Two days ago Mikael and I went to Jönköping to film the performance of The Hungry Heart Band. They played at the local theatre for two nights, and gave the audience an intense show with some of Springsteen’s best songs.
We filmed the band during soundcheck, and afterwards we made an interview with Hans “Ludde” Ludvigsson, singer in the band and the man behind the tributeshow.
Ludde has a long relationship with Springsteen’s music, he first got in contact with it in his teens, when he heard The River. But it would be some time before he got to see his first concert, although he had tickets to the show at Hovet in 1981. But his father said he was to young to go, so he had to wait until 1985 when he finally managed to see Springsteen live.
Ludde who is a singer in the coverband Fun Club, and he has been dreaming of putting together a show based totally on Springsteen’s material. “I wanted to do this simply because of egoistic reasons. I’ve found a lot of comfort in these songs and I wanted to share my love for this fantastic music with an audience.” The Hungry Heart Band has been rehearsing since December and it hasn’t been easy to find their special touch to Bruce’s music. “The music is very complex. Take a song like Jungleland, it’s like an opera. And each song also vary quite a lot in tempo in itself, which make it difficult to play well”, Ludde told us.
Lasse Strand, bass, Hans Ludvigsson, lead singer, Ingemar Albo, guitarr, harmonica.
But apparently Ludde and his band did well, the comments from the audience after the performance was overwhelming. Funny and touching was his presentations of the songs, small monologues very reminiscent of what Bruce himself used to do during the seventies and early eighties.
Hans Ludvigsson, in close contact with the audience.
Hopefully Ludde can take his dream project out on the road and perform in other cities as well. We give the Hungry Heart Band a big hand and hope they will reach a bigger audience, they have really proved they can play Springsteen’s music with great feeling.