Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Melbourne, Saturday 4 February 2017

With 27 songs in the set list for the fifth show of this nine concert cross-country extravaganza, you would have to say that the halfway point for the whole thing comes around song number 14.
That, as it turns out, was Death to my Hometown, which turns out to be appropriate given the political comment that underpins much of the song selection.
Scan down the set list and there are plenty of obvious examples from the opening American Land scattered through the set. And there are plenty more where the comment can be inferred although it has not been explicitly stated.
And halfway through the nine show run is a handy point to stop and consider some of the themes that have emerged across five shows in three cities over eleven days.
It has been a solid batch of prime, no frills Springsteen, delivered by the core, nine-piece E Street Band.
No Tom Morello means no electric Ghost of Tom Joad, and it probably explains the absence of a couple of other numbers the featured prominently over the previous two tours.
Some will have missed the horn section and the backing singers who added light and shade and brought the possibility of jazz, New Orleans and gospel elements into the mix.
So we're unlikely to see an Apollo Medley, Pay Me My Money Down, Shackled and Drawn or We Are Alive.
The reduced numbers are fairly obvious when the band lines out across the stage for American Land and Death to my Hometown.
The sixteen or seventeen-piece ensemble stretched out right across the stage, complete with sousaphone.
This time around, with Max Weinberg stuck behind the drum kit the remaining eight don't fill the space in quite the same way but they rock just as hard, possibly harder.
Fire in the belly tends to do that, and there's no shortage of fire in the belly.
And show number five underlined the variations and random nature of the concert experience.
This time, seated on the shady side of the stadium on the end of a row, the neighbour factor turned out much better, even though I only had neighbours on one side.
Having tracked down the big black self-propelled wheelchair, and paid my respects to the Queen of all Tramps, I was in my seat for most of Diesel’s opening set, and all of Jet.
The row of seats to my left remained mostly vacant except for a couple in the middle, and fill gradually until an older couple arrived to claim the fourth and fifth seats. Those arrangements were adjusted when a younger woman arrived bearing beer. The bloke moved into the third seat in the row and explained that She Who Had Arrived With Beer was their stepdaughter, who had shouted Mum and Dad their concert tickets.
She had also bought the first round.
I don't have a stepdaughter and am never likely to acquire one, but should one materialise, I'll have one just like that thank you very much.
Mum and Dad, as it turned out, were from an unspecified part of Tasmania and had frequently crossed Bass Strait to catch concerts in Melbourne.
They'd also seen Leonard Cohen in Hobart, which provided an excuse to discuss three-hour concerts in general.
And Bruce in particular.
Dad was an obvious fan, had been before, and understood certain people’s motivation for attending a run of nine shows.
He was also a diplomatic family man and carried on separate conversations with Mum and Daughter and his itinerant not quite neighbour.
Around twenty minutes before the show was likely to start, the vacant seat was occupied, and I had  someone else to talk to.
The indigenous bloke in the seat in front of me joined in as his female companion got caught up in an across the aisle conversation with two girls who could well have been relatives.
Or people with a significant number of mutual acquaintances.
You don't need to eavesdrop to figure out that sort of thing. Snippets like She's getting married in April allow you to draw fairly obvious conclusions.
Then the neighbour appointed out the band in procession from the dressing rooms to the backstage
Area, and a minute or two later we were on.
I'd already pointed out the music stands, stage left of Max’s drum kit, but as the two keyboard players donned accordions and headed for the front of the stage it was obvious where we were starting from.
Lonesome Day was another addition to the song matrix, and if anyone needs convincing about the depth of Bruce’s unreleased back catalogue I would point them straight towards My Love Will Not Let You Down.
Out in the Street rocked the way it should, and while they may have been planning to play Sherry Darling all along, there was a sign in the audience, a request to dance beside the drum kit, and an excuse to make things look like the sign that was responsible.
