Rapid fire May is loco yo gig reviews 7: Bruce Springsteen - RDS

Traffic was pretty terrible in Dublin this evening. That’s why I spent the first 4 songs of Bruce Springsteen’s set tonight standing outside the gate of the R.D.S. on Simmonscourt Rd. waiting for my gig buddy for the night to fight his way through traffic. Nonetheless even from that exterior position I could hear the boss perfectly and I suspected from the opening salvo of “The Promised Land” and “Radio Nowhere” that the gig just might be something special. As things turned out, ticketless as I am, standing in the same spot on Friday and Sunday nights Mister that sounds pretty tempting at this point.

The night was, for me, an odd mix of being thrilled by what is possibly the best Rock n’ Roll band anyone has ever put together kicking out jam after jam after jam and a vaguely sad sort of nostalgia. If the greatest gift that my father ever gave me was a love of music thanks to his picking of folk and country tunes on his guitar as I listened on as a child the musician who left the most lasting impression on me from that period is Springsteen, from the ages of 7-11 I barely listened to anything else, and if I did then I certainly don’t remember it. Tonight was the third time that I’ve seen him at the RDS over the past 15 years and the first time that my old man, thanks to a recent shoulder operation, hasn’t been along for the ride and at numerous points during the gig I thought of how much he’d have enjoyed it and wished he was there with me.

Moments like during “The River” when Bruce deviated from the recorded melody of the song while underneath I could hear the crowd sing it like on the album. Or when “Reason To Believe”, so quiet and meditative on Nebraska was transformed into a gigantic blues-rock workout complete with screaming harmonica and snarling vocals. Or just the general brilliance of “Darkness On The Edge Of Town.”

But it was the encore that was the killer. Emerging after a few minutes break having already performed for the best part of 2 hours Springsteen went straight into “Thunder Road”, then “Born To Run” which segued into “Bobby Jean” (i.e. one of the few songs on Born In The USA that I love on record). Next came “10th Avenue Freezeout”, at that point I was thinking that the only way to make the run of songs more perfect would be if “Street Of Fire” or anything else from Nebraska made it onto the setlist. Though in order to save my head from exploding the night ended instead with a much drawn out take on “American Land” from the Seeger Sessions album, which I guess was for the best.