If you’re familiar with the “Gumby” character from Monty Python — the one with the handkerchief on his head, hands curled inward, pants rolled up to his knees — then this entry should make its point.

Tuesday, November 18th, 1975

In the evening I go with Nancy to the Bruce Springsteen concert at Hammersmith Odeon. This is the first show outside the US for a 26-year-old New Jersey boy who has been hailed as the new Dylan, Lennon, Van Morrison and so on. The trouble is that the enormous reputation has been chiefly created by CBS records and there is a certain scepticism around as to the legendariness of Springsteen. So, was this the New Messiah? Was this to be one of those concerts which fathers tell their sons about in years to come?

Of course the concert didn’t start until 45 minutes after the advertised time . . . .

Nor did Spingsteen start too well. A solo with piano. His croaky, straining voice sounding as though he’d just done a six-week Gumby season, the spotlights all over the place.

…

The sound system failed to make head of tail of Springsteen’s poetry, but the band kept the evening alive — and he did three encores.

November 18th, 1976

The sketches, or fragments, which work least well at the moment are those which deal directly with the events or characters described in the Gospels. I wrote a sketch about Lazarus going to the doctors with ‘post-death depression,’ which, as I read it, sounded as pat and neat and predictable as a bad university revue sketch. The same fate befell John and G’s sketch about Joseph trying to tell his mates how his son Jesus was conceived. The way the material is developing it looks as though the peripheral world is the most rewarding, with Jesus unseen and largely unheard, though occasionally in the background.

— Michael Palin, Diaries 1969 – 1979: The Python Years