Personally, I could have done without Hungry Heart and Glory Days, but I'm not someone who has just shelled out $300 to see Bruce for the first time.
This Hard Land was a sign request and one for the hard-core fans while New York City Serenade with the strings worked, as it has done every time.
The problem comes with those two words: every time.
The 78 intro to Prove It All Night seemed to be another sign request and it went down just fine up where I was sitting. It was good to get Trapped again, as was the case with Cadillac Ranch and My City of Ruins, but the rest of the main set was, I thought, an exercise in covering the bases and keeping the mainstream fans happy.
That was probably the case when Waitin' on a Sunny Day made its reappearance, though one suspects a certain amount of dissent from a certain senior East Streeter about its place in the set at all.
Or maybe he was just kidding around.
But the crowd loves it, so I guess it stays.
The other thing that has been reasonably interesting has been the slow and continuing evolution of Shout, first played (according to BRUCEfanatic) in Clarence Clemons’ New Jersey nightclub back in 1982.
A look at the numbers played in seventeen appearances at the venue reveals a predominance if old rock and R&B numbers. The old Isley Brothers rave-up would appear to be right at home in the setting.
Then, again according to the app, it was played once in the States in 2012, around eighteen times across Europe, South America and South Africa in 2013 and made its Australian debut in Perth around three years ago.
Since then it has gone on to become a regular feature in the encore, with the play count, according to BRUCEfanatic around the 116 mark.
So it turns up frequently these days, and without checking too closely, it usually slots in straight after The E Street Shuffle.
As anyone who has attended a show recently will know, The E Street Shuffle, with its visual tribute to Clarence Clemens and Danny Federici, slots in towards the very end of the encore.
But it can't really end the encore.
It needs something after it.
One option, which I seem to recall from 2014, is to wrap things up with a solo acoustic number, a gentle wind down from what has gone before.
Alternatively, follow E Street with another rocker and you have a possibility of finishing with another. Rosalita, for example.
Or, as we've seen recently Twist and Shout.
And that is where Shout fits in.
It can close the show, and send everybody on their way home in a positive frame of mind, or it can wind the crowd up a little further for another frenetic finale.
For Australian audiences, it can also be seen as a nod towards legendary Australia rocker Johnny O’Keefe.
That, at least, was how I read it the first couple of times.
Actually, it almost seemed like a throwaway, something tacked on to the end to better things out a little longer. Or maybe, I just wasn't paying enough attention.
What has be obvious in the last couple of shows is that the shelf is evolving. The evolution of a have started earlier, and in fact, it probably did. But the developments took some time to register, and they're not going to be obvious on a recording because a lot of the evolution lies in the visual schtick that has come to be part of the package.
It is, I guess, a fairly natural process that Bruce has been employing throughout his career.
He adds something to the onstage performance, usually as a spur of the moment thing, and if it works he tries it again.
Maybe it works really well, ad then goes on to become something of a trademark, associated with that song.
A show that has evolved over 40 years will contain any number of examples of that sort of thing, and they are probably littered all the way through any given set list.
And the process is probably happening all the time.
But it's interesting to register what's happening and observe the development.
One final point.
If you're going to register that sort of thing, you need to be watching.
Not heading back towards the bar to buy another round.
I've always found the need to head off, several times, in the middle of a show for another round of overpriced blues in plastic cups be mystifying. I
 like to drink as much as any given next man, and certainly more than most.
I'm not going to leave my $300 seat for a drink while Bruce or any other artist I've paid big bucks to see is playing.
But, from my seat on the end of the row, I was surprised by the number of people who will.
Hang on. Let's refine that.
I'm not going to leave my $300 seat for a drink while Bruce or any other artist I've paid big bucks to see is playing. Unless there is absolutely top shelf liquor involved.
Penfold's Grange in a plastic cup might be sacrilegious, but it would tempt me to leave my seat.
During Waitin' on a Sunny Day.
While the kid's onstage.

