Concert Review : Bruce Bosses Hampden.....

It's been 24 hours since Bruce Springsteen turned Hampden Park into a "house of love" along with the E-Street Band. When you see someone like Springsteen you need to leave that period (at least) to allow you to assimilate the experience you've been through.

To describe it as a gig, a performance or a show seems entirely inadequate. There's just something so marevellously life-affirming about a Springsteen show with his comrades-in-arms in the E-Street Band that makes such descriptions utterly banal. That the man himself is now 60 years of age and still giving everything for us is just further confirmation of this.

Where to start? Well, it was raining from the heavens from about 1750hrs until just before 1900hrs. I was perfectly dressed for such an occasion wearing t-shirt and jeans, but my Partick Thistle cap at least kept the rain from my glasses. The advertised starting time of 1930hrs came and went and anticipation was growing along with the realisation that each passing minute cut into the potential length of the show given that we knew there was a 2300hrs curfew.

Just before 2000hrs Nils Lofgren wandered onto the stage with his accordian as has been the custom playing a tune of local relevance. In this case, it was Flower Of Scotland. The band followed him onstage with Bruce taking up the rear. After acknowledging the crowd, he then went to the side of the stage to support Clarence Clemons to his position on the stage.

A quick flourish from the band, and the Mighty Max then beat out the introduction to Badlands on his kit and we were off. This has always been a song that struck a chord with me and last night was no different. Most of the crowd was singing along puching the air with glee at the prospects of what was to follow.

Next up was Out In The Streets which, on record, is a relatively minor song but which is always fantastic on stage and another one to test the vocal chords. By now, it was clear that both Springsteen and the crowd were up for it.

As with most of the songs tonight, Springsteen kept the band ticking over at the end of one song before counting into the next one - in this case, it was into My Lucky Day from the new album which powered along in the powerful care of the E-Street Band.

Next up was a surprise when Bruce went into She's The One off the seminal Born To Run album. Not a song I was expecting but it was nevertheless a joy to hear it. And Bo Diddley boogied in his grave!

What followed was one of the highlights of the evening in Outlaw Pete which is the opening track on Working On A Dream. An awesome song, and an even more awesome performance. Stunning.

Another surprise next when Bruce donned the acoustic guitar and came right down the front to lead the Hampden audience through a rousing Working On The Highway. Looking round at the large crowd, you could see the magic of this man as even up in the highest stands furthest away from the stage that Springsteen was able to reach absolutely everyone in this huge stadium.


Next up was a trilogy of, for want of a better word, serious songs. Seeds, Johnny 99 and Atlantic City are all far from singalong songs but Bruce still had the audience doing the sound of the train whistle in Johnny 99. It was also apparent that most of the audience were aware of the nooks and crannies of the Springsteen canon and not just the better known songs.

Now if I was a closer observer of things, I'd have known what was about to happen. I'd seen many fans with placards with song titles on them and I had wondered what the purpose was, but during an instrumental version of Raise Your Hand, Bruce went along the full length of the stage (and that was long!) picking them up from fans and ultimately depositing them on the stage.


It was then that I realised that he was going to pick a song out of the pack and play it for us. First up was Incident On 57th Street from The Wild, The Innocent And The E-Street Shuffle. Never entirely succesful as a song, it was still a wonder to behold the band pick this up and play it seemingly at the drop of a hat.

Second in this section and requested via a very decorous placard was Pink Cadillac. Now when any list of great Springsteen songs is drawn up this one is perhaps not going to be on it, nevermind being anywhere near the top, but it's one that I've always loved. Very much The Boss in Elvis' mode, it struck me that this man has become that Elvis seemed to promise but never came close to matching. Springsteen has always been very aware of the mythology surrounding rock'n'roll and has been meticulous in his attempts to move this forward. Elvis was one of his first idols, and we've never have had Bruce without him but to see him at 60 - 18 years older than Elvis was when he died - not just working on a dream but living it and making it real for the rest of us was simply an overwhelmingly emotional experience for this fifty-something and the performance of Pink Cadillac seemed to exemplify that.

Last up (for now) from the requests was Cover Me from the Born In The USA album. After this, we moved back toward the more regular songs that feature in the final third of the show starting with Waiting For A Sunny Day. Needless to say, the rain started again briefly as this song came to an end!

Back to a couple more serious minded songs as we got The Promised Land and The River. The former had a similar impact on me as Badlands (and both are from the Darkness On The Edge Of Town album) whilst The River has to be near the top of any list of Springsteen classics. At the end of this, he found a simply gorgeous falsetto which developed variations on the melody at the end. A beautiful moment, but I just don't know where he gets that voice from as it's so different to his more regular singing style.

Following up were Kingdom Of Days and Radio Nowhere which did what they had to at this stage of the gig with the audience preparing for the coming finale.

As appears to be fairly standard that came with Lonesome Day, The Rising and an ecstatic performance of Born To Run to bring the main part of the show to a conclusion.



Encores were inevitable and the band didn't leave the stage but took the appreciation of the audience and regrouped for the next numbers.

Stephen Foster's Hard Times was first up and it is quite chilling to think how relevant this song remains despite it being more than one hundred years old.

Bruce went to the pile of placards again and dumped one down in front of his mikestand. It read "Thunder Road" Another magnificent performance, with the coda at the end as thrilling and inspiring as it has proved on every listen since I first heard the Born To Run album all those years ago.

American Land was next and was a grand Celtic knees-up for which some others joined the stage including Bruce's son Evan. An original song which came out of the Seeger Sessions band it simply served to emphasise the sheer quality of all the musicians that took the stage.


After that, party time continued as we got Bobby Jean, Dancing In The Dark and a joyous romp through Twist And Shout. Just short of three hours from when they started the band left the stage and the crowd made for the exits.

So what further thought are there 24 hours on. Well, my legs have been aching all day. God only knows how Springsteen gets though these shows - even after half an hour, he's given more than most other performers do in their entire gigs and he never lets up. Truly inspirational.


One thing that stands out is the connection this man has with his audience. He was often down in front of the audience and although I wasn't near enough the front to be part of that you could see on the screens the sheer joy of those in front of the stage and Bruce himself in the whole occasion. There was also a point during Waiting For A Sunny Day where he was one to one with a young girl (at a guess she was six years old). All captured on camera, he got the girl to sing the chorus through his mike. A beautiful, heart-warming moment where his concentration was 100% with the girl but it was shared by the rest of us. I suspect if you could get a picture of the rest of us it would show us all with silly grins on our faces and a tear in the eye.


Springsteen is clearly very aware of the cameras on stage and uses them to enhance the performance and this is probably the key to him being able to reach out to those further away.

Whilst there's an element of calculation there, it's not in any way cynical or manipulative. And his on-stage relationship with the band is an entertainment in itself, particularly between him and Miami Steve Van Zandt and also with Clarence Clemons.

Is there anyone out there to match him? To be honest, the answer has to be no. On musical grounds alone, there's a lot of artists that I'd put beside him and perhaps above him. However put this man on a stage (and perhaps the presence of the E-Street Band is a necessary component although the Seeger Sessions Band suggest that may not be true now although it was in the early 1990's) and he is utterly peerless.


(Pictures from Backstreets and are not from Hampden)