Jeff Spevak

@jeffspevak1

Loyalty, a long-term deal. Capturing lightning in a bottle, an event that is here for a brief moment, and then gone. The two concepts seem incompatible. But for a rock band that’s in it for the long run, that’s the assignment.

“I was living in LA, and I bumped into Bruce at the Sunset Marquis,” Nils Lofgren says of the West Hollywood hotel that’s legendary for its rock-star population.

Mediterranean villas, Keith Richards in the bar, the Red Hot Chili Peppers cannonballing off a second-story balcony into the pool, Liza Minnelli in the restaurant eating lunch, even a recording studio in the basement. Courtney Love left a suicide note in one of the rooms.

A comfortable decadence, the loyalty of the employees, and their discretion, come at a price. One night at the Sunset Marquis can be as high as $2,500.

But your self-esteem probably can’t handle how celebrities spend their idle hours. Lofgren continues his Springsteen story:

“He told me he had just finished doing a double album called The River, and did I want to come listen to it? So we hopped in the car and went down to the studio.”

What did Lofgren hear? “There was the electricity and frenetic sizzle, the energy you get at a live show,” he says.

Lightning, captured in a bottle. By the time Springsteen had put out the next album, Born in the U.S.A., guitarist Little Steven Van Zandt had left to pursue a solo career. Springsteen called Lofgren to take his place. And from then on, Lofgren experienced firsthand, from the stage, the electricity and frenetic sizzle.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play the Blue Cross Arena on Saturday night. By the time you’d logged onto tickemaster.com at precisely 10 o’clock the December morning that it went on sale, the $60 tickets were gone to ticket brokers and the software they use to get to the head of the line. So you paid the $150. Per ticket. Plus service charges. The show sold out in 40 minutes.

The River: The Ties That Bind was released on Dec. 4. Fifty-four songs, including outtakes, on four CDs. Plus three DVDs that include a documentary and a concert, celebrating the 35th anniversary of The River’s 1980 release. Similar packages were assembled for the anniversaries of Springsteen’s Born To Run and Darkness On The Edge Of Town albums, but neither coincided with a tour. There was no reason to expect one for The River. In an interview published on Oct. 30, drummer Max Weinberg told The Jewish Standard, “There’s nothing coming up with Bruce as far as I know.”

Maybe The Jewish Standard isn’t the first publication Springsteen fans look to for news on the band, but Weinberg was as surprised as anyone when, around Thanksgiving time, The Boss notified the E Street Band that there would be a tour for this new box of memories. The first half of the shows would feature The River, played sequentially from start to finish. Then another 90 minutes or so of maybe a song or two that didn’t make the final cut of The River, and songs from four decades of Springsteen.

And it would start mid-January. That’s short notice. Everyone — venues, fans, the E Street Band — was sent scrambling for what Lofgren calls “an unexpected tour.” Weinberg’s jazz band, The Max Weinberg Quintet, had to be set aside. Bassist Garry Tallent and Lofgren postponed solo tours.

Saturday’s show is the seventh time Springsteen’s been in the building since 1978, so we know the drill. But this time, it was just a little more complicated. When the venue got word that it had the opportunity to book The Boss, the Section V high school boys basketball tournament committee graciously agreed to rearrange its schedule. Games Friday, Springsteen Saturday, games Sunday.

“It takes so much energy to fire up something that big and good,” Lofgren says of The E Street Band. “Why would you want to play such long shows, sitting in a hotel room looking at the walls, missing my wife?”

Loyalty, perhaps? Basically, tours are structured on three considerations: making money, logistics and making money. But there has long been a feeling in Rochester that maybe Springsteen likes us. He played the city and college campuses here before he became an arena-sized act. The U.S. and Canada leg of this tour hits 35 cities, and Rochester is by far the smallest venue. By 5,000 to 7,000 seats, according to an estimate by Blue Cross Arena General Manager Jeff Calkins.

Springsteen’s fans are loyal. And they’re not limited to the boomers who are buying these expensive tickets. Or politicians who seek Springsteen’s blessing as a road to enhance their own popularity. Young people understand the energy of a three-hour show; it’s what also drives heavy metal and hip-hop concerts.