American Land
Lonesome Day
My Love Will Not Let You Down
Out in the Street
Sherry Darling
Hungry Heart
Glory Days
This Hard Land
New York City Serenade (with strings)
Prove It All Night ('78 intro)
Trapped
Youngstown
Cover Me
Death to My Hometown
My City of Ruins
Cadillac Ranch
I'm Goin' Down
Waitin' on a Sunny Day
Because the Night
Badlands
Thunder Road
* * *
Born to Run
Seven Nights to Rock
Dancing in the Dark
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
Shout
Twist and Shout 

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Melbourne, Thursday 2 February 2017

I walked out of AAMI Stadium, after what was probably the least enjoyable of my ten Springsteen shows to date reflecting on the neighbours, the luck of the draw and daylight saving.
In the states where it applies daylight saving it is not, of course, a consideration when the concert you are attending is an indoor venue.
Once you are inside your indoor venue, the sun becomes immaterial. Nothing it does can affect your enjoyment of the show.
Here, we were through an opening number that had, according to the BRUCEfanatic app, never been played before, American Land, and into The Ties That Bind when I posted the photograph above on Facebook with the comment: “That sun’s a real bugger.”
And it was.
Even after it had sunk below the level of the scalloped roof on the western side of the stadium it was still an issue.
And there were people up towards the nose bleeds above me who would've had those issues for much longer.
Order of the first things I did when I got back to base was to check the ticket for Saturday night. Thursdays entry point was Gate Two, on the eastern side.
On Saturday, it is Gate Seven, so that should not be an issue.
But that's the luck of the draw.
Some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you. What you lose on the roundabout you make up for on the hurdy-gurdy.
It's all part of life’s rich pageant.
And then there are the neighbours.
For a start, it's nice to have them.
Chatting to those around you help to deal with the preshow adrenaline, which, of course, is one of the reasons why I do it.
But you can't talk to them if they're not there.
Admittedly I had arrived early and had taken a look around for the big black self-propelled wheelchair that would have contained one of the leading the identities all the Bruces Place mailing list.
Cheryl has been dubbed the mother of all tramps by another leading participant, and I wanted to catch up with her and see how she was going with her quest for access to the E Street Lounge.
But big black self-propelled wheelchairs were in short supply, so after an initial reconnaissance, I adjourned to the eastern veranda, where the Richmond bar was dispensing $12 plastic cups of Wild Yak.
It was far too early to take a seat in the sun, but there were seats in the shade near the beer booth, so I paid for a Yak and sat down.
When it was empty, I took the plastic cup across to a convenient wheelie bin, which gave a couple of concertgoers a chance to grab seats where I had been sitting. I
 headed back, working on the principle that I had bought the semi-obligatory beer and was reasonably entitled to sit for a while longer before I resumed the reconnaissance.
Apologies ensued, and I ended up on the edge of the bench chatting to a couple from Port Fairy who were about to experience their first Springsteen show.
Interesting folks, who would have been good neighbours when the show started.
So we turned awhile, I completed another circuit of the stadium, and with a continuing absence of wheelchairs of any description, I figured it was time to find my seat.
A dull roar outside indicated that the reformed Jet had hit the stage, so while there was a definite case for locating the seat, it might not have been time to actually occupy it.
But it would be handy to know where it was.
That was the point where I discovered I was actually on the wrong level.
Proceeding upstairs, I made a couple of interesting discoveries.
For a start, my seat was in the very back row of a narrow section, and issues with glare made it impossible to see anything that was happening onstage or any close-up detail on the big screens.
And It was hot.
On the other hand, when I ascended the stairs I had found myself in a large, enclosed and air-conditioned space. With seating, a bar at one end, and another in the middle.
There could well have been a third at the other end of the room, but I did not need to go that far to investigate.
After what may have been five minutes and certainly felt like it that was probably much shorter it was obvious that inside was the place to be.
I shelled out for another Wild Yak, found a seat and sat out the rest of the opening set.
I could even see the big screen is through the window.
While Jeff rocked really righteously, unfamiliarity with the material meant that I found their set fairly a nondescript and rather formulaic exercise.
What's it was done, I waited for awhile on the off chance but the row I could see through the window might start to fill.
Bladder considerations meant I was disinclined to shell out another $12 for a third Wild Yak so eventually I bit the bullet and headed out into the late afternoon sun.
At that point, despite word that Bruce was due on stage around 7:15, my section of the venue what's very sparsely populated.
It took a while to fill.
When neighbours finally arrived, the seats on my left were occupied by a chubby couple all the indeterminate sexuality although one was undoubtedly female.
They arrived bearing copious quantities of food drink, which they consumed slowly throughout Bruce’s set, in between canoodling, air punches, assorted yee-hahs, and frequent stand-up and boogie episodes that usually seemed to end up in canoodle mode.
Not that I was watching, you understand.
But it was the sort of annoying distraction that diverts your attention away from what's going down on stage.
The seat on my right initially remained occupied, and it was well into the set, possibly around No Surrender before I realised that there was someone there.
And while the left side neighbours were extrovertedly distracting, the right side had a black-clad dude who would've stood around six feet five in the old money who seemed to spend the entire two-plus hours dispassionately watching what was going down on stage with his arms folded.
Taking all those factors into consideration, it is probably no wonder that I'd have to describe my concert experience as a sub-optimal although there was nothing wrong with the performance.
One could not help suspecting that the opening Don’t Hang Up was a late inclusion in the setlist since the music stands were there again.
New York City Serenade, complete with the obligatory swing section, worked almost as well as light and shade in between Wrecking Ball and Atlantic City as it did as an opener in Perth and Adelaide, though there was a bus of conversation around me that probably wouldn’t have been there at the start of the show.
A set with plenty of crowd favourites from the Born In The USA album could be described that's relatively unexciting but provided plenty of opportunities for the shapely girl with the attractive derriere to get up and shake it.
Fortunately, she left a clear window between herself and the stage from where I was sitting. The view may not have been as unobstructed from the seat of my right.
Maybe that's why black-clad dude was so obviously unimpressed.

