For those in the New York area who want to experience a Rosh Hashanah experience outside of the staid synagogue, look no further than the traditional rock & roll Bowl Hashanah.
The Brooklyn Bowl – the now-famous combination music venue, bowling alley, and restaurant in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood – has hosted an eclectic, intergenerational group of High Holy Day worshipers for over a decade.
Bowl Hashanah, set for September 16, is for those seeking the energy of live music with a narrated journey through the traditional stories, liturgies, and rituals of the New Year, according to Rabbi Daniel Brenner, Bowl Hashanah’s spiritual leader.
What is Bowl Hashanah?
“For many of my friends who are not synagogue-connected Jews, but have a strong sense of Jewish identity, the peak spiritual experiences of their lives happen in music venues as they experience the flow of energy between the musicians and the audience. Bowl Hashanah is a beautiful hybrid of concert energy, storytelling, and dance that grounds and uplifts at the same time,” he said.
Think of it as a musical Rosh Hashanah gathering with musical friends you would even pay to see on a night out.
Blowing the shofar (Illustrative) (credit: David Cohen/Flash90)
Musical personalities and acts involved in the project include musicians loosely connected to the jam band scene that the Brooklyn Bowl has nourished over the years. This year’s talent includes musical director Jeremiah Lockwood, Antibalas’ Jordan McLean, Yula Beeri, John Bollinger, Stuart Bogie, Yusuke Yamamoto, Armo, Dave Harrington of Darkside, and Alex Bleeker of Real Estate. This year, Lockwood is debuting a new suite of holiday music.
While fun, engaging, and musical, tradition also has a place at Bowl Hashanah. There is prayer, Torah reading, shofar blowing, and “plain-sense explanations of the religious aspects of the holiday.”
Doors at 9 a.m. and the show starts at 10 a.m. An optional lunch will follow services at 12:30 p.m. Concert fans should feel right at home.
Tickets, which range from $25 to $500, are available at www.ticketweb.com
As the E Street Band opens a U.S. and European tour following a long absence, Jewish “Spring-Nuts” share what it’s like to be faithful to God and the Boss.
Maureen Ash, 61, arrived in Tampa from her Chicago home in time for last Wednesday night’s Bruce Springsteen show. The longtime fan—called a Spring-Nut, as a nearly 50,000-strong Facebook, Twitter and Instagram fan community puts it—who saw her first show in 1980, did not have to worry about accommodations for Shabbat nor holidays this time, given the middle-of-the-week show.
She stayed in Boynton Beach, a three-and-a-half hour drive away, for Shabbat, and plans to catch the Boss again in concert on Tuesday, at the Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood, Fla.
Ash was one of many Jewish Spring-Nuts who descended on Tampa for the E Street Band’s tour, which opened Feb. 1. There are no official numbers on how many Jewish fans of the Boss are out there, but there are obviously a lot of them.
For previous Springsteen tours, Ash hosted Shabbat dinners for Jewish and non-Jewish fans, whom she introduced to her home-baked challah. Her one house rule must have surprised many of these guests.
“I tell them to please leave the bathroom light on,” Ash told JNS.
At one Shabbat meal, she asked an observant Jewish male friend to recite the kiddush and hamotzei blessing on the wine and challah respectively. He brought the lyrics to “Thunder Road,” which the group sang in unison. (The lines “Make crosses from your lovers” and “Waste your summer praying in vain/ For a savior to rise from these streets” must have presented quite the contrast to the Hebrew prayers.)
There has been plenty of normal superfan engagement too. Ash’s daughter–then 11–was the lucky one invited on stage to sing “Waiting’ on a Sunny Day” with the Boss, and Ash twice got his autograph, on a copy of his biography and on her denim jacket. She told him her first show of his was Oct. 9, 1980 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. He wrote “80” alongside his name.
“I know he was really listening,” she said.
Without knowing it, Springsteen has introduced many Jews to one another. A congregant approached Ash at the kiddush after services at a N.J. synagogue. “I hear you are a Bruce fan,” he told her. “I should know you.”
At a show, she struck up a conversation with a woman wearing a skirt. The two realized they were both skipping the Friday show because they are Sabbath-observant. (Ash also will not attend Springsteen shows during the Omer period between Passover and Shavuot, which is a time of mourning.)
To other fans, hearing the Boss live is a religious experience. There is a lot of talk in the Jewish Springsteen fan community about the Passover seder of 2012.
