Two hours and 18 minutes passed in their Thursday night set at South By Southwest before Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band sang about the time the big man joined the band. The band—and the audience—went silent.

High noon is an ungodly hour for the hipsters who crawl the late-night bars and honky-tonks of Austin, Texas, at the annual South By Southwest music conference. But that was wake-up time this morning if they wanted to catch an earful of the conference’s music keynote speaker, Bruce Springsteen.

From soup to Superman to the Super Bowl-winning Giants, the Garden State’s impact on contemporary culture is clearly evident in the 2012 class of New Jersey Hall of Fame inductees, announced today.

You’ve got to love the concept: Bruce Springsteen, Jersey guy, celebrated as an icon of free speech at a new exhibit opening in February at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

The passing of Clarence Clemons, however sad, is a reminder of how special it is to be from New Jersey.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but if Photographers Against Hunger have their way, donated signed pictures of Bruce Springsteen will feed a thousand mouths.