I think it’s because they’re not try­ing so hard to be Spring­steen that Neon Bible real­ly works for me. They just hap­pened to arrive there and then real­ized it was­n’t so bad. And since they sound like Echo & the Bun­ny­men some­times, just as acci­den­tal­ly, it’s a nice change of pace.

Twen­ty years from now, I would­n’t be sur­prised if this SNL per­for­mance does­n’t seem as unlike­ly as many of those from twen­ty years ago. I can’t tell if that’s good or bad yet.