Dave Grohl's SXSW Keynote Speech: The Complete Text

ave Grohl gives the keynote address during the South By Southwest Music Festival at the Austin Convention Center on March 14, 2013 in Austin, Texas.

Dave Grohl delivered his keynote speech on Thursday at SXSW, urging musicians to find "your voice" and recounting how he made his own rock dreams a reality, practicing in his room "until there was literally sweat dripping down the Rush posters on my wall." Below is the full text of his speech, which was livestreamed on NPR.

--

Thank you SXSW very much for allowing me the incredible opportunity of being this year's keynote speaker. Having been raised by a former DC political speechwriter and a former public speaking teacher, it is practically written in my DNA zipper that I should feel the insatiable need to stand in front of a room of total strangers and BULLSHIT them. As a child, MY father's lectures were legendary. And Frequent. Great works of literature, that stay with me to this day and, if anything . . . taught me how to give loooong lectures myself. Not long ago I was lucky enough to sit down at dinner with another one of my favorite public speakers . . . the one, the only Mr. Bruce Springsteen. Bruce, as you would imagine, is a warm, funny, brilliant man, and a wonderful dinner guest! I congratulated him on last year's amazing keynote, quoting his insight and humor. And then I told him that this year's keynote speaker was . . . me. He stared at me for a moment, slowly cracked that famous smile that we all know and love, that smile that could light up an entire stadium, and then . . . he started laughing. AT ME. As if to say "GOOD FUCKING LUCK, BUDDY . . . " But . . . truth be told . . . that's not the first time anyone's ever said that to me, so it is without a doubt my musical life's greatest honor to be asked to share with you what I know about music.

So. What do I know . . .

The Musician comes first.

My mother tells me that I was born to applause. The morning of January 14th, 1969, there was a class of young doctors in a small delivery room in Warren, Ohio, there to witness their first live birth. As I was born, the room burst into applause. My first moments in this world . . . hanging upside down, covered in blood, screaming as I'm being spanked by a complete stranger. Perhaps the most appropriate preparation for becoming a working musician.

Watch Dave Grohl's SXSW Keynote Speech

Now . . . before we go any further, I have to thank someone. I have to thank Edgar Winter. For allowing K-Tel records to include his legendary instrumental "Frankenstein" on their 1975 Blockbuster compilation. It was this record that my sister and I bought at the drugstore down the street and brought home to play on the public-school turntable my mother would borrow from school on the weekends. It was this record that changed my life. A veritable "who's who" of 1975 radio hits. But, it wasn't KC and the Sunshine Band's "That's the way, uh huh uh huh I like it" song that made me want to pick up the dusty old guitar in the corner. Nope . . . and  it wasn't Dave Loggins' "Please Come to Boston" or Silver Convention's "Fly Robin Fly" that made me want to jump in a van with my friends and leave the world behind for music. No. It was (sings "Frankenstein"). A riff. I gave it all up for a riff.

Interestingly enough, though, that song is completely instrumental. There's no vocal. It's drums, guitars, keyboards, percussion, each getting a solo in the song . . . no vocals. But what I heard in all of those solos . . . were voices. The voices of each musician. Their personalities. Their technique. Their feel. The sound of people playing music with other people. It made me want to play music with other people, too.

So, it wasn't long until I had my first guitar, an old Sears Silvertone with the amp built into the case. It smelled like an old attic full of mothballs and burning wire, and sounded like that "goats yelling like humans" YouTube clip that's going around right now (look it up, it's fucking hilarious), but it instantly became my obsession. It was this guitar, and a Beatles songbook that ultimately set my life in . . . ahem . .  one direction. Never one for taking lessons or direction, I was left to my own devices and devoted every waking hour to playing music. It became my religion. The record store my church. The rock stars my saints, and their songs my hymns.

Springfield, Virginia, wasn't necessarily known for breeding rock stars. A "career" in music never seemed possible to me. It just seemed too good to be true. Surely the faces on my Kiss posters weren't getting PAID to do this! Gene Simmons? Imagine! But that never mattered to me. Because I had finally found MY VOICE. And that was all I needed to survive from now on. The reward of playing a song from beginning to end without making a mistake . . . well, that could feed me for weeks. The discovery of a new chord, or a new scale could make me forget about that kid at school who wanted to kick my fuckin' ass, or that cute chick with the lip gloss and soft sweater I had a crush on who wouldn't give me the time of day. I liked my new voice. Because, no matter how bad it sounded . . . it was mine. There was nobody there to tell me what was right or what was wrong, so . . . there was no right or wrong.

