For a Music Pilgrimage of Epic Proportions, Bruce Springsteen Fan Photograph by Chris Spiegel Hannah Summers Heads to Her All- American Version of the Holy Lands
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Experiences NEW JERSEY ‘Greetings from Asbury Park N.J.’ was Bruce Springsteen’s first album, released in 1973. It shifted only 25,000 copies in its first year, but listeners were sold. For a music pilgrimage of epic proportions, Bruce Springsteen fan Photograph by Chris Spiegel Hannah Summers heads to her All- American version of the Holy Lands 38 39 Experiences NEW JERSEY ’ve reached Mecca and it’s smaller Historical indoor sand, this quirky little than I expected. The roof is layered amusement park town charms like the Palace Amuse- with moss and damp, while the wood is ments opened in bad boy at school. MUSIC VENUES chipped and battered. The screen door July 1888 and was Admittedly, the and porch have seen better days. famous for having Palace Amusements ASBURY LANES one of America’s asburylanes.com This is number 7 ½ West End Court, greatest hand- referenced in Born to A vintage bowling alley and live in a little town called Long Branch, New carved carousels Run were torn down I music venue, this little institution Jersey. It may seem strange to be standing long ago, the parts has been shaking Asbury Park outside a small house on the Jersey Shore, sold and scrapped; and the casino – once since the 1960s with psychobilly, demanding another photo because “you brimming with bumper cars and wealth – rockabilly and garage rock. didn’t get the whole house in” and “I look is now a derelict shell gazing out to sea, chubby in the last one,” but this matters. casting an eerie shadow over the south of CONVENTION HALL AND Some travel to Lourdes, some line the the town. Random buildings wait for some THE PARAMOUNT THEATRE River Ganges, and some clamber to the top love, dilapidated since the riots that took apboardwalk.com of mountains for sunrise, but my spiritual place in July 1970. The two biggest venues in Asbury journey is a 90-minute trundle on the grubby But, unlike its neighbours, Asbury Park have been on the boardwalk NJ Transit train, heading south of New York escaped relatively unscathed from 2012’s since 1930. The Clash, Bob Dylan to the seaside towns of New Jersey. Hurricane Sandy, and over the past 20 years, and Lou Reed have all played. As a Bruce Springsteen fan, this is my trickles of funding have helped to revive THE SAINT thesaintnj.com pilgrimage. The tiny house I’m visiting its rough and ready image. It’s a stop-start With a mission to preserve live is where The Boss wrote Born to Run; a process, needing sensitive planning, but original music at the Jersey labour-intensive album released 40 years proud local journalist and Shore resident Shore, locals come to The Saint ago this year and regarded as one of the Stan assures me the boardwalk is the “best looking to discover the next big greatest records in rock history. it’s been in 30 years”. thing in NJ. Springsteen’s music was the soundtrack Desperate to escape the cold, I have of my childhood – his albums blasting out two options. Having my fortune told at on long car journeys up north with my Dad – and now I’m an adult he has a song to suit every mood. His music provides escapism and his concert schedule dictates my travel Today it leads me to Asbury Park, plans, taking me from Coventry to Cape Springsteen’s adopted home. A couple of Town and from Dublin to Rome. miles along the coast from Long Branch, I’M HAPPY: it’s the Jersey Shore’s party town and the inspiration for many of Born to Run’s lyrics. But it’s more than just a destination for THIS QUIRKY Springsteen fans. For decades the grimy- FOOD but-cool live music venues scattered across ‘the right side of town’ (between the ocean LITTLE TOWN FRANK’S DELI & RESTAURANT and railways tracks) have helped shimmy For a taste of 1960s Asbury Park some of the world’s greatest rock acts into try this typical and very popular the spotlight. Today, it’s a place for avid roadside diner with fluorescent CHARMS LIKE music fans looking for a night of rock, folk, lights, sticky tables and smiley reggae and Jersey Shore sound – pre-Beatles Jersey-girl waitresses. Perch on rock smoothed with a bit of pre-Motown a bar stool and go for a pork roll, THE BAD BOY cheese and egg bun. Simple, greasy, R&B. Add to that an influx of belly-busting and with a dunk in the local hot restaurants and a sweet-ass beach that’s sauce, it’s a classic NJ dish. yet to make an impact on British