Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Perth 25 January 2017

Lying in bed, after around six hours’ sleep and an early morning delve into the Internet to seek out the set list, for some reason I could not help thinking of one of the innumerable cat related memes out there in cyberspace.
You've probably seen the one with the blow by blow run through a cat's day, side-by-side with a similar exercise detailing the dog's reaction to the successive events in his daily routine. 
The cat delivers a misanthropic commentary delivered from the regulation aloof point of view, laced with snarky comments and statements about the inherent injustice in the feline-human balance of power.
In contrast, each new event on the doggy day is greeted with capital letters, an abundance of exclamation marks, and a vocabulary largely comprised of wow, my favourite, and the best thing ever.
Now, I'm not drawing any comparisons between the other however many thousand fans who packed into the Perth Arena last night and the canine fraternity. 
These remarks are an attempt to figure out, in retrospect, why my reaction when the bloke next door asked what I thought was along the lines of I think it was the best show I've seen.
That's strange, because my previous show, in Brisbane at the end of the2014 tour, has, in some circles, been described as the greatest Springsteen show ever. 
On the surface in last night's performance, there was nothing unusual that stood out. 
Nothing that could even vaguely be tagged unexpected
Apart from a little slip half way through Mary's Place where The Boss forgot the words, sang the wrong verse, and admitted he had stuffed things up. 
It didn't affect the performance, though, and the actual slip was so slight that the average fan, caught up in the moment may well have missed it if Bruce didn't point it out.
And, on the way out of the arena I couldn't help thinking that he'd run a tad under the three hour mark rather than landed in the territory between three hours and three and three quarters.
THe only thing that even vaguely resembled a surprise came after Roy Bittan’s piano flourishes kicked off New York Serenade. 
The stage lights came up to reveal a string section, but that would not have been a surprise if I had delved into descriptions of Sundays show, which featured the same opener and probably included and identical string section.
The other thing that was clearly obvious from the get go was that this tour features a well trimmed, hard-core E Street band. 
No Tom Morello. 
No backup choir and percussionist. 
The four or five piece sports section is gone, and Jake Clemons handles all those duties on his lonesome ownsome.
But who knows? 
Some of those missing elements from the last two tours could be cooling that their heels stateside, waiting to fly out to join the tour’s east coast component.
Or, alternatively, Bruce has made the package affordable for the Australian promoter by reducing the cost of accommodating of transporting the expended E Street Almost Orchestra.
Interestingly, this nine piece version rocked just as hard, and possibly harder, then the 16 or 17 piece outfits from the previous tours.
Equally interesting is the fact that in between Hughesy’s initial quest for last night’s setlist and this point of his review, this note appeared on backstreets.com.
Night 2 of 3 in Perth may have been shorter, under three hours, but a vastly different set: 16 songs not played opening night including "Wrecking Ball," "My City of Ruins," "Murder Incorporated," and "Death to My Hometown.”
Readers seeking an abundance of purple prose and a plethora of photographs are pointed towards the source of that quotation. 
Once the reviewer has delivered on his “more to come” there will be a far more detailed account than anything you will find here.
So, some impressions from a quick run through the set list. 
First, after reports of explicit political statements on Sunday, last night Bruce said practically nothing. He delivered the standard food bank appeal in an identical almost word for word version that had Western Australia instead of the other state or city identifiers I've heard elsewhere.
Second, it seemed the whole set list was preordained. 
Three or four songs in, I was about to remark to my right-hand neighbour that signs requesting songs were conspicuous by the absence. A few turned up later in the piece, but they were vastly outnumbered by requests for dance space on the stage beside various E Streeters.
Third, there was no sign, not even an inkling, of Waiting on a Sunny Day and the show was much better for it. While the sight of some kid living out his or her inner rock star goes down well with the crowd, it also sucks the momentum built up through the rest of the show right out of the reader. 
Bruce and the band inevitably and invariably restore it, of course, but last night they didn't have to.
Fourth, My Love Will Not Let You Down, which I have not experienced in concert before, absolutely rocked. As did Mary's Place, the other addition to Hughesy’s Springsteen Song Matrix.
Fifth, as Bruce and the band stormed through the songs that deal with the factors that brought about the Trump ascendancy (particularly Death to my Hometown) they did so with a fire that rendered further political commentary basically unnecessary. 
Atlantic City may not have sat under that “political songs” banner before, but last night it definitely seemed to. Actually, it was probably there all along without anyone noticing until the landscape changed.
And that, I think, is that for the first of nine shows on my version of Summer ’17 Down Under.

The setlist:
New York City Serenade (with strings)
Prove It All Night
My Love Will Not Let You Down
Two Hearts
Wrecking Ball
Out in the Street
Hungry Heart
My City of Ruins
Mary's Place
Atlantic City
Johnny 99
Murder Incorporated
Death to My Hometown
The River
Downbound Train
I'm on Fire
Because the Night
The Rising
Badlands
Thunder Road
* * *
Jungleland
Born to Run
Dancing in the Dark
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
Shout
Rosalita



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