Bruce Springsteen live 2017: A memory from the before times.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band

Qudos Arena Sydney
Feb 7 2017

You’ve perhaps never heard all of the quote that defined - and nearly crushed - Bruce Springsteen 40 years ago. He wasn’t just ‘the future of rock n roll’, the suggestion being he was representative of its past and present as well. Now, with recent political stupidities in his homeland, The Boss’ strange status as multi-millionaire everyman has him representing those blue collars – even some with slightly red necks – who still believe we’re all in this together, rather than looking for someone brown to blame. He’s even been overtly outspoken in some of the earlier dates of this tour, as the alternative reality of Trump sank in. With a tour ostensibly built around The River – 1980’s sprawling double album of rock revivalism, complete with Bruce sporting Elvis-esque sideburns – maybe these shows are representative of the past, present, and future of Springsteen himself.

The Springsteen live experience remains an extraordinary thing. Each the same and yet different. Finding its own dynamic between the crowd, this so-tight and so-loose band, and events outside the room. After a Melbourne show where he excoriated America’s [then-]new regime between every other song, there’s no straight-up lecturing tonight, but following an opening New York City Serenade, sweeping in on Roy Bittan’s piano cascades and a guest all-female string section - each rewarded with a handshake and thank you from the head man as they clambered off after their one-song appearance – there are some recurring themes: American Land’s immigrant hope, Ties That Bind, No Surrender, the still-lacerating 41 Shots (American Skin) and The Rising’s first responder humanity show there’s still an eye on the country they’re currently not in.

But there’s still room for some traditions that almost verge on hokey. The carefully scrawled cardboard sign requests are almost a competition among the faithful of just how obscure a tune you can throw at a band that seems to have everything in their leader’s catalogue committed to muscle memory. My Love Will Not Let You Down is the deep cut, into the venerable Long Tall Sally, and Hungry Heart’s towering sour bubblegum, which is the first – but certainly not the last – to get the crowd out of their seats. That’s also the cue for himself to go on an excursion around the perimeter of the moshpit, before crowdsurfing back. A trick made a little more complicated these days as so many punters try to hold their mobile in one hand and some portion of Bruce in the other.  Similarly, a later bracket of desperation of Candy’s Room and the entwining heat of I’m On Fire are more straight-up carnal than any 67-year-old man has a right to be. And yet he does, and yet he is.

That the band can follow these mood swings remains magical. Back down to a ‘basic’ nine-piece(!) unit after some editions with added brass sections, singers, various and bells and whistles, E Street is back being the last (and best) gang in town. Stevie Van Zandt is the overseeing eminence gris consigliere; Nils Lofgren can stretch again, after being a bit lost down the guitar pecking order when Tom Morello was in the fold. As above, Bittan is studied and knows when not to play. As drum heartbeat Mighty Max Weinberg just is, while possibly being the whitest drummer alive. Gary Tallent’s bass is also part of the pulse – but his tuba is still side-stage should the man in charge call for a run at Wild Billy’s Circus Story, an oom-pah band oddity from their very first album and never out of the question if the mood hits. And Jake Clemons – given that near-impossible space where his Uncle Clarence used to so fill – is expressing himself more, his sax tone now almost eerily like his forebear.

And there’s still room for those big set-pieces. There’s not been a time that opening mournful harmonica as that ‘...screen door slams [and] Mary’s dress waves’ in Thunder Road doesn’t provoke some Pavlovian response in your guts and puts something in your eye. Also more welcoming, there’s now half-a-dozen 'Courtneys' invited up onstage to shimmy as Dancing In The Dark unfurls. And still it’s not over. Jungleland is a neon-lit opera out on the New Jersey turnpike. It’s huge, emotional, and somehow real – although outside most of our experience. Tenth Avenue Freezeout honks and swings as it should.

It shouldn’t be possible for a band this long-serving to be finding new things, and even better balances in their work, but this sweat-soaked guy in the check shirt manages it. This is nothing more or less than the shit that keeps me alive. You have to see this spectacle at least once, if only to give yourself a yardstick.