Don't Hang Up (solo acoustic)
American Land
The Ties That Bind
No Surrender
Two Hearts 
The Promised Land
Glory Days
Hungry Heart
Wrecking Ball
New York City Serenade
Atlantic City
Johnny 99 
Murder Incorporated
Death to My Hometown
The River
Mary's Place 
Darlington County
Working on the Highway 
I'm on Fire
Because the Night
The Rising
Badlands
Land of Hope and Dreams
* * *
Long Walk Home (solo acoustic)
Born to Run
Dancing in the Dark
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
Shout
Twist and Shout

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Adelaide, Monday 30 January 2017

Chatting to the neighbours during the interval between when you take your seat and the start of the show continues to bring out interesting bits and pieces.
As I took my seat high up to the right of the stage, there seemed to be an array of seven or eight objects that may well have been music stands over on the other side of Mighty Max’s drum kit.
I'd already exchanged pleasantries with the youngish bloke on my way, and, working on the principle but his eyesight was probably better than mine, asked him if you could see anything over there, and, If he could, what do he reckoned they might be.
He wasn't sure at first.
And, a while later, he was convinced they were. and, in between, the discussion brought forth a couple of interesting points.
I'd explained that the presence of music stands suggested a string section, which in turn suggested in New York Serenade as the opening number.
Predictable questions about whether I'd been to Perth and where else I was bound on the tour elicited my now well-polished account of the day when the tour was announced.
I’d headed for the other end of The Little House of Concrete,  expecting that the news would form the basis for continuing negotiations.
Of course, The Supervisor’s response (So, of course, you’re going) might have rendered ongoing negotiation unnecessary, but it definitely produces interesting reactions when the exchange is recounted to third parties.
Here, the bloke on my right turned to his missus with a did you hear that?
The response from his better half (though one might question the better under the circumstances) was interesting.
The duo are Adelaide-based and would be doing three shows this tour.
But her response, not to put too fine a point on it, was along the lines of I can’t stand him. But I love my husband, so I go.
Interesting.
The odd glance across that way during the show suggested someone with a toothache.
And she’s going to both shows in Melbourne.
Love is, indeed, a strange affliction.
Equally interesting was the opinion from the unaccompanied woman who claimed the seat of my left. She was a definite fan who, for previous shows in Adelaide, had been seated behind the stage.
She reported the view from there was good, Bruce and company gave them plenty of attention, and there was room to dance.
They were cheaper, too.
But they’d sold out quickly, So she had landed where she was.
Equally interesting were the developments in the song count on Hughesy's matrix.
Depending on whether you count a full band rendition of The Promised Land and a solo acoustic version as separate entries in the song matrix (I do, they fit into completely different and almost diametrically opposed vibes) the song count either reached or passed the hundred at this show in Adelaide.
Passed means you count Darkness On The Edge Of Town as two separate entities depending on whether Eddie Vedder was on stage. I used to but, in hindsight, the presence of someone other than Bruce roaring a verse into a microphone and adding that one more voice to the chorus doesn't materially change the timbre of the performance.
Adjustments to the matrix will be made shortly but the key point here is that account has cracked the ton.
I had a suspicion it might when American Land followed the now routine opening New York Serenade. The odds shortened when the band roared through an impassioned Trapped.
Both songs were pointedly dedicated to those detained under the new American president’s trumped up border security grandstanding.
Bruce's introduction to American Land is worth citing (as reported in Backstreets):
Tonight we want to add our voices to the thousands of Americans who are protesting at airports around our country the Muslim Ban and the detention of foreign nationals and refugees. America is a nation of immigrants, and we find this anti-democratic and fundamentally un-American. This is an immigrant song!
But that, along with the pointed introduction to Trapped, were the only two overt political references that I've picked up over three nights.
There have been, of course, plenty of less direct ones.
The other two new additions emphasise points already made elsewhere.
One, The Ties That Bind, was yet another indication of the depth and breadth of the catalogue of Springsteen can draw on. He's probably played it a number of times in Australia, but not at a show I've attended.
The same t\point applied when he opened the encore with a moving, almost heartrending rendition all if I Should Fall Behind.
That song, back in the 1999 tours, featured repeatedly in an entirely different setting.
At that point, it was a statement of communal East Street solidarity with each of the lead personalities (Patti Scalfia, Little Steven, Nils Lofgren and Clarence Clemons) taking a verse and chorus on their own, and each was delivered with a slightly different intonation.
I know, because I've heard the bootleg tapes.
The Adelaide rendition came with a pointed dedication.
So that made two additions that could hardly be described as surprising.
Unexpected, perhaps, but not as a complete surprise.
Which brings us to another inclusion in the matrix, a cover of Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl.
This one underlines the you never know what you're going to get side of Bruce fandom.
The story goes something like this: sometime during Darlington County, or possibly earlier in the piece, Bruce spots a cluster of people in fancy dress.
There also seems to have been a sign involved. And the whole thing links to a 1950s sitcom called The Honeymooners.
The long and short of it was that the group ended up on stage, mid-set, with one of them taking over the piano stool from Prof Roy Bittan. What ensued (you'll find video here) might not have been one of the all-time musical highlights, but it certainly provided an element of light relief in the middle of a performance that returned to regulation mode with blistering performances of Murder Incorporated and Death To My Hometown.
Earlier, the now regulation opener had been followed by a crisp bracket of songs that had not featured in the two previous shows but underlined the political theme, Land of Hope and Dreams and an incendiary Trapped.
From there,  we got what amounted to a greatest hits/ semi-obvious suspects mini-set (Spirit in the Night, Glory Days, Hungry Heart) and a return to earlier themes with Wrecking Ball and Youngstown. Something in the Night was semi-sombre, Darlington County rocked along nicely, and the light relief that came with Brown Eyed Girl contrasted nicely with the impassioned duo that followed.
But the absolute highlight, for Yours Truly was a magnificently moody Racing in the Streets.
The main set finished with a series of knockout blows: Because the Night, which I am rapidly coming to consider one of Bruce's all time greatest songs; a She's the One that might have been prompted by signs in the pit; and semi-obligatory readings of The Rising, Badlands and Thunder Road.
The almost direct segue from the main set into the encore wasn't as obvious this time around as the house lights went down, the band left the stage and Bruce delivered the aforementioned stark reading of If I Should Fall Behind.
everyone returned for the regulation run home through Born to Run, Dancing in the Dark, the obligatory 10th Avenue Freezeout, Shout, and, finally, Rosalita.
It was, not to put to find a point on it, a fine show for the aficionado and, almost certainly, a sign of more good things to come.

