Fears after Trump’s feud with Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen’s attack on Donald Trump has deepened the rift in “The Boss’s” New Jersey.

Bar owner Tony Rivoli trashed a Springsteen cover band after the star’s “bullshit” – and made the band fear for their safety.

– You never know what people are capable of, so I don’t want to be a target, says the band’s singer Brad Hobicorn. News, interviews and reports about Donald Trump being the president of the United States.

It is without a doubt New Jersey’s most popular restaurant in recent times.

But inside Riv’s Toms River Hub, there’s no telling the turmoil that has surrounded the place in recent weeks.

The early live music set is rounded out by a troubadour uncle blaring his way through Dylan’s “Don’t think twice it’s all right” and John Denver’s “Leaving on a jet plane” while waitresses with the American flag on the back of their black T-shirts serve burgers and happy hour Budweisers for two dollars each.

Riv’s is a typical roadside tavern that can be found in a thousand variations along entrances and exits all over the United States, where people sit at the bar and let the work week melt away behind them, sip by sip, until they are ready to take the car home again.

The Springsteen cover band No Surrender was supposed to play here this evening.

But after Bruce Springsteen – New Jersey’s great pride, as one might think, as a Swede – posted the lyrics from the stage in Manchester when he started his tour in mid-May, things became different.

– We have a corrupt, incompetent and treacherous government, Springsteen said on stage, among other things.

The response from the president came quickly:

– He’s dumb as a rock, Trump replied, calling him untalented and “a dried-up prune” with bad skin who should keep his mouth shut, according to a post on Truth Social.

The Anger in New Jersey

Bruce Springsteen grew up in Freehold, New Jersey, which is just a few miles up Highway 9 (the road full of broken heroes in the song “Born to Run”) from Toms River, but that proximity doesn’t earn him any free points at Riv’s Toms River Hub.

It’s Tom Rivoli who plays Riv, a 60-something with slicked-back hair and a look that wouldn’t be ashamed of himself in a “Sopranos” supporting role. He stands behind the bar and isn’t particularly chatty when Expressen comes to say hello.

– It’s just bullshit! I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’m mentally exhausted, he says.

After the band posted a message on Facebook that Rivoli had cancelled the band due to Springsteen’s statement, the local press picked up on it, and word of the cover band spread like wildfire. Screenshots of messages from Rivoli show him writing “because Bruce can’t shut up, we’re screwed” and that “Toms River is red and won’t tolerate his bullshit.”

– It was a Facebook post that went viral, it was that damn bassist who posted it. That was it! And then it all started. I’ve been getting calls all the time, people saying I’m going to die, telling my waitresses they’re pussies.

How do you think it will be, just because of this canceled gig?

– Damn it! It’s MAGA here and MAGA there.

But, I still wonder: why did you book them in the first place? Or was it just Springsteen’s comments at the show that made you change your mind?

– Yes. That was it. That was all. I’ve been doing this since ’89. All I did was book a band! he says and walks away.

Rivoli has been in trouble before. After the high-profile case where Eric Garner was held in a chokehold by a New York police officer and uttered “I can’t breathe” eleven times before he died in 2014, Rivoli put up the words “I can breathe, I obey the law” outside his then-restaurant. At the time, he explained that it was meant to support the police.

The criticism – from Springsteen fans

Instead of No Surrender, a heavy-footed cover band now plays stage-operated versions of the Stones’ “Honky tonk women” and other standard rock. It’s as free from Springsteen songs as it is from swing. Quite free from the audience in front of the stage, too.

Brad Hobicorn of No Surrender, who has played Springsteen songs for decades, is taken aback by how everything has turned out.

– As long as we’ve been doing this, we’ve never had a show canceled like this – nothing that had to do with anything Bruce said, or anything to do with politics. And now this guy says, “I don’t want you to play Springsteen in my place.” But that’s the way it is in this country now. That’s the reality, he says over coffee in Livingston, further up in New Jersey, a few hours before the show was supposed to take place.

He says the band has received “a lot of support,” but there have also been a lot of negative comments. Not just from Trump supporters—but also from Springsteen fans.

– They think that just because we’re a Springsteen cover band, we should agree with what he says politically, and stand up for his views – protect him and protect America. But I say, “Our band is half red, half blue.” We can have civilized discussions about that, but that’s not what this is about. We’re just trying to play the songs as well as we can.

In hindsight, he says he’s glad there wasn’t a gig at Riv in Toms River.

– I don’t want to set foot there. I’ve heard it’s ultra-MAGA there.

For Hobicorn, it also became a question of safety.

– People were so angry, and all this got so hyped up. It got really ugly. People thought we were the ones going to the media, but we weren’t. And Rivoli talks about having these very loyal customers. Would I want to go in there with my band when it’s like this? You never know, the way the world is today, what people are capable of. There are hate crimes and murders. If someone wants to be “that guy” – then I don’t want to be the target of that.

Bright red in the middle of the Democrat stronghold

Toms River is one of the many small towns along the coastal strip that makes up the Jersey shore. The fact that it is here that Springsteen is perhaps least popular is not entirely surprising when you look a little closer at the political landscape on the Atlantic coast:

Although New Jersey is known as a staunchly Democratic state, Ocean County, where Toms River is located, is something else.

Where “The Garden State” has largely voted Democratic in presidential elections since the early 1990s, Ocean County – just a few miles downriver from Asbury Park, which Springsteen made world-famous with his debut album “Greetings from Asbury Park” – is a solid Republican stronghold.

Or “redder than red” as bar owner Tony Rivoli described it. Lyndon B Johnson is the only Democrat to have won a majority of the vote in a presidential election in Ocean County, and that was in 1964.

“Many don’t want to be reminded”

Friday night’s activities have left their mark on some of the guests, who want to take the opportunity to explain what’s going on here, and what Tony Rivoli is really like. During a smoke break outside the bar, regular Sean confirms that the bar owner is a great guy.