a moment captured in the documentary.
“I’m the Dean Martin to his Frank Sinatra, or I’m Bud Abbott to his Lou Costello”
“Well, it’s nice,” he laughs. “I mean official recognition, I guess, has its place.”
Van Zandt tells 9honey Celebrity his role as music director to Springsteen’s band leader is to anticipate the 75-year-old singer’s needs before he does.
“Mostly, I’m trying to reflect his personality and what I think he would want to hear,” Van Zandt says.
“So the job is that Vulcan mind-meld, where you’re thinking the same way, and we have the same roots keep in mind, like I say we grew up together … so it’s kind of effortless at this point.”
One thing that’s been different on this tour, is core band member Patti Scialfa has largely been missing from the stage after being diagnosed with Myeloma, a type of blood cancer.
Scialfa reveals her 2018 diagnosis for the first time in the documentary, explaining to fans that “touring has become a challenge for me”.
“[Myeloma] affects my immune system, so I just have to be careful what I choose to do and where I choose to go,” she says in the film.
While Van Zandt tells 9honey Celebrity “of course we miss her and wish her the best”, he says the band have been adjusting for some time to not having Scialfa – Springsteen’s wife – with them on stage.
“It’s kind of slowly been happening,” he says of the mother-of-three not joining them on tour.
“She had had other things she needed to do, whether it was the illness or whether it was having to attend her daughter’s matches.
“So, she’d been in and out for several tours, so in that sense we were kind of used to it.”
Van Zandt says it hasn’t changed the touring experience, with fans “actually surprising” him.
“The intensity of this particular show just raised the entire audience another notch that we didn’t think was possible,” he tells 9honey Celebrity.
“I didn’t think it could be any more enthusiastic and the audience is actually surprising me this tour.”
The singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer worked on some of the band’s biggest hits including Born in the USA, Born to Run, Glory Days and Hungry Heart.
He says the first time crowds sang back his words at a packed live show was “an absolute revelation”.
“That completely blew my mind,” Van Zandt recalls.
“And that was really the beginning of me understanding we can communicate country-to-country without going through our governments, which was a major revelation and led to my whole political involvement really.”
Decades later, stadiums filled with 90,000 screaming fans still leaves Van Zandt pinching himself a little.
“I’m not surprised that people are still coming [but] I do feel lucky still,” he says.
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“There is an element of luck I think but it’s also an element of quality work I would hope to think that pays off.”
The world tour, which has been going on for two years already and continues through next year, has been through the US and Europe but seems unlikely to reach Australia.
“Unfortunately it doesn’t look it’s gonna happen anytime soon,” Van Zandt tells 9honey Celebrity.
“[Australia’s] a wonderful place, I think it’s an entirely different species of human beings, honestly. I’ve never seen anything like it.
“It’s a place you could consider living, and depending on what happens in November, I wouldn’t rule it out,” he jokes, referencing the US election.
“But I don’t know if we could fit it in. I wish it was closer, I wish we had faster planes or something.”
Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band is available to stream on Disney+ from October 25.
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