Bruce Springsteen never felt more natural than when he was onstage. Compared to the reserved rock and roller that talks about his lyrics in interviews, ‘The Boss’ seems to turn into a completely different animal whenever he comes on the stage, almost like he’s trying to squeeze every ounce of energy out of everyone in the room before tearing the house down with songs like ‘Born to Run’. Every Springsteen show is everything a rock show should be, but what’s better than one of the best rock shows ever made? For Springsteen’s money, it’s Prince.
When looking at both artists side by side, there’s really no comparison. What they both do is completely different from each other, and there’s no way that Springsteen would deliver a song like ‘Purple Rain’ just like Prince wouldn’t cover ‘Dancing in the Dark’ the same way.
There is one common thread binding them: road miles. Throughout both of their careers, Springsteen and Prince lived and breathed music out of every fibre of their body. Springsteen may have approached his job as a musician the same way that a blue-collar worker might have, but it felt like Prince was a machine every time he picked up an instrument, almost working The Revolution like a man possessed.
For all of the great rock and roll strutting that Springsteen did onstage, Prince could mop the floor with him every single day of the week. Outside of being one of the fiercest performers, his ability to dance like no one else put him one notch above everyone else, almost like he was trying to be Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, and Mick Jagger all at once.
Springsteen had to give it up for Prince once he heard of the singer’s passing as well, telling Rolling Stone, “Since the Sixties and Seventies and your Sam and Daves and your James Browns, he’s one of the greatest showmen to come along. I studied that stuff a lot and put as much of it to use as I can with my talents. But he just took it to another level”.
While the thought of someone like Springsteen doing his best James Brown impression is admittedly pretty funny, the best way to compare is to look at how they approached one of the biggest US dates of the year: The Super Bowl half-time show. Although Springsteen could have just been considered dad rock, hearing him demanding more out of the audience made one of the greatest games of the year feel even more important.
That’s still for a game, though, and Prince’s half-time show felt like the game was tangential to his performance. From performing in the rain to one of the single coolest silhouette shots ever captured on film during ‘Purple Rain’, Prince owned every second of his time onstage, almost like Mother Nature was in tune with what he was doing.
Regardless of the comparisons, Springsteen and Prince were never meant to be in competition with each other. They were both just two musicians who were hungry enough to want the world at their fingerprints, and you can see that hunger in every piece of live footage ever captured of them.