Quality Late-night TV

My brother called me just past midnight. "Springsteen's about to be on Conan."

Cool. I turned the television on, and went to channel 11. Commercial. Another commercial. And another. I finally got bored, and flipped through a few stations. I stumbled into the most disturbing movie scene I've ever witnessed. Worse than anything I saw in Faces of Death or Faces of Death II. It made me more uncomfortable than any scene from Happiness or Gummo.

It was Emilio Estevez teaching a bunch of grade school hockey players how to line dance. On a hockey rink. Wearing skates. I thought it might be Mighty Ducks XIV or so, but I guess it was just D2. I'm sure the rest of the movie is pretty bad, but this scene was unfathomly bad.

I forgot about The Boss! Panick-stricken, I switched back to NBC, right as they went back to Conan. Phew. Instead of introducing Bruce Springsteen, Conan gave a tease ("Bruce Springsteen will be up in just a little bit"), and then said he'd like to sing a lullaby to all the kids out there. This skit lasted a minute or two, and then...another long commercial break.

Finally, nearly 15 minutes after Dave called me, Bruce started singing a song. He had somewhere between 20 and 30 people on stage with him (I'd guess 27), including a Bonnie Raitt-looking woman playing guitar, a joyous accordian guy, an angry young man in a suit playing egg shakers?, a fireman playing the spoons, a mandolin, dobro, 2 fiddles, banjo, backup singers, about 10 horns, and many, many more.

Bruce played an anti-war tune, Bring Them Back Home. It was filled with a bunch of 30-second breaks (solos) from various instruments. As the song finished, Conan came out, shook Bruce's hand ("Thank you so much, sir") and said into the microphone "We'll be back with more from Bruce Springsteen."

The next commercial break wasn't quite as long. Same big band up on the stage, but who's that tall, dorky-looking redhead strumming a guitar on the left-hand side of the stage? Conan? Conan! He looked nervous as all get-out- quite awkward. (Not that I blame him. Jamming with The Boss?) Bruce even cajoled him into stepping up and singing the repetitious chorus with him into a single mic (Steven Van Zandt-style). I can't recall the song they sang, but it featured a ton of horn action from Conan's boys.

Great stuff. Thanks for calling me, Dave.