Warren Rosen, from Massapequa Park on Long Island, worried he would never make it to a show at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan if he left after his seder at home. So Rosen, who has been to more than 200 Springsteen shows, booked a private room at Ainsworth Prime, a restaurant in the arena, and invited friends (of all faiths) via Facebook. He also invited the band.
The saxophonist Jake Clemons, nephew of the late Clarence Clemons—the E Street Band’s original sax player—read from the Haggadah, which featured Springsteen’s face on the cover. There was also a rendition of the new composition “Matzah Ball,” sung to the tune of “Wrecking Ball.”
Bruce Springsteen performs in Tampa, Fla., Feb. 1, 2023. Photo by Howard Blas.
Some Orthodox Spring-Nuts bolt out of the house the moment Shabbat or a holiday ends, bound for a show. And some, if they are Howie Chazanoff—who runs the Spring-Nuts Facebook group, where he is known as Howie Chaz, with his wife, Julie—can almost pull off the music fan equivalent of Joshua holding up the sun and moon during the bombardment of Jericho.
In September 2017, Chazanoff, 54, contacted E Street Band guitarist and “Sopranos” actor Stevie Van Zandt on Twitter, asking when exactly the show would start.
“I ask, because I have tickets for the 23rd and have to wait for [the) Jewish Holiday to end,” he wrote. The exchange has since been deleted, but according to a screenshot that Chazanoff provided, Van Zandt wrote back, “Oy vey! When does it end? Thanks for the heads up. We’ll wait for you.”
Evidently, the band did wait for Chazanoff to arrive after Rosh Hashanah ended, because the latter tweeted on Sept. 24, 2017, “I can’t thank you enough for waiting! Thanks for acknowledging me and my sign and being a ‘mench!’ Happy New Year brother!” The sign Chazanoff held in the picture thanks the band for waiting for the “Tribe.”
Chazanoff told JNS that when he and friends held up the sign, Van Zandt said, “Happy New Year” to them. (For the record, though, and Twitter being what it is, someone responded to the tweet, “Yeah, but he is playing in Boston on Yom Kippur. So much for thinking about his Jewish fans.”)
“My impetus in starting Spring-Nuts was to create a distraction not only for Springsteen fans but for myself as well from all the trials and tribulations in this crazy world,” Chazanoff said.
What began as a 500-member Facebook group grew to become acknowledged by Springsteen and the band eight years later, in large part for its charity work. The group has supported WhyHunger, Fulfill, Kristen Ann Carr Fund, Pink Fund, Light of Day, NJ Pandemic Relief Fund and Boys and Girls Clubs of Monmouth County.
“We have helped out numerous individuals, who either lost jobs, or needed help paying for hospital costs and even, unfortunately, funeral expenses,” Chazanoff said. “What was originally created as a distraction has now become a haven for Springsteen fans around the world.” (In his professional life, Chazanoff also helps people. He is director of home- and community-based services at Yedei Chesed, which supports persons with developmental disabilities and their families.)
Springsteen too is philanthropically minded.
At the Tampa show, as at each stop of the tour, he asks fans on their way out, to donate food or money to a local food bank. Last May, Springsteen surprised the Spring-Nuts with a recorded message at the Stone Pony club in Asbury Park, N.J., site of the annual Spring-Nut Seaside Serenade. That year, it raised $50,000 for WhyHunger. The rest of the band has sent video messages of support too.
David Kalb, rabbi of the Jewish Learning Center of New York, takes religious fanhood to another level. He is proud to have experienced some of Springsteen’s longest-ever shows, more than four hours, on the last tour.
Kalb references Springsteen’s lyrics often in his sermons and writing. “It was not just the length of the New Jersey concerts that made those nights utterly magical to me,” he told JNS. “It was the fantastic music and the passion of this amazing man.”
The rabbi appreciates particularly what he calls themes of redemption, introspection and transformation in Springsteen’s music. “These themes thoroughly resonate with me, as they are reminiscent of the Prophets of the Bible, who also critiqued their world for its moral ills,” Kalb said.
In 2017, Kalb penned the Huffington Post article “Getting Ready for the High Holidays with Bruce Springsteen,” as he observed those themes in shows during the Hebrew month of Elul, which leads up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. He even called his attendance of Springsteen concerts his own preparation for the High Holidays, which is what the month of Elul is supposed to be about.
“These concerts have given me a tremendous start to my High Holiday prep,” he said. “I am now much more focused on how I can better myself and the world, and I believe that anyone who chooses to reflect on these issues could find similar messages in Bruce’s music.”
In 2016, Kalb got to spend 20 seconds with Springsteen, when the musician signed his book and a photograph at the Barnes & Noble on Manhattan’s Union Square. Other fans trekked internationally for that privilege.
Amy Kalman, who made aliyah from Toronto in 1981, has flown from Ben-Gurion Airport to Paris, Montpellier, Zurich and other European cities to hear the Boss.
“The first time you see him live, it grabs your kishkes!” she said, using the Yiddish for “guts.”
Kalman reports a “strong” group of Israeli fans, many of whom have gone to shows in Europe and will go to this tour as well. She and her husband were “on such a high” from a 2016 Paris show that, upon returning home, they planned a 36-hour trip to Zurich, so they and their children could hear Springsteen.
If the rest of the tour goes how Chazanoff figures it did in Tampa, there will be many other converts to the Gospel of Springsteen, Jewish and non-Jewish.
“After six long years, and being in their 70s, Bruce and the band showed that age means nothing when you’re the legendary E Street Band,” he said. “They absolutely rocked Tampa as if they were in their 20s, and as if they never had a hiatus.”
TAMPA – When the house lights went down at exactly 8 p.m. Wednesday night at the Amelie Arena in Tampa, Florida, and Bruce Springsteen and the E. Street Band took the stage for the first time together in some six years, I knew I had made the right decision.
After deliberating for weeks, I bought a ticket and flew from New York to join thousands of other Springsteen fans to celebrate his return to stage at age 73 for the opening night of a six-month tour that will see him traverse the United States and Europe, but not Israel.
I have seen Springsteen over the years in arenas and stadiums from St. Louis to Philadelphia to Bridgeport, Connecticut and in such famed venues as Madison Square Garden and the old Meadowland “somewhere in the swamps of Jersey.” I have enjoyed shows with my kids, my wife and my father-in-law.
I was eager to get tickets to a show somewhere in the northeast on this tour. While I knew competition for tickets would be fierce, I was hopeful. When tickets were announced, I followed proper procedures and submitted names of three or four arenas within a couple of hours of my home that I would consider attending. I received the presale code for the venue closest to my home and I was pleased.
When the sale went live at 10 a.m. on the given day, I eagerly watched my I got closer in the queue. I waited and waited. Prices reached $600 (NIS 2,055) before running out entirely. I, like other fans, felt betrayed and disappointed. Loyal fans who view Bruce as the champion of the working person had their first introduction to Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing model. The real cost of the ticket was nowhere to be found as prices were automatically adjusted. The cost of the tickets was adjusted based on supply and demand in real-time. And some tickets quickly reached $5,000 (NIS 17,144).
I tried to put the shows out of my mind until the tour start date neared. I secretly checked Ticketmaster and Stub Hub every day, multiple times a day. Prices varied so widely. From $600 (NIS 2,055) in Connecticut to an almost affordable $250 (NIS 857) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Columbus, Ohio. Admittedly, those seats were very high up in the $300 (NIS 1,028) or $400 (NIS 1,371) section. Nonetheless, I started working on my wife to agree that both or one of us would catch the March 5 and 7th shows.
Then, I got an even crazier idea: go to Opening Night. The know it all on the plane told me he hadn’t missed an opening night since 1990. I came to learn that he is not unique.
While continuing to monitor Tampa Bruce ticket prices, I also checked airfare, hotel prices and affordable options for airport parking at LaGuardia Airport. Airfare was not bad and to my surprise, ticket prices seemed to keep coming down. Slowly, slowly. I watched. I dreamed. When I travel, I am a very efficient planner. I plan routes for road trips, hotels and attractions, and I pack way ahead of time.
Waiting until the last minute would not usually be an option. In this case, it might work in my favor.
My children and wife would mostly be out of the country, I could theoretically go to the show. More importantly, my family gave the green light and I was off and running.
Delta Airlines flies from NYC to Tampa and the price for parking at the airport was reasonable. Now to figure out lodging, given those hotels close to the venue were outrageously expensive: not worth $400 (NIS 1,371) or $500 (NIS 1,714) a night for 2 or 3 nights.
THEN A lightbulb went off: Chabad is everywhere. They have helped me in Saint Thomas and Copenhagen and Beijing so why not Tampa? The website for Chadad in the lovely Hyde Park neighborhood listed three hotels nearby. Then, in small letters, it mentioned a room in the Chabad House for rent over Shabbat and holidays. I called Rabbi Rifkin, explained my predicament and asked if the Shabbat rooms might be available on weekdays as well. I am writing my review from the 2nd floor of the Chabad House in the residential Hyde Park neighborhood of Tampa – a 40-minute walk from the Amelie Arena and around the corner from a large Winn Dixie supermarket which has a very nice kosher selection.
All I needed was a ticket to the show. Could I actually bring myself to come to town empty-handed and gamble that prices would continue to plummet? Maybe Five days before the show, I was connected to some nice people from Spring Nuts, a Springsteen superfan group that meets in person at shows and on social media. Members of the 10,000-plus member group discuss possible show openers and share wisdom on what shoes or sandals and shirts (short or long sleeve) to wear given the anticipated amount of standing and the 80-degree temperatures. They also share wisdom about tickets.
With three days to go, a fan texted me that more tickets had dropped and were available for $199 (NIS 682). They were in the $100s, right behind the stage. I was nervous about sitting behind the band but the group was encouraging: the sound quality is excellent, you are very close and Bruce faces you a few times during the show. With that, I took the plunge and got a single ticket. Some fans posted on Facebook that they had paid $550 (NIS 1,885) for those same seats when they first went on sale.
The Opening Night concert
Despite morning snow in New York resulting in a two-hour departure delay once we had already boarded the plane (so the plane could be de-iced twice), we made it to Tampa with plenty of time to spare. I even got to meet up and tailgate with fellow fans at Sparkman Wharf.
There was a large crowd waiting to enter the arena at 7 p.m. for a 7:30 p.m. show but everyone – mostly in their late 50s to 70s – was patient and in good spirits.
When I found my way to section 124, Row R, I smiled. I was in the third row behind the stage and the sight lines were amazing.
Bruce and his animated sergeants at arms – Steve Van Zandt on guitar and Jake Clemons (the nephew of the late E Street sax legend Clarence Clemons) – did indeed turn to our section many times and we had amazing views of the 18 backup singers and brass and percussion players who joined the ban for this tour.
Bruce looked relaxed, fit and handsome in his new short haircut. He was all smiles and high energy as he directed the band through 28 songs in 2 hours and 43 minutes, introduced seven new songs and didn’t disappointed with such fan favorites as “Born to Run,” “Rosalita,” “Glory Days” and “the Rising.”
My personal favorites were real seminal tunes “E Street Shuffle” and “Katie’s Back,” which were both long and full-spirited.
The highlight for me was sitting close enough to watch Bruce direct each band member and change guitars after every single song. I felt a strong connection to Mighty Max Weinberg, the drummer. In addition to being a proud member of the tribe, he is such a talented drummer. From up close, you can see just how integral he is to the band and how Bruce relies on him to keep pace. I left Tampa with a smile on my face and a desire to grab affordable tickets for me and my family members for later in the tour. I now know that sometimes, good things do come for those who wait.
Despite his current success in the music business, it would be incorrect to assume that everything Shapiro touches immediately turns to gold.
The late Bill Graham may be considered the greatest American Jewish rock music promoter but upstart Peter Shapiro could be close at his heels.
The publisher of longtime jam band magazine Relix Magazine is also owner of multiple music venues throughout the United States, organizer of the jam band LockN music festival and the promoter of literally 10,000 shows.
He’s also the mastermind and miracle worker who reunited the surviving members of The Grateful Dead for five concerts in 2015 to celebrate the band’s 50th anniversary.
Shapiro’s long, strange trip is detailed in The Music Never Stops: What Putting on 10,000 Shows Has Taught About Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Magic, released this week.
Peter Shapiro’s new book (credit: PETER SHAPIRO)
Shapiro, a young and active 50 year old, nearly lost it all many times, including the time in his mid-twenties, when as a young promoter, he had to part with 10% of his bank account in 1997 to pay Marty Balin, founding member of the Jefferson Airplane, his guaranteed fee.
Each of the relatively short 50 chapters feature a title (such as Black Lily, Soldier Field Part I, Green Apples), a concert, a venue and a show date. The legendary concert promoter and all around mensch, regales readers with entertaining and informative stories and anecdotes of celebrities, music venues, concerts and music festivals he has planned and executed.
