Stevie Van Zandt visits young musicians as Springsteen makes Las Vegas return

“I had acoustic guitars before, but my first electric was an Epiphone. Nice. But then, very early on, I switched to a Telecaster,” Van Zandt says to budding rocker Matthew Yawson. “I was the only one in my whole area who had a Telecaster. In those days, it was funny, every guitar player had a different guitar. It was kind of part of your identity … That guy was a Stratocaster guy, that guy was a Telecaster guy, that guy was a Les Paul guy.”

Van Zandt is also a Boss guy, the legendary guitarist for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, playing Friday night at T-Mobile Arena. The kid is a student at Rock Academy of the Performing Arts (RAPA) at Delta Academy in North Las Vegas.

The kid tells Van Zandt that his uncle is a huge Little Steven fan, and asks him to sign his own first guitar — a red Stratocaster. As Van Zandt scrawls his signature, the rock classic “Hello, Goodbye” by The Beatles begins playing from across the room. The music seems to be pouring out of an unmanned synthesizer.

It’s a magical mystery tour to find whence the sound emanates. Everyone in the area frantically checks their phones, and bags and even under the keyboard.

It’s coming from a phone in the pocket of a purple-velvet jacket hanging on a chair, a ringtone that can only belong to one person.

“Uh-oh,” Little Steven says. “That’s my phone. I gotta turn it off.”

Never. Van Zandt finishes his session, explaining that The Beatles changed his life in February 1964 on their historic “Ed Sullivan Show” appearance.

“The Big Bang of my generation,” Van Zandt calls it. “We had never seen a band before, in America, that sang and played all of their instruments. If you went to your high school dances — I don’t now if you still do that or not — but the group would be instrumental. We never saw a band before the Beatles. It was a revelation, I thought, ‘This is a whole new world.’”

It’s a new world for these students, who are part of the RAPA TeachRock national music program for students and teachers. Van Zandt, Springsteen, Bono, Jackson Browne and Martin Scorsese are the organization’s founders. TeachRock assists teaches, students and families gain standards-aligned resources to advance their music education.

TeachRock Executive Director Bill Carbone joined Van Zandt in Thursday’s appearance. The curriculum’s charge is to instruct and motivate, while bringing joy and a good vibe to musically adventurous students.

Van Zandt smiled though the 90-minute chat with the kids, then posed for selfies until the final student was sated. In a quick chat after, the 73-year-old rocker was asked about visiting Las Vegas. He was asked why has it been almost 20 years since Springsteen has performed here (Aug. 18, 2004, Thomas & Mack Center; prior to that, it was May 27, 2000, at MGM Grand Garden).

“I didn’t realize that, really,” Van Zandt says. “There’s no plan, you know? There’s no reason. Sometimes it depends on the promoters’ enthusiasm. Every tour has limitations, and you only have so much time.”

Van Zandt paused, then continued, “Once in a while, you have to stop and say, ‘Well, wait a minute. We haven’t played there in 20 years? Maybe we should do that.’ So maybe that’s what took place.”

Delving into his history in Las Vegas, Van Zandt seems to adopt his mob consigliere-strip club owner character Silvio Dante from “The Sopranos.” He especially remembers playing the Flamingo with the doo-wop outfit The Dovells in 1973.

“That was when the mob was still running things, and this may not be the most popular thing in the world to say, but it was better,” Van Zandt says, laughing. “Sorry! Sorry! But it was better. The only thing they cared about when we were in town was making money from the gambling. That was it. You could have buffet with steak and lobster for $2.79 or something, and see Frank Sinatra at the Sands for six bucks. Right? Come on. People have a hard time believing it, but it was a different time then.”

Springsteen and the E Street band are returning to the road after delaying the tour this past November, pausing as Springsteen was treated for peptic ulcer disease. The band kicked off the resumed tour with a soaring show Tuesday night in Phoenix.

“It was great, because we were waiting months to get back, and when you wait that long your mind goes through a million things,” Van Zandt says. “You really can’t imagine doing what we do, until you do it. So you’re going grocery shopping, and taking out the garbage. It’s a weird way to live until you say, ‘It’s time to be a rock star again!’

“We are just so lucky. We are the lucky ones.”

Cool Hang Alert

Michael Shapiro (who portrayed Springsteen in the great but short-lived “World’s Greatest Rock Show” at The Strat) revives his “Reckless in Vegas Unplugged” retro show act at 8 p.m. Saturday at Notoriety Live. As we say, luck be a Michael, to-NIGHT! Go to NotorietyLive.com for intel.

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His “PodKats!” podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.