springsteen and miami steve van dandtthe halftime show was pretty good, too.
i had heard about bruce springsteen concerts that lasted 3 hours and had the atmosphere of a revival meeting. for 12 minutes sunday night, you had a chance to taste the experience.
it opened with springsteen and clarence clemons, the tenor saxophone player in the e street band, in profile projected onto a large screen. the pose was very iconic and reminiscent of the cover on born to run.
as the band vamped the introduction of 10th avenue freeze-out to build tension, springsteen told the audience to step back from the guacamole dip and put down the chicken fingers, then turn up the sound on the television set all the way up.
then the band played -- no, broke out into -- 10th avenue freeze-out, which is one of my favorite springsteen songs. after that, the band played: born to run; working on a dream, the title track of their latest album; and glory days.
fireworks, horn players, a gospel choir -- damn, it was one hell of a show! (and i feel about half blasphemous having the words damn and hell in the same sentence as gospel choir.)
it was the best halftime performance i had seen since the rolling stones played, and the best rock and roll performance i had seen on television since u2 played i will follow to close a show on saturday night live.
i think i saw some of the horn players from the max weinberg band, the house group on late night with conan o'brien; weinberg plays drums in it. i think i also saw paul schaeffer and bonnie raitt, but the cameras moved around too quickly for me to be sure.
i didn't expect that selection of songs. my predictions are here if you want to check them.
my only complaint is that bruce should've switched the positions of born to run and glory days in the set. other than that -- wonderful! great! excellent! and whatever superlatives you want to apply.
addenum: don't take my word about the show. if you like, it's now on youtube.com. it wasn't as of this morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment