Arena rocker Bruce Springteen’s caustic comments about President Donald Trump have cost nine cover-band musicians a modest paycheck from a bar gig they were planning to play next weekend on the Jersey Shore.
No Surrender, billed as “the ultimate Springsteen tribute” band that has played Springsteen and classic rock covers for more than 20 years, was set to perform at Riv’s Toms River Hub in Toms River on May 30.
After the singer-songwriter kicked off his European tour in Manchester, England, earlier this month with a diatribe against the President, No Surrender bandleader Brad Hobicorn started receiving concerned text messages from bar owner Tony Rivoli, NJ Advanced Media reported this week.
As Breitbart reported Friday, Springsteen also just released a live recording of the Manchester show that includes the rocker’s comments about Trump’s “corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.”
Now, the New Jersey engagement by the cover band has been canceled. Owner Vivoli cited his restaurant’s conservative customer base saying that featuring the 75-year-old rocker’s music was “too risky.”
Hobicorn reportedly offered to have his band play only non-Springsteen, classic-rock covers. But Rivoli balked at paying $2,500 for regular classic-rock as opposed to Springsteen-specific material. Rivoli wrote in a text message to Hobicorn obtained by NJ Advance Media:
Unfortunately it’s just too much money I wanted to do the Springsteen tribute for that money in my social media team would have promoted it we would have done well but now because Bruce can’t keep his mouth shut we’re screwed.
In a message written to the group’s bassist, Rivoli stated, “Whenever the national anthem plays, my bar stands and is in total silence, that’s our clientele. Toms River is red and won’t stand for his bullshit.”
Tribute bands have become increasingly popular in local music venues, offering versions of bands like Led Zeppelin, the Doors, and others. They’ve gained in popularity because the groups they replicate either no longer exist or the concert tickets for the actual artists can be in the three to five figures and are unaffordable for many fans.
“This is not political for us at all,” band leader Hobicorn told NJ Advance Media Thursday. “We’re just a cover band that’s trying to make some money, and people rely on it financially. We’re the ones really getting hurt.”
It’s disputed as to whether the bar owner cancelled the gig or the band decided not to play at the location because of the “bad vibes” surrounding the upcoming show, Advance Media also reported.
Trump has hit back against Springteen’s trashing of his Presidency, which Breitbart reported this week continues on his European tour. Trump called the liberal singer-songwriter “elitist and out of touch.”
No Surrender is not the first Boss tribute band to be affected by Trump and Springsteen’s war of words, the New York Post reported.
In 2017, the B Street Band, a local act covering the rocker’s tunes, was widely trashed after it was booked to play a Trump inaugural ball in Washington. It eventually withdrew from the gig.
As a rock journalist in 1975, Lowell Cauffiel covered Bruce Springsteen’s rise to fame in what was then called the biggest marketing campaign in pop music history. Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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