New York City Serenade
American Land
The Ties That Bind
No Surrender
Land of Hope and Dreams
Trapped
Spirit in the Night
Glory Days
Hungry Heart
Wrecking Ball
Youngstown
Something in the Night
Darlington County
Brown Eyed Girl
Murder Incorporated
Death to My Hometown
Racing in the Street
Because the Night
She's the One
The Rising 
Badlands
Thunder Road
* * *
If I Should Fall Behind (acoustic)
Born to Run
Dancing in the Dark
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out 
Shout
Rosalita 

True Springsteen & The E Street Band, Perth Friday 27 January 2017

There are times when I wonder how people like the dude from backstreets.com does it.

Actually, when I stop to ponder the question, I'm pretty sure how he manages to come up with the quantity of purple prose you'll find here.

It's just that he seems to be able to do it night after night, tour by tour.

It's probably down to practice and access, both to people behind the scenes and the statistical minutiae of performances over the last 45 years.

Hughesy, of course, doesn't have access to either and is left, not quite grasping at straws, trying to wrestle impressions and half realised hypothesis into something readable.

In that task, talking to the neighbours helps. This time the gentleman on my left and his partner were in for the first Bruce show and, it seemed, not entirely sure what they were in for.

That was the way it looked in the preconcert conversation, though one suspects Mrs Next Door had more than a passing acquaintance with much of the material.

Actually, a glance down the set list reveals a number of numbers you'd expect people who listened to the radio through the 70s and 80s to be familiar with.

Cover Me, Glory Days, Hungry Heart, The River, I'm Goin’ Down, Because the Night, Born to Run, Dancing in the Dark and Bobby Jean all fit into that category.

They are songs you would have expected to get a guernsey when it comes to setlist selection.

But here are the play counts from Hughesy’s nine Springsteen shows to date: Two, Four, Five, Three, Two, Three, Nine, Nine and Five.

