Ten Covers for Bruce Springsteen to Play in Winnipeg

 (Image from the crucial Springsteen2Wpg)

Bruce Springsteen is gonna play Winnipeg, Manitoba...eventually! After all, we've got a big new stadium, a fanatic fan-base and a musical history he can plunder for all those ingenious locally-themed covers he's been doing on the High Hopes Tour. A partial list of Springsteen's recent live covers would include: AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" in Adelaide, INXS' "Don't Change" in Sydney, The Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" in Brisbane, Lorde's "Royals" in Aukland and (with a slight twist) The Specials' "Free Nelson Mandela" in South Africa. I've ranked the potential Winnipeg covers on my list from least to most likely and have tried to strike a balance between my own personal favourites and the de rigeur local classics. For more cultural awesomeness (music, comics, film, politics etc.) Follow @jeffen69 on Twitter

10.    Personality Crisis "Twilight's Last Gleaming" (1983)
Certainly a million to one shot, this old-school punk band with rock chops dominated Winnipeg's scene in the early 80's thanks in no small part to the antics of barrel-voiced wildman Mitch Funk, who Springsteen would surely admire if he knew of him. Plus, doesn't "Twilight's Last Gleaming" just sound like a Springsteen song title already?




9.    Terry Jacks "Season in the Sun" (1974)
Okay, Bruce (and half of the world) may still harbour mixed feelings about this sentimental song from one of Winnipeg's less celebrated pop figures but it has that epic grandeur in both the chorus and the story-line that would make it fit right into Springsteen's wheelhouse.




8.     Propagandhi "I Was a Pre-Teen McCarthyist" (1996)
Another daringly unlikely choice would be for Bruce to cover a song from the Winnipeg's political thrash lords, whose riffy song about father-son relationships and U.S. imperialism (that's just how those boys roll) is pretty catchy and would be given a twist by that Springsteen intensity.




7.    Greg Macpherson "Churchill" (1999)
While intense rocker Macpherson doesn't hide his adoration of Springsteen, his own brand of music is strikingly singular and Springsteen could do a fantastic Nebraska-esque take on this train ballad of the frozen North.



6.    Bachman Turner Overdrive "Roll on Down the Highway" (1974)
Thematically and musically this chestnut hits all the Springsteen buttons and would have the added benefit of not being "Takin' Care of Business", which at this point has just become part of the musical furniture.




5.    Jeffrey Hatcher "(Born to Be) Riding Only Down" (1995)
Hatcher is just the kind of tenacious, gifted rock n' roll lifer (like Willie Nile, Southside Johnny or Jesse Malin) that Springsteen admires and invites to share his stage. This soaring kiss-off song by The Blue Shadows (with Billy Cowsill of The Cowsills) would be electrifying in a Bruce-E-Street context.




4.    Burton Cummings "Stand Tall" (1976)
Another slightly purple bit of melodic melodrama from the seventies that would get pumped up to gargantuan-proportion by the man and his band.




3.   The Weakerthans "Anchorless"  (1998)
Bruce keeps his ear close to the ground, music-wise, so I suspect he's aware of John K. Sampson & co.'s wordy folk-rock. While the most known entry in the Weakerthans' catalog would be "One Great City", that song's "I Hate Winnipeg" chorus would make it a tough sell for a visitor, even for one of Bruce's stature. "Anchorless", on the other hand a finely-detailed song about the "small towns that we live and die in" would speak very directly to experiences shared by performer and audience.




2.    The Guess Who "Share the Land" (1970) or "Shakin' All Over" (1965)
When it comes to Winnipeg's most famous musical export it's a toss up* between "Shakin' All Over" (already a cover) which would indulge Springsteen's love of early sixties rock that he can stretch out into long vamps and "Share the Land" which plays to his love of social justice mixed with a good tune. Your call, Mr. Springsteen, your call.
*"American Woman" is not only too obvious, it's brand of anti-Americanism doesn't jibe with Springsteen's more subdued criticism of his homeland.





1.    Neil Young "Long May You Run"
There's no question that "Heart of Gold" would produce a rapturous response and be a fantastic choice (as would other Young songs including ones Bruce and Neil have sung together like "Helpless" and "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World"), but "Long May You Run' has those Bruce motifs of running and remembering that would make for an epic show-closer! Plus, Springsteen must be aware that when Bob Dylan came to town he headed straight over to Neil's first rockin' abode as soon as his show was done.  Bruce, let me just say that I guarantee you that we will lead a goddamn parade to Neil's house with you as the Grand Marshal if that's what it takes to get you to visit our One Great City.