Like many people of my age, Springsteen’s music first spoke to me 40 years ago, just as musicians such as Kendrick Lamar speak to young people today. Springsteen was a ratty-looking Jersey rocker in 1973, but he had pockets of fans sprouting around the country. That was happening in Cleveland, where I grew up. I liked his first album, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., even if I heard something different than the “New Dylan” label he’d been assigned. I thought the B Side of The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle was the most beautiful set of songs I’d ever heard. “Incident on 57th Street,” “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” and “New York City Serenade.” I bought bootleg recordings of live shows. But Born to Run caught me by the heart. Its girls and cars were exhilarating, but most importantly it resonated of the uncertainty and desperation that comes with all of your 18 years. If you’ve never felt that, then go back to your Rush records.

And The River? As a guy teetering on the edge of twenty-something stupidity and adult responsibility, that came along at the right time as well.

I didn’t follow Springsteen around the country, but he always seemed to be nearby. I’ve stumbled a little in the count, but Saturday’s show will be somewhere between the 50th and 52nd time I’ve seen Springsteen. I’ve camped out overnight to buy tickets, I’ve been swept up in crowds churning past broken venue doors to get to the best general-admission seats. I have a ticket stub that reminds me I once paid $6.50 to see him play. As best man at my friend Mike’s wedding, we posed for photos like Springsteen and Clarence Clemons on the cover of Born to Run.

Long-lived loyalty seems to be a two-way thing for Springsteen. The evidence is the E Street Band itself. Two band members have died over the years, keyboardist Danny Federici and saxophonist Clarence Clemons. Clemons has been replaced by his nephew, Jake. Everyone else from The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle and on remains, some going back four decades. Even when Van Zandt abandoned his solo career — he’s still acting, roles in The Sopranos and the Netfix series Lillehammer typecasting him as a gangster — he was welcomed back by Springsteen. Who kept Lofgren as well.

Perhaps Springsteen would have thought of calling Lofgren to step in for Van Zandt even without that chance encounter at the Sunset Marquis, and Springsteen’s invitation to Lofgren to check out the new album. Lofgren was certainly well established on his own as a guitarist by then. He was 17 years old when he joined Neil Young’s backing band, Crazy Horse. And now, at 64, he still gets the loyalty call, playing last fall at Young’s annual benefit for The Bridge School, which serves children with severe physical impairments and communication issues. “I was playing ‘After the Gold Rush’ on that stage on the same piano that I played on when I was 20,” Lofgren says. “‘Southern Man,’ ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart.’ It was very spooky.

“He was a very powerful musical mentor and friend that remains, out of all the significant losses we have had in our lives and our profession after 50 years.”

One of those losses was Lou Reed. “I was a huge fan of The Velvet Underground,” Lofgren says. “‘Sweet Jane,’ I think, is still one of the great rock riffs in history.” The two even had the chance to work together. “The 13 co-writes with Lou kind of blew my mind,” Lofgren says. “Lou used a few for The Bells, I used a few. Some of the songs we wrote that haven’t seen the light of day, they were better for Lou. I’m going to record some of them now.”

These enduring relationships are time-tested chemistry. Alchemy that creates the confidence to walk on the edge.

“He’s reckless, he’ll change what’s in front of him to a song that may feel right or better,” Lofgren says of Springsteen. “It’s like listening to a random playlist on your phone, because we never follow the set list. I’m watching Bruce like a hawk, I get in his face: 'What are we doing?' He’s got such impeccable instincts.”

Springsteen isn’t the only guy who will be onstage with box sets to offer. In 2014, Lofgren released a nine-CD, one-DVD career retrospective. Face The Music runs from his teenage band Grin through Young, Reed and Springsteen.

“Grin couldn’t have been more of a rookie band, but we had made four great records,” Lofgren says. “Live is the place for me to replicate those songs. People ask me, ‘Why didn’t you re-record the music?’ But there’s a charm to a bunch of teenagers working to present their first batch of original songs.

“It’s a snapshot of someone who is completely dedicated to music and loved it, and it was a kind of lifeline.”

Looking back at the music is an act of loyalty. Just as the show itself — in order for rock to feel relevant — must capture that lightning in a bottle.

“Basically,” Lofgren says, “music is a sacred weapon to millions of people.”

JSPEVAK@gannett.com

Bruce is back

What: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will perform in Rochester on Saturday night.

When/where: 7:30 p.m./Blue Cross Arena at the Rochester Community War Memorial.

Tickets: The show is sold out.

Concert fact: Springsteen and the band will play his double album The River, which was released in 1980 in its entirety, along with about a dozen other songs.

What does this mean? Fans are guaranteed to hear the following songs: "The Ties That Bind," "Hungry Heart," "Out in the Street," "Cadillac Ranch" "I'm a Rocker" and "Ramrod." The rest of the setlist? Only "The Boss" knows for sure.