So, two of them have turned up every night, as you'd expect them to, since they are probably Bruce's biggest hits Down Under.

But the odd glance aside suggested Mrs Next Door wasn't unfamiliar with most of what emerged in the set list. Maybe she had access to all the albums but hadn't managed to get to a show before this one.

In hindsight, I should have asked where they were from.

And at the end of the show, when I asked for an impression Mr Next Door indicated an understanding some people’s need to attend multiple shows.

Memory, of course, is an unreliable conveyance but I was pretty sure I had it right when I turned to the neighbour at the end of Hungry Heart and pointed out that everything between the opening New York Serenade and his crowd traditionally sings the the first verse favourite wasn't on the playlist last time.

If I was the sort of person to check these things on-the-fly I would've realised but tonight's show delivered my first Radio Nowhere, and, later in the piece, my first Drive All Night.

That was interesting since both of them were, I thought, likely candidates to turn up somewhere along the line. It just took them nine shows to do it.

Unlike the dude from backstreets.com, I do not have access to the statistical resources that allow him to report that Drive All Night was making its southern hemisphere or to remark that three night runs in the one city are a relatively rare occurrence.

Which raises an interesting point. A look at the set list from both nights suggests a clear separation between the main set and the encore.

Didn't happen.

Both nights, the house lights went up at the end of the main set (in this case during Badlands or Land of Hope and Dreams) and stayed on for the duration.

The impression I got from my neighbour on Wednesday was that the general admission pit in Perth doesn't quite have the energy level you find elsewhere. He would have been down there if he'd been able to pick up two tickets before they sold out, so I assume he knows what he speaks.

He and his wife will be in general admission in Melbourne on Saturday.

And throughout the two nights, there was a decided lack of intensity in the applause between numbers. By and large, it rarely roared and generally faded fairly quickly.

Under those circumstances, one suspects a band who have left the stage might have had difficulty coming back, so the treat everything as one long set probably makes sense.

But then, if the crowd is relatively reserved, why the three night run in Perth?

There are, I suspect, two obvious answers.

First, because it's Perth, and touring acts tend to stick to the east coast. It's hard, after all, to justify the expense of shipping an international act and everything that comes with them back and forth across the Nullarbor. So they either play Perth on the way into Australia, or the way out.

Stands to reason, doesn't it?

Second, because it's Bruce, who has demonstrated the ability to sell out a venue the size of the Perth Arena at least once, probably twice, and in this case (and last time, if I recall correctly) three times.

Last time, Adelaide also got two shows, and the second show in Melbourne was announced so late in the piece that I almost missed getting a ticket.

And, when I did, it was very close to the back row up in the nosebleeds.

What questions about second and third shows, on calls and levels of enthusiasm are secondary considerations. We are, after all, there for the music, and Bruce has failed to disappoint on any of the nine nights I’ve seen him so far.

At the same time, I don't recall having been struck by the intensity of the performance as the band ruled through Night and Saint, and even Cover Me arrive with far more passion than one might have expected for what I've always regarded as a fairly nondescript mid-tempo radio-friendly rocker.

Radio Nowhere fairly burned with intensity, and if the four song salvo wasn't prompted by some niggle or irritant, it certainly got the energy level up to where it needed to be.

And that's where it stayed for the duration.

New York City Serenade (with strings)
Night
It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City
Cover Me
Radio Nowhere
Glory Days
Hungry Heart
The River
Youngstown
Murder Incorporated
Johnny 99
Ramrod
You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)
Death to My Hometown
Drive All Night
I'm Goin' Down
Because the Night
The Rising
Badlands
Land of Hope and Dreams
* * *
Backstreets
Born to Run
Seven Nights to Rock
Dancing in the Dark 
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
Shout
Bobby Jean 

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

Steve Nieve Plays Elvis Costello, Melbourne Recital Centre 19 September 2014

Judging by the number of vacant seats in Melbourne's Recital Centre on Friday night Steve Nieve Plays Elvis Costello is a difficult concept to sell. Not for this long-term Costello fan, of course. Not, for that matter for Hughesy's brother, who probably wouldn't recognise a Costello song if it came up and bit him in the leg. But he was impressed. So was I.

But, judging by the number of empty seats in Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, we must be talking a very tiny niche market. Or something else that would draw off punters. Or inadequate or ill-directed publicity. Maybe they'd all stayed home to watch the AFL semi-final between Sydney and North Melbourne. Or something.

