Bruce Springsteen Live! offers glimpse into what it cost to be The Boss

Over the past five decades, Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band have set the bar for live rock’n’roll shows. Their epic performances regularly steam past the three-hour mark, with their longest ever set, a 2012 gig in Helsinki, Finland, clocking in at a staggering four hours and six minutes. Earlier this month, Sir Paul McCartney was asked why his own solo shows have grown ever longer in recent years. “I blame Bruce Springsteen,” the former Beatle told the Fly on the Wall podcast. “I know him and I said to him, ‘It’s your fault, man’… the rest of us look measly if we do an hour.”

Springsteen’s stellar live reputation doesn’t just come from quantity, of course, but sheer crowd-pleasing quality. In a 2011 poll, Rolling Stone readers voted Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band the greatest live act of all time. To witness Springsteen in full flow is to see a master in his element. It’s a visceral experience which sends fans dancing home with giddy grins plastered across their faces. Bruce Springsteen Live!, a new exhibition at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, promises to shed some light on how a young singer-songwriter from New Jersey grew up to be The Boss. “Few performers embody the soul and excitement of live rock’n’roll like Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band,” says co-curator Robert Santelli in a statement. “This exhibit will give fresh insight into how they’ve been able to remain one of the greatest live acts for five decades.”

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That’s an admirable intention, but there’s an obvious challenge for an exhibition of this kind: Springsteen shows tend to keep it simple. There’s no New Jersey equivalent of Daft Punk’s pyramid or George Clinton’s P-Funk mothership (currently on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC). The closest Springsteen has come to elaborate stage decoration was on 1988’s Tunnel of Love Express Tour. Bruce Springsteen Live! proudly displays the façade of a ticket booth, a rare onstage prop designed to evoke the Asbury Park boardwalk of Springsteen’s youth. Some of the most famous pieces of memorabilia would look absolutely ordinary to the uninitiated, such as the blues jeans and plain white-T from the cover of 1984’s Born in the USA. Inexplicably, the curators have chosen to display the familiar outfit in a case which means they’re only visible from the front, rather than the iconic butt view. It’s like hanging a Picasso facing the wall.

Elsewhere, fans will be drawn to the roadworn butterscotch 1950s Fender Esquire that Springsteen used from the early Seventies until 2005; the one he’s holding on the cover of his career-saving third record, 1975’s Born to Run. Deeper insight comes from the things you haven’t seen on an album sleeve. There’s an adorable scrapbook Springsteen’s mother Adele put together in the Seventies, including the letter his record label sent her in 1972 enclosed with a copy of his first album, Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ. “You should be very proud of him,” it reads, “as we all are here in New York.”

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Among the poignant pieces in the collection are an accordion which belonged to the late E Street musician Danny Federici, who died in 2008, and the saxophone played by Clarence Clemons, Springsteen’s legendary sideman of 40 years. More heart-rending still is the throne – a gold-painted armchair – that Clemons used onstage as his health declined before his death in 2011.

The exhibition is lightly interactive, with a kiosk where fans can create their own encores for specific shows and then compare them against what Springsteen really chose on the night. Most fun though is an interactive drum tutorial led by Max Weinberg. In a video installation, the long-time E Street drummer quickly runs through how to play the bass drum, snare drum and hihat from the band’s huge 1986 anthem “Born in the USA”. Then visitors are invited to play along using a full-size kit, while Springsteen roars and the legendary E Street musicians kick in through the headphones. In my case, this creates a unique sonic phenomena never before experienced at a Springsteen show: “Born in the USA”, drummed really, really badly.

‘Bruce Springsteen Live’ is at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles until 2 April