Blowin' 'Em All Out Of Their Seats

Two nights, equally special, equally amazing and two for the books:

10/25
Radio Nowhere
The Ties That Bind
Lonesome Day
Gypsy Biker
Magic
Reason to Believe
Adam Raised a Cain
She's the One
Livin' in the Future
The Promised Land
Town Called Heartbreak
Backstreets
Your Own Worst Enemy
Devil's Arcade
The Rising
Last to Die
Long Walk Home
Badlands
* * *
Girls in Their Summer Clothes
Thunder Road
Born to Run
Dancing in the Dark
American Land

10/26
Radio Nowhere
No Surrender
Lonesome Day
Gypsy Biker
Magic
Reason to Believe
Two Hearts
She's the One
Livin' in the Future
The Promised Land
Tunnel of Love
Racing in the Street
Working on the Highway
Devil's Arcade
The Rising
Last to Die
Long Walk Home
Badlands
* * *
Girls in Their Summer Clothes
Thundercrack
Born to Run
Dancing in the Dark
American Land

I'll spare you the blow-by-blow. Thursday's show was packed full of energy of returning to the Bay Area for the first time since '03. Highlights were Girls AND Thunder Road, Adam, Enemy and of course, Backstreets. I sat by myself was able to enjoy a show where I could experience each of the songs as I wished to, meaning no one else to worry being in my way and I out of everyone's hair. So many of the songs have personal meaning and importance that they don't have a collective definition. Backstreets, without saying, truly leveled me. This being THE song that grabbed me in 1995 and shook me emotionally like no other song had done prior, hearing it live for the first time was like experiencing the last twelve years of my life in seven minutes. Just a killer. I'll save my personal reactions for a more private time. I walked out of the arena on Thursday night knowing that if I never caught the band again, I would be able to say that I saw them absolutely on fire.
Luckily, I had floor seats to the Friday show. Chris and I left years before the show began and were denied entry into the pit; however, we ended up right against the rail separating the pit from the steerage class. That still placed us, in reality, in the equivalent of about the tenth or twelfth row had seats been on the floor. Friday night, however, was a completely different experience. I'll share two points just tonight - the incredible change-up in the setlist (three tour debuts including Racing and three rarities - Thundercrack) and the crowd that sucked. While the band played to an appreciative crowd both nights, what I truly saw was the long-term-but-casual fan who's last purchase of a Bruce album was Tunnel of Love (quickly sold to the record store because it lacked the U.S.A. anthems. The new stuff was met with perfunctory applause and the rarities were met with cluelessness. A couple of cases in point: being in the pit, I was surrounded by people asking the titles of songs, a lack of singing and even people making fun of me when I cheered to some of the chesnuts of the evening. When Bruce played Thundercrack, people were absolutely silent; even when the die-hards chanted the backing chorus of the intro, Bruce castigated the crowd, saying, "That was terrible! Don't fuck it up!" People wanted "the old stuff", like my neighbor wanted. So, Bruce plays Thundercrack, a song LAST played by the band in mid-1974, only to be replaced by Rosalita. They wanted "old" but not that old. Then, people complained about the length of the show. The band nailed two hours and fifteen minutes of solid music. Now, I'm the first to wish for a three hour show like the Pac Bell show yet what I don't need is a three hour show with a swoon in energy in both the first and second set with a song that includes a twenty-minute rant for a band intro. Criticism from the Reunion and Rising tours was well-placed: the Tenth Avenue or Mary's Place songs took so much energy out of the set and rambled for so long; hard cores complained that they were show killers. Now they're gone and we're complaining about short shows. Welp, throw them back in the mix and what do you have? A three hour show with a massive buzz killer. I also love the collective faded memory that many a concert-goer, including both my neighbor ans San Francisco Chronicle reviewer Joel Selvin, have about the Boss in his heyday: the four-hour show. Time really does play with one's memory; I remember hearing my first-ever concert of U2 in 1987 on a bootleg and was stunned just how different it was from my memory. I would have sworn in court that my memory was accurate and yet the tape doesn't lie. One of my colleagues years ago claimed to see a Day On the Green show from '77 or '78 with the Who and Grateful Dead and Jerry and the boys played for SEVEN hours. Seven hours? SEVEN HOURS? Anywho, the famed four-hour Bruce shows were few and far between; probably less than twenty exist in the band's entire career. The longest show was four and a half, which I have in my possession, the famed 12/31/80 New Year's Eve show. A special gig, not the run-of-the-mill show from one's memory. Nowadays, who in the heck would want to catch a four hour show? The last four-hour performance I caught from a band was Gov't Mule and the middle hour with a guest slot by the Dead was so painful that my friends and I left. Maybe I'm old, maybe I'm cynical. Maybe I was hoping to be surrounded by people who feel exactly like I do about the artist. Maybe I'm unrealistic about why people go and see their favorite artists. Do we see them hoping for enlightenment in the contemporary age of uncertainty and conflict or do we hope to be delivered to a time, real or imaginary, where the feelings and memories that can't be unfalsified, make us feel young, safe, innocent and whole again? What a lot of people wanted on Friday night was Glory Days; what the band gave us was the Land of Hope and Dreams.

More to come...