Steve's keyboard work has, over the years, been one of the main ingredients in the Costello sound, And the "Joanna" segment, when the Spinning Songbook picked it out, has been a regular highlight of those musical extravaganzas. "Joanna" invariably signals a spell on the grand piano, which is what we were looking at here (predictably, a Steinway). The segment usually includes She, which didn't seem to appear here, Shot With His Own Gun, which did and provided one of a number of highlights, and God Give Me Strength.

As one of my all-time favourite Costello numbers, you'd reckon Hughesy would have picked up on it if it was played on the night, but Steve did a rather good job of camouflaging some of the selections. The Astute Reader will no doubt pick up on that by the unidentified numbers in the set list.

Some of the selections listed only appear because Steve identified them by name and narrative.

Or maybe that's it. Maybe there's no market, or no interest, in reworkings of Costello material into grand piano extemporisations. Anyone looking for a by the numbers reproduction of the Costello catalogue would have been extremely disappointed. But from the opening strains of Muriel on Main Beach through to the end of Beyond Belief we got a good hour and a half of pianistic pyrotechnics. It was a performance that underlined the fact that the former Royal College of Music could probably have gone on to a fair career as a concert pianist.

There's a bit more to it than that. According to one of the monologues that interspersed the musical selections Steve always wanted to be in a rock band, though the news that their eighteen-year-old son had become an Attraction apparently reduced his parents to tears. He was also the choir master or organist at the local church, and familiarity with the draw bars on a Hammond organ allegedly helped get him the keyboard job ahead of the competition.

But, in the end, it all comes down to what was played, and the performance had Hughesy kicking himself at having skipped Brisbane and Sydney. Perth was probably a bridge or Nullarbor too far, but repeated exposure might have allowed me to fill in some of those question marks in the set list.

In summary, an excellent performance by a master of his art. More please, though one notes the extreme unlikeliness of a repeat performance in Melbourne.

Among the links below, on the other hand, there's a mention of an official release of recordings from the Australian tour (and possibly elsewhere. I'll be buying...


Set list:
Muriel on Main Beach
Shipbuilding
The Birds Will Still Be singing
???
Accidents Will Happen
???
Country Darkness
The Loved Ones
Confident Again
The Long Honeymoon
Shot With His Own Gun
Alison (request)
Welcome to the Voice
Oliver's Army
Beyond Belief (request)

Encore:
Five note improvisation (C,F,A, B flat, F)
Five note EC themed improvisation (D, D, F, E, C)

Links:
The Attraction Of Steve Nieve
Melbourne Fringe review: Steve Nieve Plays Elvis Costello
Performing Arts Hub

Wilko Johnson & Roger Daltrey "Going Back Home" (4.5*)

Ask the average listener for the names of the most influential English rock acts of the early sixties and they'll probably rattle off three names: The Shadows (with or without Cliff Richard), The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. I'd like to respectfully submit a fourth. Johnny Kidd & The Pirates.

The Argumentative Reader might, of course, be inclined to dispute that last suggestion. That's in his/her nature, and the key element in the counter argument would probably be along the lines of limited commercial success, pointing to a single #1 hit in Shakin' All Over and a relatively slim discography (a mere sixteen singles listed in the Wikipedia entry here) between 1959 and 1965.

But let's look at those other candidates for a moment.

The Shadows were, admittedly, huge at the time, and prompted any number of would-be Hank Marvins to take up the guitar. You can, for example, cite the early Neil Young in The Squires and early recordings like Aurora and The Sultan.

But once you get past the actual era you tend not to hear too much that's obviously Shads-influenced. Or I don't, anyway.

In a commercial sense The Beatles turned the conventional wisdom of the early sixties on its ear, set the stage for much of what followed and lead the way through the sixties as far as combining an evolving experimentation in writing and recording with commercial success. We will never see their like again because we'll never see those times (and their antecedents) again.

But, over time, that leading the way fades into widespread, albeit very significant, background influence.

And The Rolling Stones were, at least at the start of things, The Anti-Beatles. I'd concede their ongoing legacies as the outrageous showmanship we've come to associate with rock stars (not that they were the first in that department) and a significant influence to the continuing genre I've tagged teenage noise, that glorious racket you loved as a kid because it got right up the nose of (and was incomprehensible to) everyone older than your age group peers.

So, why Johnny Kidd & The Pirates?

