I promised a while ago that I'd post a review of Bruce's concert in Manchester, so here goes...Ah one two three four...
The omens were not good. We'd (errr...I'd) managed to leave the other half's bag with all her road trip clothes in at home, someone in the hotel had pilfered things out of the remaining bags, the Metrolink trams out to Old Trafford were rammed and it was raining. That Manchester rain that Peter Kay talks about..really wet rain.
Things started to look up though. We abandoned the tram and picked up a taxi, the driver of which switched off his meter as we waited around Old Trafford as he said it wasn't fair that we should pay to wait. Once in, I managed to get a couple of beers without too much trouble. Our seats were face on the to the stage. The rain started to ease off a bit.
My experience of shows in football stadiums (stadia?) is that unless (a) you're down the front with the seething mob or (b) the act knows how to project right to the back of the arena you're not going to get the full live experience. Here I'm not talking of admiring the precision of a someone like (say) The Eagles, but that feeling of expectancy as a song begins and that lift and rush as you're carried along to the climax. Here we weren't in the seething mob - something the other half said she regretted in terms of her ticket choice the moment the first song began - and had a lot of dead space in front of us where those standing on the pitch had crowded forward. Springsteen is, however, a master performer. His isn't the jaw dropping spectacle as I saw at a Dave Gilmour show a couple of years back, but rather the product of a showman who knows how to work the crowd. Starting with music from a calliope sets the tone, then the video screens kick in not with a shot of the band arriving on stage but with the 'Theatre of Dreams' signs. Throughout the show he's in constant motion, either down at the front singing to those who'd bagged the best spots or using the cameras and video screens to sing directly to those of us further away.
It's true that the images and poses have a familiarity; the camera shot from the back of the stage, showing the crowd; the leaning into the mike with Miama Steve;the launching of the guitar over the shoulder for the roadie to catch (he didn't). This didn't make it mechanical and fomulaic, but rather a platform from which he and the band could take flight knowing that there was somewhere dependable to which to return. At various points in the show he took the signs from the crowd bearing the titles of requests, and worked them into the set, propping the sign up by the mike as he did so; there's an image of the handwritten setlist up on his website, and there were evidently substitions. 'It's Hard to Be A Saint In The City', 'Growing Up' and 'Rosalita' were thrown in this way.
Sometimes he gets it a touch wrong. Despite his announced briefing from his soccer mad son he wasn't perhaps quite as aware as he should have been that not everyone in that stadium was necessarily a fan of the home team. The setlist dipped a couple of times too; 'Magic' and 'Devil's Arcade' weren't particularly potent contributions to the set, and 'It's Hard to Be A Saint In The City' with it's over complex arrangement, though popular with the hardcore fans, didn't really win over the larger crowd. He wasn't, however, relying to a 'greatest hits' set to win that larger crowd over and didn't need to do so; I doubt 'Adam Raised A Cain'', 'She's The One' (I've waited 25 years to hear that live) and 'Trapped' feature in many people's top 10 Springsteen lists, but here they were greeted with the enthusiasm that their performances deserved.
What is it about Springsteen that warms the cockles of my heart and brought so many middle aged men and women to their feet punching the air along to 'Badlands'? Lord knows my experience of barefoot girls sitting on the hood of a Dodge drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain is limited. Perhaps the 'Theatre of Dreams' at the beginning gives a clue; perhaps it's the desire to be in what does still seem to be a gang on stage (though without Patti who's 'home stopping the kids setting fire to the house and selling my clothes on eBay'). Whatever, for me it's uplifting, energising and life affirming.
Set list:
No Surrender
Radio Nowhere
Night
Lonesome Day
The Promised Land
Magic
Trapped
Adam Raised A Cain
Darlington County
It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City
Because The Night
She's The One
Livin' In The Future
Mary's Place
I'll Work For Your Love
Devil's Arcade
The Rising
Last To Die
Long Walk Home
Badlands
Growin' Up
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Born To Run
Rosalita
Dancing In The Dark
American Land
The omens were not good. We'd (errr...I'd) managed to leave the other half's bag with all her road trip clothes in at home, someone in the hotel had pilfered things out of the remaining bags, the Metrolink trams out to Old Trafford were rammed and it was raining. That Manchester rain that Peter Kay talks about..really wet rain.
