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Bruce Springsteen – RDS Dublin Fri May 5 and Sun May 7

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Venue:

Date:

The audience:

It made me think..

4

Comments

        • I’d prefer an LP release, what I’ve heard from those ‘bugs’ releases they aren’t very good plus the price is way too high for 2/3 CDRs and shipping.

          Edit: I’d also prefer a best of from the tour rather than one show I’ve not attended.

          • Buy FLAC files and burn CDs yourself if you need a physical product, much cheaper. I have only heard a little of these nugs releases on E St Radio, but the consensus is that they sound good.

            • I meant that I have only heard a little from current tour. I own a couple of dozen at least, mainly archive ones, those vary quite a lot but the recent tours are probably better recorded.

              • I have about a dozen and none of them sound as good as ‘official’* live releases.

                *Yes I’m well aware that the bugs CDRs are official but I think you’ll get my drift.

                Edit: @SteveT is just being an awkward twat**

                **For those unaware he’s a mate 😎 but still a twat. 👍😎

                • Me awkward? Just saying in answer to your comments is that the one I own has great sound.
                  Don’t see the need to own 10 though as doubt I would ever be play them. I had a bootleg of Bruce in nineties where there is a beautiful version of The River with a long slow saxophone intro. If someone can point me in direction of that I would be very happy.

                    • Thanks for that @kid-dynamite.That is what I was referring to – I only had it as a bootleg didn’t realise there was an official version. Duly ordered and not for first time @dai is completely wrong 😀

  3. Review seems to have vanished during move between sections.

    FWIW, here it is again

    A lot of posters up the page comment on the comparative inflexibility of the sets for this tour as compared to earlier global go-rounds. While Friday’s opening night sticks pretty closely to the shows he’s been playing in the US and a week before tonight, Barcelona, it’s all change on Sunday’s night two.

    Hitting the stage at 7.10 (as opposed to slightly tardier 7.25 Friday night), Bruce and the band
    kick off proceedings with a brace of lesser performed songs – My Love Will Not Let You Down and a venomous version of Death to My Hometown. As the sound seems to be a bit shaky on the first, it seems likely that both are last-minute additions.

    With Friday’s first night having been the logical time to start tinkering with a fairly fixed setlist, It’s an odd choice of openers. Something to do with the rumoured latest (of apparently many) non-apparency of Patti S? Who knows. Perhaps he’s gearing up for a 2020’s bookend to his mid-80s parting gift to Julianne Phillips, Tunnel of Love.

    Back on track, the band motors through classics old (Prove it All Night) and new (Ghosts). Despite having started his first show at Croke Park off in May 2016, Darkness on The Edge of Town makes only its second appearance on this tour. A belting version it is, too. Turbo-charged by some stunning harp playing by Bruce (Promised Land) and the singalong support of a euphoric crowd (Out in the Street) takes everything to another level entirely.

    Given that he’s still commanding 40,000-strong crowds through sheer, brace force (SWIDT?) at the age of 73, New Jersey’s finest son looks incredibly buff (towards the end of the night, he’ll pull open his shirt to reveal just how buff that is). That said, the guy is midway through his eighth decade and needs to pace himself.

    All of which accounts for the perfectly understandable drop of energy levels during Kitty’s Back (in danger of veering in to Spinal Tap Mark 2 Jazz Odyssey territory towards its end) and a fairly disposable cover of the Commodores’ Nightshift. In fairness both songs are there to give the band’s heavy lifters a chance to recharge their batteries. They also give BS’s wonderful horn section and backing vocalists (of whom trumpeter Barry Danielian and singer Clydie King are stand outs) to shine.

    Energy levels all topped up, the band do a blistering version of Mary’s Place before Bruce grabs his acoustic, strums a few chords and 40,000 people are yelling out the words of the Seger Sessions Weavers’ cover, Pay Me My Money Down.

    A rare acknowledgement that like the rest of us, Bruce himself is not immune to the ravages of time, Last Man Standing’s subdued, almost quavery vocals are a touching tribute to Georg Theiss, the last of his compadres from the mid-60s band, The Castiles. The melancholic mood stretches into a stripped back Backstreets that slowly builds and builds into a fairly thunderous climax.
    Special mention at this point should be made of Max Weinberg, who is now not only the Charley Watts to Bruce and Steve’s Glimmer twins, but starting to look like the late, lamented Stones sticksman, too. Kudos also to the ever-reliable, Nils Lofgren who shreds up the stage with his Because solo, and former Dublin resident, Jake Clemons who is now every bit as indispensable a wingman as his late, great uncle, Clarence.