As much as I wanted to be in a band, I was there, alone in my bedroom, day in day out with my records and my guitar, playing with myself for hours. I would set up pillows in the formation of a drumset on my bed and play along to records until there was literally sweat dripping down the Rush posters on my  walls. Eventually I figured out how to be a one-man band. I took my crappy old handheld tape recorder, hit record and laid down a guitar track. I would then take that cassette, place it in the home stereo, take another cassette, place THAT into the handheld recorder, hit play on the stereo, record on the handheld, and play drums along to the sound of my guitar. Voila! Multi-tracking! At 12 years old! To my chagrin, though, what I got was not "Sgt. Peppers" . . . rather a collection of songs about my dog, my bike, and my dad. Nevertheless, I had done this all myself. Therefore making the reward even sweeter.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Dave Grohl's SXSW Keynote Speech: The Complete Text

ave Grohl gives the keynote address during the South By Southwest Music Festival at the Austin Convention Center on March 14, 2013 in Austin, Texas.

Dave Grohl delivered his keynote speech on Thursday at SXSW, urging musicians to find "your voice" and recounting how he made his own rock dreams a reality, practicing in his room "until there was literally sweat dripping down the Rush posters on my wall." Below is the full text of his speech, which was livestreamed on NPR.

--

Thank you SXSW very much for allowing me the incredible opportunity of being this year's keynote speaker. Having been raised by a former DC political speechwriter and a former public speaking teacher, it is practically written in my DNA zipper that I should feel the insatiable need to stand in front of a room of total strangers and BULLSHIT them. As a child, MY father's lectures were legendary. And Frequent. Great works of literature, that stay with me to this day and, if anything . . . taught me how to give loooong lectures myself. Not long ago I was lucky enough to sit down at dinner with another one of my favorite public speakers . . . the one, the only Mr. Bruce Springsteen. Bruce, as you would imagine, is a warm, funny, brilliant man, and a wonderful dinner guest! I congratulated him on last year's amazing keynote, quoting his insight and humor. And then I told him that this year's keynote speaker was . . . me. He stared at me for a moment, slowly cracked that famous smile that we all know and love, that smile that could light up an entire stadium, and then . . . he started laughing. AT ME. As if to say "GOOD FUCKING LUCK, BUDDY . . . " But . . . truth be told . . . that's not the first time anyone's ever said that to me, so it is without a doubt my musical life's greatest honor to be asked to share with you what I know about music.

So. What do I know . . .

The Musician comes first.

My mother tells me that I was born to applause. The morning of January 14th, 1969, there was a class of young doctors in a small delivery room in Warren, Ohio, there to witness their first live birth. As I was born, the room burst into applause. My first moments in this world . . . hanging upside down, covered in blood, screaming as I'm being spanked by a complete stranger. Perhaps the most appropriate preparation for becoming a working musician.

Watch Dave Grohl's SXSW Keynote Speech

Now . . . before we go any further, I have to thank someone. I have to thank Edgar Winter. For allowing K-Tel records to include his legendary instrumental "Frankenstein" on their 1975 Blockbuster compilation. It was this record that my sister and I bought at the drugstore down the street and brought home to play on the public-school turntable my mother would borrow from school on the weekends. It was this record that changed my life. A veritable "who's who" of 1975 radio hits. But, it wasn't KC and the Sunshine Band's "That's the way, uh huh uh huh I like it" song that made me want to pick up the dusty old guitar in the corner. Nope . . . and  it wasn't Dave Loggins' "Please Come to Boston" or Silver Convention's "Fly Robin Fly" that made me want to jump in a van with my friends and leave the world behind for music. No. It was (sings "Frankenstein"). A riff. I gave it all up for a riff.

Interestingly enough, though, that song is completely instrumental. There's no vocal. It's drums, guitars, keyboards, percussion, each getting a solo in the song . . . no vocals. But what I heard in all of those solos . . . were voices. The voices of each musician. Their personalities. Their technique. Their feel. The sound of people playing music with other people. It made me want to play music with other people, too.