tourists’ AT SCHOOL radar, and you have one peachy slice of BOND STREET BAR retro Americana. bondstreetbar.com Before the temptation of bars and and greasers tramping the streets. Today in Dimly lit, (more) loud music and beers takes hold, I’m kept occupied by the mid-winter, it’s just me, layered up against Photograph by © 2008 Mike Black the best burgers in Asbury Park, romantic allure of the off-season seaside. the freezing Atlantic wind, dodging joggers the Bond Street Bar is the place to The scene here has pounding the 130-year-old boardwalk and fuel up before a music marathon at Back in the 1970s, The Stone Pony. Try a patty melt (a evolved somewhat happy young couples smooching in the The Circuit was from the pink afternoon light. burger patty sandwiched between a loop of road in 1970s thick fried bread) and some pork roll Asbury Park, lined Springsteen era, “Come back in the summer and you’ll be fries. Pork roll is the thing in NJ, just with bars and clubs. when Bruce penned eating an ice cream on the beach or surfing, keep on eating it and you’ll be fine. Hundreds of people lyrics about late- not shivering on that bench,” jokes Jennifer, would flock to drive around it on night driving circuits, an Asbury-born waitress, and she’s not the summer nights stoned-out faces first. But I’m happy; beyond the sea and 40 Experiences NEW JERSEY I CHALLENGE A 70-YEAR- OLD MAN TO A GAME OF SKEEBALL. I LOSE – HE’S A REGULAR But this is Asbury Park just easing me Kiss onto the knee-high stage. into the fun. The light fades, but the locals Inside it’s dark, dingy and windowless; ROCK STAR don’t and nor do I, and I’m ready to take the kind of space that would normally on Asbury’s famed live music venues. What make my chest tight. Here, though, I’m ROCK ’N’ ROLL TOUR OF THE this town lacks in glamour it sure makes up mesmerised, and as I wait for tonight’s band JERSEY SHORE for in grit – and I’ve always loved a sticky- to start, I wander the perimeter of the room. For a proper lowdown on Jersey floored rock bar. Multi-coloured guitars hang on walls thick Shore’s rock history, take a rock ‘n’ The Wonder Bar offers that by the pintful. with decades of sweat and smoke, as do Alamy Inc. / Photograph © ZUMA Press, roll ride with Jersey resident and By day the backyard fills with Monmouth fading pictures of rock legends. music buff Stan Goldstein. From County’s canine residents enjoying ‘yappy After hovering at the edge of the pit, I Springsteen, to Southside Johnny and Bon Jovi, it’s a fascinating hour’ – a chance find sanctuary at the bar, where a 29-year- for furry friends to The Stone Pony’s old Jersey boy called Steve is eager to give insight into the musical history opening night of the area, and the many bands gather for frolics and included a broken his opinion on the town: “Asbury needs who’ve trodden the Asbury path. a tail-wag. Tonight, heater, 7in of snow protecting. Its history – especially its music Prices start from US$125 for two though, it’s loud and outside and takings history – is its biggest asset. We don’t want hours, based on groups of four. raucous: music lovers of $1. Luckily house it to get lost in redevelopment. If you care njrockmap.com group Blackberry of all ages dad-dance Booze Band soon about music and history, this is your town.” around a band playing helped pull crowds We raise a shot of tequila to the “jewel on a small, beaten- of the Jersey Shore”. As long-time Jersey up stage. Behind the band, a tribute mural resident Springsteen sings: “Down the the famous Madame Marie’s Temple of to Tillie – the iconic ‘fun face’ of Palace shore, everything’s alright.” It certainly is. e Knowledge is appealing, but I’m drawn to Amusements in the 1950s – looks down on us Hannah Summers blogs about food and the flashing lights of the pinball museum. with a big goofy grin. Springsteen at burgersandbruce.com An homage to pinball’s gaudy, noisy past, A few New Jersey pale ales later we inside I jab buttons and ping silver balls on a swagger a breezy hundred yards down dazzling collection of arcade machines from Ocean Avenue to an Asbury Park shrine, and the 1960s onwards, refurbished to their best. one of the most important venues in rock ’n’ I challenge a 70-year-old man to a game of roll history: the Stone Pony. It’s unassuming, NEED TO KNOW skeeball (I lose – he’s a regular) and take on verging on unappealing, from the outside – a an eight-year-old kid, the scoreboard leader small off-white concrete lump with a simple Virgin Atlantic flies six times of Pac-Man (I lose again).