So, those versed in Springsteen and Manitoba history, what do you make of these choices? Were there stunning choices that were missed?  Let us know in the COMMENTS section!

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Dubious Suggestions: Fred Penner "The Cat Came Back", since even bad ideas, like Springsteen doing a beloved kids song, can make for good entertainment, The Crash Test Dummies "Superman's Song" who's solemn lament for the original superhero would fit Springsteen's vocal and narrative range nicely and Venetian Snares "Winnipeg is a Frozen Shithole" the longest of the long-shots for many, many reasons which are none too hard to discern.

D.O.A. - Let's Wreck the Party

(A awkward album cover - the bald guy is Ken Lester D.O.A.'S Bernie Rhodes-like manager.)

Your first two concerts shape your musical vision; mine were Neil Young and D.O.A. Canadian rock legends in mid-eighties awkward spots became my benchmarks for live entertainment.Both shows were free courtesy of a brother-in-law who was covering them for the Winnipeg Free Press. We saw Neil in the since demolished Winnipeg Arena and got to watch from the Winnipeg Jets bench. D.O.A., on the other hand, played a social hall called Le Rendez-Vous, which had the ass-half of a canoe sticking out of it. All in all, it was pretty damn Canadian.


Neil Young, playing with the terribly-named International Harvesters, was deep in the middle of one of his recurring country-ish phases, Neil, returning to his former home town for the first time in years began by saying, "Welcome home" before launching into a slew of his best tracks, including a scorching solo acoustic, “The Needle and the Damage Done”.

(The almost Life Magazine like photo shoot for the North American cover.)

As for D.O.A. (Joey Shithead - vocals/guitar, Dave Gregg - guitar/vocals, Brian Goble - bass/vocals, Dimwit - drums), they played all their material, even the slicker material from 1985's Let’s Wreck the Party, with undiminished fury. Le Rendez-Vous turned into a smoke-filled, beer-soaked sauna and neither the band or the audience let up for a second.

(The more fitting UK album cover.)

Like Neil's mid-eighties album (his sales were so bad his own label, Geffen, sued for making music "unrepresentative of himself") Let's Wreck the Party's new direction was not met with universal acclaim. In fact when, in-between songs, Joey Shithead threw a sealed copy of the album into the crowd it got tossed back on stage, unclaimed! Y'see D.O.A. had, under the tutelage of 80’s hair-rock also-ran Brian “Too Loud” McLeod from the Headpins, cannonballed into the Rock mainstream. Like a Chumbawamba for the mid-eighties, they tried to mix pop trappings (keyboards, Big Rock guitar, saxophone) with radical politics (“General Strike”, “Race Riot” - listen here).

(D.O.A played Rock Against Racism, Rock Against Reagen and, yes, Rock against Radiation - alliterative action!)

The album bombed; too many metal tempos and neat n’ clean backing vocals for the increasingly-conservative punk scene and yet too crude for eighties pop radio (check out Wimpy’s gnarled vocals clashing with the MTV-friendly production on ‘Singin’ in the Rain’).

Let's Wreck the Party is, however, a logical successor to 1982’s nigh-on-perfect, War on 45. The anthemic tracks (like “Our World”) were, as their live show proved, still fist-waving and the song-writing had leapt forward. After covering Edwin Starr’s “War” previously, Joey Shithead then penned his own funk-protest tract, “Dance O’ Death” (a concert staple complete with The Rev. Joey Shithead and his flailing crucifix). While surely not a highlight of the album (even though it had a video!), the song showed that the band was no longer tied down by loud n' fast rules.

Let’s Wreck the Party is like D.O.A.’s version of the Clash's Combat Rock (War on 45 being like a condensation of London Calling, with no parallel Sandanista betwixt) - outwardly commercial but deeply weird. If it’s a sell-out, it’s unclear who the target market was. The album blenderized unassimilable sources (listen to those Doors-ish keyboards on the otherwise gruff "Murder in Hollywood") together and spilled out a reasonably cohesive album. Let's Wreck the Party may not surpass their earlier work but it got an adventurous feel, not something you'd say about every album they've put out since.

Speaking of new work, D.O.A.'s 2008 album, Northern Avenger ("Police Brutality" video here), with its giant production courtesy of Bob Rock is kind of a throwback to this album's sound, just with less musical diversity.

Most of D.O.A.'s most crucial releases are in print on Joey's Sudden Death Records please go there and support the band.)

Let’s Wreck the Party now available at Sudden Death!!

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P.S. They're making a documentary on D.O.A. (after all Joey was the only non-American to get time in the American Hardcore documentary).