So, it wasn't long until I had my first guitar, an old Sears Silvertone with the amp built into the case. It smelled like an old attic full of mothballs and burning wire, and sounded like that "goats yelling like humans" YouTube clip that's going around right now (look it up, it's fucking hilarious), but it instantly became my obsession. It was this guitar, and a Beatles songbook that ultimately set my life in . . . ahem . .  one direction. Never one for taking lessons or direction, I was left to my own devices and devoted every waking hour to playing music. It became my religion. The record store my church. The rock stars my saints, and their songs my hymns.

Springfield, Virginia, wasn't necessarily known for breeding rock stars. A "career" in music never seemed possible to me. It just seemed too good to be true. Surely the faces on my Kiss posters weren't getting PAID to do this! Gene Simmons? Imagine! But that never mattered to me. Because I had finally found MY VOICE. And that was all I needed to survive from now on. The reward of playing a song from beginning to end without making a mistake . . . well, that could feed me for weeks. The discovery of a new chord, or a new scale could make me forget about that kid at school who wanted to kick my fuckin' ass, or that cute chick with the lip gloss and soft sweater I had a crush on who wouldn't give me the time of day. I liked my new voice. Because, no matter how bad it sounded . . . it was mine. There was nobody there to tell me what was right or what was wrong, so . . . there was no right or wrong.

As much as I wanted to be in a band, I was there, alone in my bedroom, day in day out with my records and my guitar, playing with myself for hours. I would set up pillows in the formation of a drumset on my bed and play along to records until there was literally sweat dripping down the Rush posters on my  walls. Eventually I figured out how to be a one-man band. I took my crappy old handheld tape recorder, hit record and laid down a guitar track. I would then take that cassette, place it in the home stereo, take another cassette, place THAT into the handheld recorder, hit play on the stereo, record on the handheld, and play drums along to the sound of my guitar. Voila! Multi-tracking! At 12 years old! To my chagrin, though, what I got was not "Sgt. Peppers" . . . rather a collection of songs about my dog, my bike, and my dad. Nevertheless, I had done this all myself. Therefore making the reward even sweeter.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Dave Grohl to Keynote SXSW 2013

EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/GettyImages

Dave Grohl will give the keynote address next March at the South By Southwest Music and Media Conference and Festival in Austin. The Foo Fighters leader, whose band is currently taking a break, succeeds Bruce Springsteen, who gave this year's speech. The keynote will take place March 14th at the Austin Convention Center. SXSW 2013 is scheduled for March 12th through March 17th. For more information, visit the SXSW website.

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Dave Grohl to Keynote SXSW 2013

EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/GettyImages

Dave Grohl will give the keynote address next March at the South By Southwest Music and Media Conference and Festival in Austin. The Foo Fighters leader, whose band is currently taking a break, succeeds Bruce Springsteen, who gave this year's speech. The keynote will take place March 14th at the Austin Convention Center. SXSW 2013 is scheduled for March 12th through March 17th. For more information, visit the SXSW website.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Exclusive: The Complete Text of Bruce Springsteen's SXSW Keynote Address

Bruce Springsteen delivers his keynote address at SXSW in Austin, Texas.

Bruce Springsteen delivered the keynote speech at South By Southwest earlier this month. The event was streamed live on NPR, but here is the exclusive full text:

Good morning! Why are we up so fucking early? How important can this speech be if we're giving it at noon? It can't be that important. Every decent musician in town is asleep, or they will be before I'm done with this thing, I guarantee you. I've got a bit of a mess up here.

When I was invited to do the keynote speech of this year's conference I was a little hesitant because the word keynote made me uncomfortable. It seemed to suggest that there was a key note to be struck that sums up whatever is going on out there in the streets.

Five days of bands, hundreds of venues from morning till night, and no one really hardly agrees on anything in pop anymore. There is no key note, I don't think. There is no unified theory of everything. You can ask Einstein. But you can pick any band, say KISS, and you can go, "Early Theatre Rock proponents, expressing the true raging hormones of youth" or "They suck!"

You can go, Phish, "Inheritors of the Grateful Dead's mantle, brilliant center of the true Alternative community," or "They suck." You go, "Bruce Springsteen, natural–born poetic genius off the streets of Monmouth County, hardest – hardest working – hardest working New Jerseyian in show business, voice of the common man, future of Rock and Roll!", or "He sucks. Get the fuck out of here!"