    As with so many songs tonight, the band glides effortlessly from one song into the next. The
    five songs that follow (Because, She’s The One, Wrecking Ball, The Rising and Badlands) are amongst the most powerful of the night. A song with profound connotations for Irish people, The Rising arrives just as darkness fully descends over this edge of Dublin town. For me, it’s perhaps the most affecting of the many affecting tunes I hear this night of nights.

    The briefest of brief exits from the stage later and the band is back for a barnstorming run through the six Bruce songs almost everyone knows. A kick in the pants away from three hours after they started, proceedings conclude with a regret tinged Tenth Avenue Freeze Out before Bruce returns for a wistful I’ll See You in My Dreams valedictory.

    On the Friday, Mrs. Jaygee were in the seats towards the back of the auditorium. Sans the good lady wife on the second night, I ventured deep into the crowd, getting about halfway down the pitch before giving up on advancing any further.

    While the view wasn’t much better, the atmosphere was just phenomenal. If this is the last time that Bruce and the ESB tour, I’m so lucky to have been able to go both nights. The second of the two shows was as good as any I’ve seen in almost 50 years of gig-going.

    If I could’ve got a ticket, I would even have gone back for tonight’s third and final show. Heck, I would have gone back every night of the eight night run the promoters have said they could have easily sold out.

    • Excellent review! Jealous.

      You know me I am rarely pedantic but the show is actually by “Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band”, they deserve to always be credited as you eloquently express their individual contributions in your review. Don’t think there are any conspiracy theories about Patti, she was on stage for one song in Barcelona together with close friends Michelle Obama and Kate Capshaw (Steven Spielberg’s wife).

      • Excellent work, @Jaygee. I’m kind of sorry now that I didn’t make more of an effort to go, especially Sunday, and maybe exorcise those Croke Park 2016 demons. Here’s hoping for Thomond Park on his way back next year!

        • @Max-the-Dog

          Cheers for that, Max

          You were right about the Croker gigs from 2016 being in May, btw.

          Are you going to see the Waterboys at Leisureland in Nov? If so,
          be great to meet up for a couple of pints before the show as I’ll
          be heading over from Roscommon for the night

  4. Great review, @Jaygee. I was there on Sunday as well and, like you, thought it was one of his best shows I’ve seen. We stayed right next door to the gig so, after seeing the band leave The Merrion Hotel for soundcheck, were able to hear it from our room. It was an hour at full beans and included a blistering Thunder Road, which he then didn’t play, sadly. I gather it was back on Tuesday night, and was epic.

    I thought the setlist was pretty well paced and the tumultuous end to the main set, and into the encores is around 45 minutes of the best live music you will ever witness – a master of his craft, with his gang of lieutenants, rampaging through the battlefields of rock ‘n roll like Genghis Khan on speed.

    A life-affirming night, with just Hyde Park to go. If this is to be the final time, he’s not going quietly, that’s for sure.

    • Cheers, @niallb,

      Glad to hear you enjoyed the show as much as I did. It’s interesting that the songs he’s been playing in pre-gig sound checks generally don’t appear in the shows

      If you’re heading over to Dub for concerts at any point in the future, let me know and we’ll see if we can meet up for pre-show pints

    • Ahem, he’s at Edinburgh and Birmingham as well as Hyde Park.

      I’m really hoping they do Thunder Road at Edinburgh…they played it on the 5th but not the 7th in Dublin.

      • I was at the Rome gig last weekend and apart from it being a really shitty venue the gig was first class and possibly the best I have seen him. For me the lesser numbers were the highlights. Mary’s place was brilliant and so too Nightshift and E Street shuffle. Stupendous and only marred by not getting either Candy’s room or Trapped which have been featuring elsewhere.

        • Thankfully, they did play Thunder Road at Edinburgh, and a great rendition of Candy’s Room. I enjoyed the show immensely and there were some really special moments (Last Man Standing being the highlight for me alongside TR), but I have to say that for my first experience of Brooooooooooce live, I wasn’t as blown away as I’d imagined. I think this reflects more on me than them, as the atmosphere was incredible and most were clearly having the time of their lives. I think my ambivalence may have been influenced by the traumatic experience of actually getting to and into the stadium…the organisation was virtually non-existent and the entry was just chaotic. We only just got in as the band were playing the first song, and there seemed to be hundreds still shuffling along behind us. This trauma was difficult to shift as we knew the scenes afterwards would be so much worse, so we made the decision to leave early (blasphemy!) but there were a surprisingly large number of people with the same idea as we caught the tram to the strains of Born To Run. Trams like us, indeed…

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