“Steve!!!! Steve!!!! STIE-VIE!!! They don’t want to go home!!!” After two hours, 34 minutes and 19 seconds, Bruce Springsteen calls his musical companion Little Steven to him in quasi-desperation. “Nobody wants to go fucking home!!!”
So there is only one thing to do: keep pumping iconic monster hits for another half hour until the Johan Cruijff Arena really can’t anymore.
And sure enough, here we go again, from the youngest kids who, with construction worker headphones on their ears, run along on their parents’ shoulders all the way to the front, to the grandpas and grandmas who spring up in the stands and fall into each other’s arms while dancing. With devotion, the entire stadium plunges once again into the cozy bubble of infinite hope: the marching gospel of “Badlands,” the brashness of “Born to Run,” and baseball homesickness of “Glory Days.”
Springsteen (73) is in top shape, and still has the vocal cords and wardrobe from before. He tirelessly parades past his fans in a too-tight black blouse with rolled-up sleeves that are too short, with a guitar on his back and curved arms to appear slightly wider.
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brittle
Only when, after the necessary high fives with the front rows from the catwalk, he has to climb the big steps to the stage again, does he seem a bit frail. But age also has its advantages: thanks to the receding hairline (and the hipster haircut clipped by a barber), The Boss has a marble head. More than ever he looks like a Roman god.
Speaking of stamina: behind him is an equally big boss and fitboy pulverizing sticks. Max Weinberg (72) drums like he boxed: dogged and chewing with every punch. Imperturbable and immaculately dressed (black squeak, polka dot shirt with only the top button open for much-needed ventilation) he holds one stick upside down to blast the thickest end on his snare. It’s a pleasure to watch.
That goes for the entire E Street Band. How guitarist and pirate lookalike Little Steven spits his two-part vocals into the same microphone (and right in the face) of his boss is an iconic image from rock history. At the same time, saxophonist Jake Clemons revives uncle Clarence (who passed away in 2011) in bouncing staccatos that pass into sliding glissandos. Each and every band member radiates the same message: everything will be fine.
It is a blistering high mass of the level Pentecostal on steroids, but without the hallelujahs: the Supreme Being has been replaced by optimism. You almost start to wonder: why is this rock hero not a presidential candidate?
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Andreas Terlaak’s photo
Atmosphere sponge
And yet Springsteen is also only human. Because after the first six songs he loses track for a while. The deadly boring ‘Kitty’s Back’ is an atmospheric sponge that mercilessly sucks up all the built-up momentum. Then follows a downright misfire: ‘Nightshift’ by the Commodores, from the soul covers album released last year Only The Strong Survive. No one was waiting for that record, but live it really gets cringeworthy. That smooth soul and funk simply don’t suit him becomes painfully clear when Springsteen tries to sway his hips while singing slippery. Because then he suddenly looks scary old, like a kind of King of Cringe.
Also cringe: although he no longer finds it necessary to pick a woman from the audience to dance with at the end of ‘Dancing In The Dark’, he does open his blouse like an accomplished Chippendale at the final chord. While 142,000 eyes stare at his aging breasts, Bruce takes up shadowboxing as Rocky Balboa…and The Boss has definitively turned into The Boomer.
Another mystery: why on earth does he have three songs subtitled in Dutch? In addition to ugly phrases (“I took all the sunshine and rain”), the impact (and spontaneity) is rather compromised when the lines from a sensitive speech about a lost friend also appear on the screens as spoilers before they have even been spoken.
In the last encore, the subtitles have an unintended comical effect. During the pulse-pounding acoustic closing track “I’ll See You In My Dreams,” the line that sums up every Springsteen show appears on all screens: “There seems to be no end to it.”
When the last tones fade away after three hours and 33 seconds, the Arena lets out one more clap and scream. Still too short, in Amsterdam’s opinion.