You could pick any band, and create your own equation. It's fun. There was even a recent book that focused on the Beatles and decided, you got it, they sucked. So really, instead of a keynote speech, I thought that perhaps this should be a key notes speech, or perhaps many keynote speakers. I exaggerate for effect, but only a little bit. So with that as my disclaimer, I move cautiously on.

Still, it's great to be in a town with ten thousand bands, or whatever…anybody know the actual number? Come on, a lot of them, right? Back in late sixty–four when I picked a guitar that would have seemed line some insane, teenage pipe dream,  because first of all, it would have been numerically impossible.  There just weren't that many guitars to go around in those days. They simply hadn't made that many yet. We would have all have to have been sharing.

Guitar players were rare. Mostly, music schooled bands were rare, and, until the Beatles hit, played primarily instrumental music. And there wasn't that much music to play. When I picked up the guitar, there was only ten years of Rock history to draw on. That would be, like, all of known Pop being only the music that you know that's occurred between 2002 and now.

The most groups in one place I had ever seen as a teenager was twenty bands at the Keyport Matawan Roller Dome in a battle to the death. So many styles were overlapping at that point in time that you would have a doo wop singing group with full pompadours and matching suits set up next to our band playing a garage version of Them's "Mystic Eyes," set up next to a full thirteen–piece soul show band. And still that's nothing minutely compared to what's going on, on the streets of Austin right now.

So, it's incredible to be back. I've had a lot of fun here in Austin since the '70s, and Jim Franklin and the Armadillo World Headquarters. It's fascinating to see what's become of the music that I've loved my whole life. Pop's become a new language, cultural force, social movement. Actually, a series of new languages, cultural forces, and social movements that have inspired and enlivened the second half of the twentieth century, and the dawning years of this one. I mean, who would have thought that there would have been a sax–playing president, or a soul–singing president, you know?

When we started, thirty years old for a Rock musician was unthinkable. Bill Halley kept his age a relative secret. So when Danny and the Juniors sang "Rock and Roll is Here to Stay," they didn't have a clue as to how terrifyingly, fucking right they were going to be. When I look out from my stage these days, I look into the eyes of three generations of people, and still popular music continues to provide its primary function as youth music, as a joyous argument–starter, and as a subject for long booze–filled nights of debate with Steve Van Zandt, over who reigns ultimately supreme.

There are so many sub–genres and fashions, two–tone, acid rock, alternative dance, alternative metal, alternative rock, art punk, art rock, avant garde metal, black metal, black and death metal, Christian metal, heavy metal, funk metal, bland metal, medieval metal, indie metal, melodic death metal, melodic black metal, metal core, hard core, electronic hard core, folk punk, folk rock, pop punk, Brit pop, grunge, sad core, surf music,  psychedelic rock,  punk rock, hip hop, rap rock, rap metal, Nintendo core, huh?

I just want to know what an Nintendo core is, myself. But rock noir, shock rock, skate punk, noise core, noise pop, noise rock, pagan rock, paisley underground, indy pop, indy rock, heartland rock, roots rock, samba rock, screamo–emo, shoe–gazing stoner rock, swamp pop, synth pop, rock against communism, garage rock, blues rock, death and roll, lo–fi, jangle pop, folk music. Just add neo– and post– to everything I said, and mention them all again. Yeah, and rock and roll.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Exclusive: The Complete Text of Bruce Springsteen's SXSW Keynote Address

Bruce Springsteen delivers his keynote address at SXSW in Austin, Texas.

Bruce Springsteen delivered the keynote speech at South By Southwest earlier this month. The event was streamed live on NPR, but here is the exclusive full text:

Good morning! Why are we up so fucking early? How important can this speech be if we're giving it at noon? It can't be that important. Every decent musician in town is asleep, or they will be before I'm done with this thing, I guarantee you. I've got a bit of a mess up here.

When I was invited to do the keynote speech of this year's conference I was a little hesitant because the word keynote made me uncomfortable. It seemed to suggest that there was a key note to be struck that sums up whatever is going on out there in the streets.

Five days of bands, hundreds of venues from morning till night, and no one really hardly agrees on anything in pop anymore. There is no key note, I don't think. There is no unified theory of everything. You can ask Einstein. But you can pick any band, say KISS, and you can go, "Early Theatre Rock proponents, expressing the true raging hormones of youth" or "They suck!"

