Bruce 2.0

Allright, last Sunday I saw Bruce Springsteen for the second time. Now I am not a big fan, but I figured it's nice to see some quality shows anyway. So I went.

Last time it was the acoustic solo thingy ("Devils and dust") and this time the A Mighty Wind thingy. Sort of funny that I have only seen him do "odd" things, but not particulary weird since he's not been doing anything else lately.

It was the same venue as last time, an ice-hockey arena in Stockholm. Last time I think they had made it slightly smaller by moving the stage part a little bit further into the middle and there were chair seats on the floor. This time it was a standing crowd so the venue had a 9,000 capacity. Good crowd!

Last time we were seated on the right side just before the curve and this time we were seated where the curve on the left side meets the side facing the stage. Pretty far from the stage and way up on 21st row. I guess the seats were kinda good but for me it was too far from the stage. I couldn't really see the facial expression without looking at the "big" screen monitors (not that big really).

Anyway. The band was great. No complains there. The back up singers really filled up the place with lots of soul and I was sort of surprised by the amount of soulish music that came from the stage. "Long black veil" sounded amazing and my favorite track of the evening - "My city of ruins" - was extremely good.

Some of the Seeger stuff was cool too. "John Henry", "Old Dan Tucker" (always sounds like "Old man fucker" in my ears...) and "Mary..." was great, but I was really annoyed and bored with the expanded versions of some songs. The whole "We are climbing" repetitions in "Jacob's ladder" was just too much for me. Oddly this was one of the highlights for the crowd who cheered this enormously. I felt it was really, really boring.

All...

Bruce 2.0

Allright, last Sunday I saw Bruce Springsteen for the second time. Now I am not a big fan, but I figured it's nice to see some quality shows anyway. So I went.

Last time it was the acoustic solo thingy ("Devils and dust") and this time the A Mighty Wind thingy. Sort of funny that I have only seen him do "odd" things, but not particulary weird since he's not been doing anything else lately.

It was the same venue as last time, an ice-hockey arena in Stockholm. Last time I think they had made it slightly smaller by moving the stage part a little bit further into the middle and there were chair seats on the floor. This time it was a standing crowd so the venue had a 9,000 capacity. Good crowd!

Last time we were seated on the right side just before the curve and this time we were seated where the curve on the left side meets the side facing the stage. Pretty far from the stage and way up on 21st row. I guess the seats were kinda good but for me it was too far from the stage. I couldn't really see the facial expression without looking at the "big" screen monitors (not that big really).

Anyway. The band was great. No complains there. The back up singers really filled up the place with lots of soul and I was sort of surprised by the amount of soulish music that came from the stage. "Long black veil" sounded amazing and my favorite track of the evening - "My city of ruins" - was extremely good.

Some of the Seeger stuff was cool too. "John Henry", "Old Dan Tucker" (always sounds like "Old man fucker" in my ears...) and "Mary..." was great, but I was really annoyed and bored with the expanded versions of some songs. The whole "We are climbing" repetitions in "Jacob's ladder" was just too much for me. Oddly this was one of the highlights for the crowd who cheered this enormously. I felt it was really, really boring.

All in all, and despite the very long playing time (like 2.45 or something) I enjoyed it. There were some songs that he played on the tour that I missed in this particular setlist, like "If I should fall behind" (perhaps it was omitted because Patti had left the tour party a little bit early?) and "Devils and dust" which he played the day before according to the setlists on the net.

Never the less it was good shit even for a non fanatic listener.

Finally some thoughts:

- The guy playing the banjo is one of the Hobbits, right? He looks exactly like Frodo before they leave the Shire!

- I will never get used to the "Bruce!" chanting, which sounds too much like "Boo!" in my ears.

- The tuba is probably the funniest instrument in the world

- Whoever said "It's like Bruce caught a screening of A Mighty Wind and decided that he wanted to play folk music" was actually spot on. And I love A Mighty Wind.