Things started to look up though. We abandoned the tram and picked up a taxi, the driver of which switched off his meter as we waited around Old Trafford as he said it wasn't fair that we should pay to wait. Once in, I managed to get a couple of beers without too much trouble. Our seats were face on the to the stage. The rain started to ease off a bit.
My experience of shows in football stadiums (stadia?) is that unless (a) you're down the front with the seething mob or (b) the act knows how to project right to the back of the arena you're not going to get the full live experience. Here I'm not talking of admiring the precision of a someone like (say) The Eagles, but that feeling of expectancy as a song begins and that lift and rush as you're carried along to the climax. Here we weren't in the seething mob - something the other half said she regretted in terms of her ticket choice the moment the first song began - and had a lot of dead space in front of us where those standing on the pitch had crowded forward. Springsteen is, however, a master performer. His isn't the jaw dropping spectacle as I saw at a Dave Gilmour show a couple of years back, but rather the product of a showman who knows how to work the crowd. Starting with music from a calliope sets the tone, then the video screens kick in not with a shot of the band arriving on stage but with the 'Theatre of Dreams' signs. Throughout the show he's in constant motion, either down at the front singing to those who'd bagged the best spots or using the cameras and video screens to sing directly to those of us further away.
It's true that the images and poses have a familiarity; the camera shot from the back of the stage, showing the crowd; the leaning into the mike with Miama Steve;the launching of the guitar over the shoulder for the roadie to catch (he didn't). This didn't make it mechanical and fomulaic, but rather a platform from which he and the band could take flight knowing that there was somewhere dependable to which to return. At various points in the show he took the signs from the crowd bearing the titles of requests, and worked them into the set, propping the sign up by the mike as he did so; there's an image of the handwritten setlist up on his website, and there were evidently substitions. 'It's Hard to Be A Saint In The City', 'Growing Up' and 'Rosalita' were thrown in this way.
Sometimes he gets it a touch wrong. Despite his announced briefing from his soccer mad son he wasn't perhaps quite as aware as he should have been that not everyone in that stadium was necessarily a fan of the home team. The setlist dipped a couple of times too; 'Magic' and 'Devil's Arcade' weren't particularly potent contributions to the set, and 'It's Hard to Be A Saint In The City' with it's over complex arrangement, though popular with the hardcore fans, didn't really win over the larger crowd. He wasn't, however, relying to a 'greatest hits' set to win that larger crowd over and didn't need to do so; I doubt 'Adam Raised A Cain'', 'She's The One' (I've waited 25 years to hear that live) and 'Trapped' feature in many people's top 10 Springsteen lists, but here they were greeted with the enthusiasm that their performances deserved.
What is it about Springsteen that warms the cockles of my heart and brought so many middle aged men and women to their feet punching the air along to 'Badlands'? Lord knows my experience of barefoot girls sitting on the hood of a Dodge drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain is limited. Perhaps the 'Theatre of Dreams' at the beginning gives a clue; perhaps it's the desire to be in what does still seem to be a gang on stage (though without Patti who's 'home stopping the kids setting fire to the house and selling my clothes on eBay'). Whatever, for me it's uplifting, energising and life affirming.
Set list:
No Surrender
Radio Nowhere
Night
Lonesome Day
The Promised Land
Magic
Trapped
Adam Raised A Cain
Darlington County
It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City
Because The Night
She's The One
Livin' In The Future
Mary's Place
I'll Work For Your Love
Devil's Arcade
The Rising
Last To Die
Long Walk Home
Badlands
Growin' Up
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Born To Run
Rosalita
Dancing In The Dark
American Land
We can get better, because we're not dead yet
