‘Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’ Review: Disney+/Hulu Doc Is a Joyfully Earnest, if Slightly Shallow, Tribute

As they prepare to embark on their first tour in six years, the E Street Band reflect on the “responsibility” they feel to deliver on the sort of energetic, virtuosic shows they’ve built their reputation on.

“People would expect musicians in their 70s to play that loping thing, which is unfortunate,” drummer Max Weinberg bemoans of a sluggish early rehearsal. “We had to recall some of that manic, out-of-control way we played 50 years ago. Really get back to where we were.”

But Disney+ / Hulu’s Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band is no deluded attempt to deny the passage of time. Directed by Thom Zimny — who over the past quarter-century has worked on countless films and music videos for the Boss, including the 2018 Netflix special Springsteen on Broadway — the documentary is as much a celebration of what’s changed about the group as what hasn’t, over the nearly half-century they’ve been in business.

The narrative spine of the 99-minute feature is Springsteen and the E Street Band’s world tour, which launched in Tampa in 2023 and is set to continue through 2025. After plans to go on the road in 2020 were scuttled by the COVID-19 pandemic, Springsteen explains, “I made a promise to myself, to my fans and to my band that if we got through this, I’d throw the biggest party I could.”

So the early parts of the documentary focus on them getting ready — rehearsing, meeting new collaborators, nailing down a set list. It’s pointed out more than once that the existence of a firm set list is itself a sign of how different things are now, from an outfit known to inject impromptu “stump the band” segments into their shows.

But Road Diary itself feels more akin to the free-flowing spirit of those earlier concerts, skipping in time or between topics without settling in any one place too long. Here it’s reflecting on the good old days or interviewing gushing fans; there it’s reflecting on the poignancy of Springsteen’s lyrics or marveling at his command of an arena. What it never even pretends to do is be an intimate tell-all, since (Patti Scialfa’s announcement of her cancer diagnosis aside) what it shows is not ultimately very revealing.

It’s not that it doesn’t feel like a peek behind the curtain. Endearingly, Zimny seems to find no logistical detail too small. Not even hardcore devotees are likely to have wondered what the sleeping arrangements were like in the RV the band used for tours in the 1970s. But even casual viewers might find it poignant to note the sharp contrast between the gang’s scrappy early days and their jet-setting present. At the same time, any bumps in the crew’s five-decade journey are gilded over with effusive but apparently earnest nostalgia; an in-depth excavation or an exhaustive accounting, this is not.

The master lyricist and singer himself speaks only in platitude-heavy voiceovers, delivered like he’s reading them off a page. (In fact, he may have been — he’s credited as a writer on the film.) The choice leaves him feeling like a distant, unknowable god, even as he touts his set list as a deeply personal piece of communication about “life, death and everything in between.”

The talking-head interviews are left instead to the E Street Band, including Weinberg, bassist Garry Tallent, pianist Roy Bittan, guitarist Nils Lofgren and Steven Van Zandt, promoted by Springsteen to official music director for this tour (“40 years late, but fine,” Van Zandt laughs). The late Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici get their say as well, via snippets from old interviews and fond reminiscences from their former colleagues.

At its most intriguing, Road Diary feels less like a traditional celebrity profile than a 20 Feet From Stardom-esque exploration of music’s lesser-sung heroes. Even then, however, the doc proves more adept at capturing the sincerity of their admiration for each other or for their frontman than it does in explaining what makes their alchemy — so demonstrably sturdy that one member of 39 years half-jokes about being “the new guy” — unique.

But if Zimny struggles sometimes to tell us what makes this band so special, he thankfully does a better job of showing us. “Since I was 16, playing live has been a deep and lasting part of who I am and how I justify my existence here on earth,” Springsteen intones in the opening minutes. And throughout, we watch this group justify their existence over and over again — in ancient clips of the old Bruce crowdsurfing or dancing frenetically across the stage, in newer footage of the current Bruce commanding enormous crowds with the well-earned confidence of a rock god, in gloriously drawn-out clips of the E Street Band launching into dizzying improvised riffs.

Maybe Road Diary feels less up close and personal than the title would imply, or than some ravenous fans might hope. But in its joyous celebration of the band’s spirit, it nevertheless captures something of what makes them them.