You can go, Phish, "Inheritors of the Grateful Dead's mantle, brilliant center of the true Alternative community," or "They suck." You go, "Bruce Springsteen, natural–born poetic genius off the streets of Monmouth County, hardest – hardest working – hardest working New Jerseyian in show business, voice of the common man, future of Rock and Roll!", or "He sucks. Get the fuck out of here!"

You could pick any band, and create your own equation. It's fun. There was even a recent book that focused on the Beatles and decided, you got it, they sucked. So really, instead of a keynote speech, I thought that perhaps this should be a key notes speech, or perhaps many keynote speakers. I exaggerate for effect, but only a little bit. So with that as my disclaimer, I move cautiously on.

Still, it's great to be in a town with ten thousand bands, or whatever…anybody know the actual number? Come on, a lot of them, right? Back in late sixty–four when I picked a guitar that would have seemed line some insane, teenage pipe dream,  because first of all, it would have been numerically impossible.  There just weren't that many guitars to go around in those days. They simply hadn't made that many yet. We would have all have to have been sharing.

Guitar players were rare. Mostly, music schooled bands were rare, and, until the Beatles hit, played primarily instrumental music. And there wasn't that much music to play. When I picked up the guitar, there was only ten years of Rock history to draw on. That would be, like, all of known Pop being only the music that you know that's occurred between 2002 and now.

The most groups in one place I had ever seen as a teenager was twenty bands at the Keyport Matawan Roller Dome in a battle to the death. So many styles were overlapping at that point in time that you would have a doo wop singing group with full pompadours and matching suits set up next to our band playing a garage version of Them's "Mystic Eyes," set up next to a full thirteen–piece soul show band. And still that's nothing minutely compared to what's going on, on the streets of Austin right now.

So, it's incredible to be back. I've had a lot of fun here in Austin since the '70s, and Jim Franklin and the Armadillo World Headquarters. It's fascinating to see what's become of the music that I've loved my whole life. Pop's become a new language, cultural force, social movement. Actually, a series of new languages, cultural forces, and social movements that have inspired and enlivened the second half of the twentieth century, and the dawning years of this one. I mean, who would have thought that there would have been a sax–playing president, or a soul–singing president, you know?

When we started, thirty years old for a Rock musician was unthinkable. Bill Halley kept his age a relative secret. So when Danny and the Juniors sang "Rock and Roll is Here to Stay," they didn't have a clue as to how terrifyingly, fucking right they were going to be. When I look out from my stage these days, I look into the eyes of three generations of people, and still popular music continues to provide its primary function as youth music, as a joyous argument–starter, and as a subject for long booze–filled nights of debate with Steve Van Zandt, over who reigns ultimately supreme.

There are so many sub–genres and fashions, two–tone, acid rock, alternative dance, alternative metal, alternative rock, art punk, art rock, avant garde metal, black metal, black and death metal, Christian metal, heavy metal, funk metal, bland metal, medieval metal, indie metal, melodic death metal, melodic black metal, metal core, hard core, electronic hard core, folk punk, folk rock, pop punk, Brit pop, grunge, sad core, surf music,  psychedelic rock,  punk rock, hip hop, rap rock, rap metal, Nintendo core, huh?

I just want to know what an Nintendo core is, myself. But rock noir, shock rock, skate punk, noise core, noise pop, noise rock, pagan rock, paisley underground, indy pop, indy rock, heartland rock, roots rock, samba rock, screamo–emo, shoe–gazing stoner rock, swamp pop, synth pop, rock against communism, garage rock, blues rock, death and roll, lo–fi, jangle pop, folk music. Just add neo– and post– to everything I said, and mention them all again. Yeah, and rock and roll.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Bruce Springsteen Delivers South By Southwest Keynote

Bruce Springsteen delivers his keynote address at SXSW in Austin, Texas.Michael Buckner/Getty Images for SXSW

Right before Bruce Springsteen took the stage at 12:30 p.m. CDT Thursday for his keynote speech at South By Southwest, a half-hour later than expected, conference co-founder Roland Swanson joked, "That's why they call him the boss."

As Springsteen himself later said, when referencing a Danny & The Juniors hit, "Rock & Roll Is Here To Stay," "They had no idea how terrifyingly fucking right they were."