I was delighted to relive three memorable concerts I personally attended: Greateful Dead alumni Phil Lesh and Friends at the Cap, LockN, and Lesh and the Dead’s Bob Weir at Radio City Music Hall, in 2018. Shapiro name drops on every page, but not to show off – he really has meaningful, caring relationships with so many people from all walks of life. Shapiro forms genuine relationships with just about everyone he meets, including disparate figures from Robert Plant and Peter Fonda to Jimmy Fallon.
The Manhattan Upper East Side resident recounts his formative years, which encompass a myriad of non-music interests. He covered play-by-play for high school basketball, interned at the short lived National Sports Daily tabloid and, while a student at Northwestern University, produced a film about Deadheads, which included an interview about Acid Tests icon, Ken Kesey. The film premiered at Sundance.
Shapiro went on to make additional films for the NFL, produced U2 3D and the IMAX concert film All Access: Front Row Backstage Live, and created the Jammy Awards. He also put on massive Earth Day Celebrations and almost produced John Kerry’s Presidential Inaugural Celebration in January, 2005 – though it was eventually called off on account of Kerry never actually being elected president.
SHAPIRO’S MUSIC lessons to date come from years on the ground, including owning and running Wetlands in NYC in his mid-20s, founding and owning the Brooklyn Bowl – the famous music venue with music, bowling and food experiences in Brooklyn – and the entire franchise which now includes locations in Nashville, Philadelphia and Las Vegas – and regularly packing his Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY night after night with the likes of Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Steely Dan and of course, Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead, who regularly performs a residency there.
“To those who want to work in the concert business, treat any task that is presented to you as a career opportunity, no matter how minor it may seem. If you do the job right and people enjoyed working with you, it increases the odds that you’ll get another chance,” writes Shapiro the book, written with Relix editor, Dean Budnick.
Shapiro is never content to simply admire his successes and stay put. He is always on the move. He expanded the 1,800 seat Capitol Theater to also house Garcia’s, a lobby bar in honor of the late Grateful Dead guitarist and singer, who considered the rock palace to be one of his favorite venues in the country. In recent years, Shapiro added the very clever Rock and Roll Playhouse to Garcia’s offerings. The family concert series is a place where parents can introduce their kids to the Grateful Dead for Kids, as well as Phish, Beatles, Queen, Dave Matthews and Bob Marley – all for kids.
Despite his frenetic schedule, which has literally involved flying back from a Hawaiian family vacation for a day to be at a show, Shapiro often serves on boards or takes leadership roles – lessons he learned at home from his family. He has helped produce Earth Day, the Climate Rally on the National Mall in Washington, DC, and he is actively involved in Head Count and Central Park Summer Stage.
Shapiro no doubt learned a thing or two about chessed (kindness) and tikkun olam from his father, Daniel Shapiro, who he mentions in the book, and from his grandfather, Ezra Shapiro. Daniel Shapiro was president of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies (forerunner of the UJA-Federation of New York) in the early 80s. He also offered legal counsel and helped Peter out of countless jams while operating Wetland. His grandfather, Ezra, was once world chairperson of Keren Hayesod.
One additional family fun fact: Peter is the great-grandnephew of Joel Elias Spingarn, an early leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Shapiro casually and unselfconsciously makes use of Jewish terms and references throughout the book. He mentions bar mitzvahs taking place at the Capitol Theater and writes of the Brooklyn Bowl, “When Prince died on a Thursday, we hosted a shiva that night with Questlove spinning.” He uses this vignette to illustrate the importance of quickly changing course when necessary. “Since we’re open seven nights a week, we also have the ability to pivot and program quickly.”
While most music fans are impressed and even in awe of Shapiro’s ability to work his magic to pull off the seemingly supernatural, like reuniting the members of the Grateful Dead. But some fans and even members of the legendary Grateful Dead have gone so far as to suggest that Shapiro actually has supernatural powers.
He opens the book, “Fans of legendary music business figure Peter Shapiro are still debating his role in the legendary rainbow, which appeared over Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California at the Fare The Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead, on June 27, 2015.One reviewer suggested that Shapiro himself had ponied up $50,000 (NIS 169,000) to make the rainbow appear. Even Mickey Hart, the Jewish drummer of the Grateful Dead, emailed Shapiro to ask, “How did you do that rainbow trick? I won’t reveal your power.”
Let’s hope Shapiro continues to use his special powers to produce more tricks and teach more valuable life lessons.
