Is there any sentiment more startling at this current gloomy moment than optimism? Or, at a time when half the country seems to be warring simultaneously with the other half and itself, unity? Perhaps even more disconcerting, that long dormant sensation, hope?
Most live events, whether a sports game or a concert, tend to generate a sense of communion. But last weekend at two performances with ostensibly little in common — Jerry Seinfeld’s 100th appearance at the Beacon Theater on Saturday night and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the UBS Arena on Long Island on Sunday — the collective emotional response felt almost preternaturally heightened, and unexpectedly similar.
It wasn’t just that the very concept of synchronicity itself is so markedly out of sync with our divisive era. Nor did the feeling of togetherness seem to stem from the shared audience demographics — overwhelmingly white, skewed male and on the whole ... not young. Something more than mere nostalgia for their earlier selves seemed to be at play. It was as if the two performances reconnected audiences with an earlier culture, one our current fragmented cacophony of infinite entertainment can no longer deliver.
Springsteen is 73 and Seinfeld 68. Both reached the heights of their popularity in a pre-internet, pre-iPhone, pre-streaming era. Back then, a performance was something you witnessed as it happened rather than on demand. As Chuck Klosterman noted in his 2022 book, “The Nineties,” TV at that time was built on the idea that you could watch only at a particular moment in time. “Seinfeld” offered an especially present-tense experience, filmed in front of a studio audience: “For much of a decade, ‘Seinfeld’ was the most popular, most transformative, live-action show on television,” Klosterman writes.
Entertainment was almost necessarily a shared, rather than purely personal, experience, more universal and, in some ways, more accessible. You could buy a concert ticket without a total Ticketmaster-induced meltdown. Springsteen, who with his E Street Band, was once voted by Rolling Stone readers the best live act of all time, owes much of his popularity to touring and live albums. And up until this 2023 tour, Springsteen notably made an effort to keep tickets at a reasonable price.
Both Springsteen and Seinfeld experienced their apogee at a very different political moment in this country. The 1980s and ‘90s certainly had their share of problems, but the dominant mood was that things were generally OK in America or at least would get better. Even those who didn’t share Ronald Reagan’s “morning in America” platitudes felt unified in their opposition. And the divisions that existed in the ‘90s, which is now enjoying its own cultural revival, feel like sandbox tussles compared with the dark polarization of today.
Seinfeld and Springsteen also both became popular in an era when stars still held mass appeal and exerted broad cultural influence. In our current highly performative culture, there’s a contrasting authenticity to their respective public personas, which have remained pretty consistent over time. Even as Bruce buddies up to Barack Obama and Jerry rides around in fancy cars, neither comes across as elitist or overtly intellectual.
And there may be particular resonance in the fact that these two quintessential tri-state area liberals nonetheless appeal widely to the rest of the country, a rare consensus. Springsteen, of course, channels the hardworking, overlooked American — the Vietnam vet, the blue-collar worker, the underclass. Seinfeld’s shtick is more urban schmo, muddling through daily life, mystified by its absurdities. But in projecting a regular Joe-ness — no small feat for two middle-class kids turned multimillionaires — both have a way of making their audiences feel heard.
Even for this particular non-devotee, to witness the intense bond between Springsteen and his fans was an extraordinary experience. During moments of melancholy and mourning (“Last Man Standing” was dedicated to a recently deceased friend from his first band), I could feel the arena audience lock into Springsteen’s face. The low calls of “Bruuuce” between songs and the way Springsteen met his fans’ raised hands as he walked through the floor toward the end of a three-hour-long night felt like a timeless and almost transcendental communion. “Do you want go home?” Springsteen called out rhythmically to the audience to repeated “Nooooos” in response. They meant it.
Seinfeld’s compact set of less than an hour (“Cut everything, cut it,” he said to Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show” last fall), likewise left his audience with a palpable desire to stay in that moment. Seinfeld had given them exactly what they came for — relatable comic set pieces, easy laughs at unfraught topics, bemusement rather than outrage. There was an almost giddy buoyancy in the air, and despite whatever horrors might be going on outside the theater, inside, it felt that everyone was in alignment.
“Seinfeld” is streaming on Netflix. Springsteen’s on Spotify. But there’s something about witnessing these performers connect with an audience so ready to meet them that offered a remarkably life-affirming reprieve in this divisive, doomy post-COVID moment. The exuberance, the positivity, this sense of “in it together” felt exactly like what had been missing.
(Tony Cenicola | The New York Times) Pamela Paul
Pamela Paul is a columnist for The New York Times.