Simple. For a start, singer out the front, guitar bass drums behind. Not two guitarists, none of this lead and rhythm bit. One guitarist. Follow that template and you've got, among a multitude of others, The Who and the early Jeff Beck Group with Rod Stewart out front (who were, of course, the prototype for Led Zeppelin). You can add any number of similar outfits after that, but the most significant in this regard are, of course, Dr. Feelgood.

According to legend The Who were a two guitar outfit up until the time they opened for Kidd & The Pirates (Townshend: They were a truly tight band, achieving a powerhouse sound with just lead and bass guitars and drums. We decided to go the same way, Roger allowing me to take over on lead guitar so he could concentrate entirely on singing. That's lifted straight from his autobiography, where he goes on to describe Pirates' guitarist Mickey Green's influence on Townshend's emerging technique).

Remove the singer and give one of the remaining trio the vocal duties and you've got the classic power trio. Start with Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience and you can note any number of examples along the way, including The Jam, right up to Silverchair and beyond.

Start listing those who started out in one of those vocal/guitar/bass/drums quartets or a power trio and moved on elsewhere and you've got a whole extra stream of influenced artists.

And, of course, you've got what we're looking at here with the singer from one of the most obvious successors to Johnny Kidd & The Pirates in front of a power trio lead by one of their most significant torch bearers.

Given the backstory, of course, I was always going to buy this.

The January 2013 announcement that Wilko Johnson had been diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer was one of the things that set me off to re-investigate the Dr. Feelgood back catalogue last year. That exercise rekindled a long-standing affection for the Canvey Island quartet that had me picking up a copy of Oil City Confidential, Julien Temple's 2009 Dr. Feelgood doco, and learning of this collaboration in the process.

Going Back Home dates back to a chance encounter at the 2010 awards ceremony where Johnson and Daltrey found themselves seated next to each other and bonding over a mutual admiration for Johnny Kidd & the Pirates. A collaboration was apparently mooted at the time, but seems to have been one of those things that would be tackled at some point in the future. The cancer diagnosis delivered a sense of urgency. With Johnson well enough to press ahead with the project when The Who finished a world tour the album was recorded in a week in November 2013 at Yellow Fish studio at Uckfield in East Sussex, near Daltrey's home.

Behind the guitar and vocals, Johnson's touring band of Blockheads bassist Norman Watt-Roy and drummer Dylan Howe were aided and abetted by Mick Talbot on piano and Hammond organ and Steve Weston's harmonica

The selection of material was a pretty straightforward exercise, with Daltrey happy to have a go at singing whatever Johnson threw at him, and Wilko obliging with a selection of ten Johnson originals covering the Feelgood era and his subsequent solo career as well as a cover of Bob Dylan's Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?

From the start of Going Back Home, the song Johnson co-wrote with Pirates' guitarist Mick Green for the Feelgoods' Malpractice it's familiar ground with Johnson's trademark choppy riffs intersecting with the Daltrey growl in a meat and potatoes exercise in prime British R&B. Ice on the Motorway and I Keep It to Myself  follow before a glorious reading of Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? Subtle it ain't but, boy does it rock!

Turned 21 drops things back a notch, but things gradually kick back up through  Keep On Loving You, Some Kind of Hero, Sneaking Suspicion, Keep It Out of Sight and Everybody's Carrying a Gun before things wind up in an entirely appropriate manner with Johnson's ode to the Canvey Island oil refinery (All Through the City).

With eleven tracks on an album that nudges the scales at just under thirty-four and a half minutes there might be some inclined to quibble about length, but for mine it's just about right. You really don't want this stuff delivered in massive doses, keep it short and sharp, a series of short arm jabs rather than a lengthy pummelling.

You might, if you're inclined to be picky, take issue with the recording too. It's a crystal-clear rendering of Johnson's stabbed chords. Muddy might have been better, but this is a high-definition portrait, entirely appropriate when you're talking what amounts to an epitaph.

It's also entirely appropriate that the album appears on Chess, the former home of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. One suspects the only thing that could have enhanced a magnificently worthy collaboration would have been to record it in Chicago. On the other hand, while 2120 South Michigan is still there and, apparently, still operational, you can't beat the convenience of operating close to home in an environment where you're not working with the ghosts of blues men past looking over your shoulder. In the end, given the circumstances, it's all about convenience, and the only thing that matters, in the end, is what is delivered.

On that basis Going Back Home is a fitting way to wind up a remarkable career, a project that underlines the remarkable and often forgotten legacy of Johnny Kidd & The Pirates who were, after all, the inspiration behind The Who, Dr. Feelgood and so many others.