Bruce Springsteen and his Berlin Wall concert, 1988.
On 12 June 1987, Ronald Reagan stood before the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, and issued forth a challenge: '— 'Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!'
The wall he referred to was the one erected between East and West Germany in 1961, a tangible representation of the Iron Curtain, separating Communist Eastern Europe, and the democratic west. The challenge was not the first arrow aimed at the Soviet leadership, and it would not be the last, but the speech stands as one of the pivotal moments in the eventual fall of the Berlin Wall, 18 months later. As a result of Reagan's speech, and a steady inward seep of western culture, the resolve of the country's Communist leaders was gradually being eroded. Whilst the wall wasn’t being torn down, its foundations were slowly, but surely, being weakened.
In an effort to assuage the ever increasing calls for greater freedom, especially among East Germany's youth, the youth wing of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), the Free German Youth (FDJ), began to organise a series of concerts, featuring some of the major artists of the 1980s. Those that took part included Bob Dylan, Joe Cocker and Depeche Mode. Their performances were underwhelming. Then an offer came in for Bruce Springsteen to perform.
What better musician for the FDJ, a political entity that saw itself as having been borne out of the blood of the common man rising against the oppression of the powerful, than the voice of the working man, the downtrodden, the helpless? That they misjudged him is an enormous understatement. His whole catalogue of songs, when bundled together, can be viewed as an extended ode to human spirit and freedom, the ability to simply throw off any constraints, jump into a car and just leave.
After trouble had erupted at the wall during previous concerts on the West German side, the organisers chose a venue away from any potential flashpoints. The Radrennbahn Weißensee was a vast cycling track capable of holding 120,000 people. When tickets went on sale, billing the concert as one in aid of Nicaragua (it wasn't), only 100,000 sold. Why, we may never know, but like Woodstock, the ticketless youth were attracted.
The Radrennbahn Weißensee may not have had the same ring as Yasgur's Farm, the site of Woodstock, but they turned up in their thousands. It was estimated that, at 7pm on 17 July 1988, 300,000 people stood awaiting the band's arrival. Such were the numbers, that the authorities could, and did, do nothing. Even by 2019, it stands as the largest crowd Bruce Springsteen has ever played to.
Word was now reaching him of the concert's link to Nicaragua
All, however, was not well. Since his earliest days in the music business, Springsteen had vigorously maintained control over how others used his music — steadfastly refusing their use in TV ads and political messages. When Ronald Reagan attempted to ally Springsteen's music with his own political vision, Springsteen issued an acerbic reply at a concert in Pittsburgh:
'The President was mentioning my name the other day, and I kinda got to wondering what his favourite album musta been. I don't think it was the 'Nebraska' album. I don't think he's been listening to this one'. He then launched into 'Johnny 99', a song about a worker in a car plant who, when he loses his job due to the plant closing down, gets drunk and murders an innocent man.
Word was now reaching him of the concert's link to Nicaragua, and he was furious, resulting in his manager, Jon Landau, venting his frustrations at an East German official. The official replied that it was no big deal, just like doing a concert for Pepsi Cola in America. Legend has it that Landau bit back: 'We don't do concerts for Pepsi Cola in America, and we aren't going to do a concert for Nicaragua. We're leaving.' Fearing unrest among the 300,000-strong crowd, officials acceded to his demands and removed all posters mentioning Nicaragua.
On taking to the stage, Springsteen immediately signalled that this was to be no ordinary concert. At each of the previous shows on the tour, and all bar one, in West Germany, at the tail end, the set kicked off with 'Tunnel of Love'. Replacing it in East Berlin was 'Badlands', a song heavy with dark imagery that could be construed as a barb at the East German oppression of its people:
'Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king,Eight songs later he gave a tour debut to 'The Promised Land' — a song whose title alone invokes a sense of hope that, somewhere out there, something better is waiting, but whose lyrics are clear that one must endure a great deal of pain and soul-searching in order to reach it.
But if further proof was needed that this was to be a show like no other, it came about an hour into the set. Springsteen was aware that the show was being broadcast around East Germany, albeit with a time delay. As such, he drew up a short speech, and had his driver, an East German called George Kerwinski, write it out phonetically. After singing the final lines of 'Born in the USA', he pulled it from his pocket, ready to speak to the East German crowd. It read:
'I am not for or against a government. I've come to play rock and roll for you, in the hope that one day all walls will be torn down.'
Jon Landau, however, was uneasy at Springsteen's use of the word 'walls', fearing a backlash, and had Kerwinski go onstage and tell him to use the word 'barriers' instead. This Springsteen did.
Then came one of the greatest moments in music history, equal to Queen's set at Live Aid three years previously, or Jimi Hendrix's 'Star Spangled Banner' guitar solo at Woodstock in 1969. Just days before the East Berlin concert, Springsteen had resurrected a song played only once before, in 1978. By the time the band took to the stage in East Berlin, they had it tight.
The song was Bob Dylan's paean to the human spirit conquering adversity — 'Chimes of Freedom'. Springsteen himself had called it 'one of the greatest songs ever written about human freedom'. It is a song whose lyrics and meaning are much discussed, but at its heart it is about the freedom that we all wish we could have — much like the protagonist in Springsteen's 'Thunder Road'. And for those who may have considered most of Dylan's lyrics (changed somewhat by Springsteen) too oblique to be fully understood, there was the repeated use of the word 'freedom' and the reference to 'walls [that] were tightening'. It excludes no one. Carried along this road to freedom are the warriors who wish not to fight, the refugees, the luckless, the abandoned, the forsaken, the outcast, the soul misplaced inside a jail. It was, in essence, a song that spoke directly to those at the concert.
It has oft been asserted … that Springsteen brought down the wall
The film of the concert is an astonishing document. Around 300,000 young people engrossed in a spectacle, watching one of the world's greatest live performers put on a show that he knew, even as he stood there, had greater meaning. The bodies in the crowd sway, they clap, and they sing the words where they know them. But there is a sense of something else. A sense that an understanding is flooding over them, that all their notions of what could be, that they had gleaned from snatches of western radio stations, were indeed true. And in fact surpassed those notions.
It has oft been asserted, albeit usually by journalists looking for a hyperbolic headline, that Springsteen brought down the wall. Music can, indeed, achieve great things — it played its part in ending the Vietnam War, and in feeding millions of famine-starved Africans — but it is generally only one cog in a far greater wheel. Prior to the concert, East Germans were itching for change — indeed the concert series was only put in place to appease that itch. It didn't achieve its goal. It simply poured fuel on a smouldering fire.
And as Springsteen had asserted in 'Dancing in the Dark', a fire couldn't be started without a spark — the Free German Youth had unwittingly provided him the opportunity to create a spark. The fire would not be long in coming.
To experience or revisit Bruce Springsteen's historic performance, you can view footage from the concert on You Tube.