Working the crowd like a master performer who's spent well more than half his life on stage, Springsteen delivered what a few audience members on the way out called the greatest keynote they'd ever seen.

Dressed in jeans and a button down shirt, holding his speech like your coolest professor, Springsteen began with a comment about the hour of the speech. "Good morning, why are we up so fucking early? How important can this speech be if we’re getting up at noon," he joked to loud laughter. "Every decent musician in town is asleep, or they will be before I’m done with this."

As Springsteen also demonstrated during his recent Jimmy Fallon performance of LMFAO's "I'm Sexy And I Know It," the guy has shown a deft sense of humor on stage for years, with his cheerfulness and wit being a big part of the revival feeling of the live shows.

He used that very well during the keynote, poking fun at the dissension among music fans by pointing out you can take any band and having the following disagreement: "Bruce Springsteen – natural born voice of the common man, the future of rock and roll," or, "He sucks."

But like his Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame induction speeches, Springsteen used the occasion to celebrate the music he loves and school everyone in the crowd on rock history, often tying it into his own music.

For example, he explained how the music of the Animals infused his own Darkness On The Edge Of Town. "Youngsters watch this one," he said, playing a riff from "Don't Let Be Misunderstood," then immediately following with "Badlands." "It’s the same fucking riff, man."

He found a guitar and played several snippets of songs, including "Backstreets." But his full version of "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place," eyes closed, guitar held almost straight in the air, was transfixing.

And afterwards he again broke the place up. "That’s every song I’ve ever written," he said, "I’m not kidding, that’s all of ‘em."

Most of his revelations, though, were in talking about other musicians. "Underrated, still underrated," he said of James Brown, then shared a story of being brought on stage with Brown, which he animated by mimicking running.

When he wrapped up at 1:30 p.m., he took a bow, waved to the crowd and walked off stage to a deserved standing ovation.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Read more »

Bruce Springsteen Delivers South By Southwest Keynote

Bruce Springsteen delivers his keynote address at SXSW in Austin, Texas.Michael Buckner/Getty Images for SXSW

Right before Bruce Springsteen took the stage at 12:30 p.m. CDT Thursday for his keynote speech at South By Southwest, a half-hour later than expected, conference co-founder Roland Swanson joked, "That's why they call him the boss."

As Springsteen himself later said, when referencing a Danny & The Juniors hit, "Rock & Roll Is Here To Stay," "They had no idea how terrifyingly fucking right they were."

Working the crowd like a master performer who's spent well more than half his life on stage, Springsteen delivered what a few audience members on the way out called the greatest keynote they'd ever seen.

Dressed in jeans and a button down shirt, holding his speech like your coolest professor, Springsteen began with a comment about the hour of the speech. "Good morning, why are we up so fucking early? How important can this speech be if we’re getting up at noon," he joked to loud laughter. "Every decent musician in town is asleep, or they will be before I’m done with this."

As Springsteen also demonstrated during his recent Jimmy Fallon performance of LMFAO's "I'm Sexy And I Know It," the guy has shown a deft sense of humor on stage for years, with his cheerfulness and wit being a big part of the revival feeling of the live shows.

He used that very well during the keynote, poking fun at the dissension among music fans by pointing out you can take any band and having the following disagreement: "Bruce Springsteen – natural born voice of the common man, the future of rock and roll," or, "He sucks."

But like his Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame induction speeches, Springsteen used the occasion to celebrate the music he loves and school everyone in the crowd on rock history, often tying it into his own music.

For example, he explained how the music of the Animals infused his own Darkness On The Edge Of Town. "Youngsters watch this one," he said, playing a riff from "Don't Let Be Misunderstood," then immediately following with "Badlands." "It’s the same fucking riff, man."

He found a guitar and played several snippets of songs, including "Backstreets." But his full version of "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place," eyes closed, guitar held almost straight in the air, was transfixing.

And afterwards he again broke the place up. "That’s every song I’ve ever written," he said, "I’m not kidding, that’s all of ‘em."

Most of his revelations, though, were in talking about other musicians. "Underrated, still underrated," he said of James Brown, then shared a story of being brought on stage with Brown, which he animated by mimicking running.

When he wrapped up at 1:30 p.m., he took a bow, waved to the crowd and walked off stage to a deserved standing ovation.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon MP3 Download Center

Read more »