Bruce Springsteen Working on a Dream in London

The Boss and the E-Street Band play Hard Rock Calling at Hyde Park

Jun 30, 2009

Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band continued the European leg of the, 'Working on a Dream', tour when they played London's Hyde Park at Hard Rock Calling.

Springsteen’s concerts can’t be measured by normal standards. Very few acts play the length of set that the Boss and the E-street band do, even fewer have the ability and the guts to chop and change the set every night and how many take requests from the audience?

Bruce Springsteen, A Glastonbury hangover?

But… this concert wasn’t Bruce and the band firing on all cylinders, Saturday night saw them play a blistering set at the Glastonbury festival. That concert, much of which was shown by the BBC, gave a wide audience a look at Bruce at his very best. On Sunday, it looked as though there might have been a bit of a hangover as the energy levels weren’t quite up to the usual standard.

It all started well enough, The Clash’s London’s Calling and Badlands giving the audience a chance to test their vocal cords, but the cracks started to show when Bruce made his first foray off the stage to the faithful down at the front. When he headed back for the stage, he made a joke about the stairs being too steep and asked for an elevator.

To be fair, the man is within spitting distance of his 60th birthday and the rest of the band is practically falling apart around him. Guitarist Nils Lofgren had a double hip replacement last year and the Big Man, Clarence Clemmons had hip replacements in 1995 and his knees replaced more recently. With all this, churning out three hour sets night after night must take its toll and Springsteen doesn’t exactly stand behind his microphone all night strumming his guitar and crooning.

It may be that the makeup of the audience had a bearing too. The Glastonbury performance in front of a crowd on a three day orgy of music and with the energy of youth brought out the best in the Boss. The Sunday concert, with a less intense audience, the majority of whom would have been born 25 years ago when, ‘Born in the USA’, was released, might have failed to give Bruce the energy that any truly great performer needs to give his best.

Still, even an average Springsteen concert is something most performers can only dream about and as usual, the set contained songs from the band’s long and distinguished back catalogue, with favourites ‘Night’ from the, ‘Born to Run’, album and, ‘Racing in the Streets’, from ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town’, sitting alongside, ‘Outlaw Pete’, and the title track from the latest ‘Working on a Dream’ album.

These last tracks look like becoming crowd favourites. The live version of, ‘Outlaw Pete’, has a feel and depth to it that was missing from the album and had the Boss donning a cowboy hat for the finale of the song, whilst the sight of Clarence Clemmens whistling the chorus of, ‘Working on a Prayer’, a la Roger Whittaker was a sight to behold!

During the requests section, Bruce was joined on stage by Brian Fallon of fellow New Jersey band Gaslight Anthem, returning the favour for Bruce who sat in with the band during their Glastonbury set.

The concert sparked again with the traditional closer, ‘Born to Run’ and the band didn’t even pretend to leave the stage before reforming for the encore. Long term favourite, ‘Rosalita’, was followed by a nod to the current economic crisis and Bruce’s love of American folk tunes with the 19th century song,’Hard Times’. The finale flowed into crowd pleasers, ‘Jungleland’, and the upbeat Irish jig of, ‘American Land’ before the show was closed with, ‘Glory Days’ and, ‘Dancing in the Dark’.

This was a good show for mere mortals, but an average one for the Boss and the E-Street Band. It was probably asking a bit too much to follow up after such a big show as the one at Glastonbury. When Bruce told the crowd that they’d seen the, ‘Earth shaking, love making, Viagra taking E Street Band’, the joke may just have been close to the mark.

Judging by Glastonbury, it’s too early to be writing obituaries for Springsteen and the band, they will almost certainly be back to full power for the next gig. Either way, the Springsteen faithful will still be scrambling for Living on a Dream tour tickets.

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