Mike Mettler

“Church.”

That was how a musician friend responded shortly after I told him via iPhone chatter that it was 10 minutes before Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band hit the stage last night in the first of two dates at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Bruce Springsteen has always been a preacher at heart. Ever since he greeted us from Asbury Park back in ’73, he’s been spreading the good word of the healing power of rock & roll far and wide, testifying many a time and many an hour across the live planks, guitar slung back over his shoulder as he stomps, kneels, prays, pleads, and ultimately cajoles the enraptured to follow him down the open road.

In honor of today’s release of A Different Kind of Truth, the first album from Van Halen with David Lee Roth as lead vocalist since 1984, we’re proud to present an interview I did with the inimitable Mr. Roth back in 2003. Our chat was ostensibly centered around his covers-oriented solo album Diamond Dave, but we quickly went into, well, a different universe. “As far as learning the alphabet of music goes,” opined the ever-quotable Dave, “I always tell young musicians, ‘Last I looked, the Bible was written in the exact same alphabet as my favorite pornography. So I guess the choice is yours, son.’” As the song says, might as well jump. . .

Surround-sound guru Steven Wilson has upped the ante yet again on his Grace for Drowning solo tour by presenting the music itself in surround sound, an unprecedented feat. Well, ok, technically speaking, the show is in live quad, with two speakers placed in the back of the venue at hand.