Bruce Springsteen Forum

Kritik von Sam Goldstein:

On Sunday at the Asbury Park Music + Film Festival the movie "Asbury Park: Riot, Redemption, Rock 'N Roll" was shown. This is the new re-cut version of the movie that was out two year ago and now has an interview with Bruce Springsteen in it. It's going to be shown in theaters on May 22.
I'll say what I said about it the first time, it's good, it's not great.
The good: A lot of interviews with many of the people who were a part of the Asbury Park music scene and created it. Bruce, Little Steven, Southside Johnny, Garry Tallent, Vini Lopez, Ernest "Boom" Carter, David Sancious and so many more. Two (Little Vinnie Roslin and Delores Holmes) who were interviewed have already passed away: A lot of good stories about the Upstage, Asbury Park, the Stone Pony, the Shore scene etc.
Also many of the people who are/were involved in the history of Asbury Park, the East/West side racial divide, the 1970 riots, the town moving forward today.
There's clips from when Bruce played the Upstage jam with Little Steven, Southside, Vini etc. at the original showing of this in 2017. Also nice footage showing the Paradise Nightclub at the Empress and the children learning to play music and instruments at the Lakehouse Music Academy.

The Bad: There's a lot of interviews with a lot of different people. The film throws a lot at you and sometimes not in chronological order. Just the pacing of it overall and trying to keep up with the story can make you dizzy. For the locals, it's great, you know a lot of the people and you know a lot of the stories. But in the way it's presented, it's just not organized well.
I really don't know how this will play outside of Asbury Park. It's a good story overall: Good town that went bad town is now becoming good town again and all the factors that went into it.
The Bruce fans will most likely like it because he's in it and there's a lot of old, rare photos of Bruce, Steven, Southside from the Upstage days and the early Stone Pony days.
I'm glad I saw it, I'm glad the movie was made to have all these important people on film and interviewed but I wasn't knocked out by it. Again it's good, not great.