After the media spectacle, the ‘vip’ tables in restaurants and the ‘celebrity’ effect, there remains the artist’s intimate dialogue with each attendee, an exercise that is still possible, even though we are talking about the immensity of an Olympic Stadium. The moment of truth has arrived Bruce Springsteen addressed his people the way he knowsembodying the quintessence of rock’n’roll after rock’n’roll, with its legendary repertoire, golden camaraderie with the E Street Band and the proverbial words in catalan.
Opening night of the European leg of the ‘Tour 2023’, still with the rays of sun caressing Montjuïc (with “close to 60,000 people,” according to Doctor Music) when, at 8:58 p.m., the musicians entered the scene, greeted one by one with ritual ovations. The mythological “one, two, three…” preceded ‘No surrender’, storming in and slipping the message of emotional resistance. “Hello, Barcelona, Catalonia! & rdquor ;. Without respite, a couple of quotes from the album ‘Letter to you’ (the title track, with the lyrics subtitled in Catalan on the screens, and ‘Ghosts’), evoking fallen friends, intertwined with ‘Prove it all night’ and ‘The promised land’, drawing smoke with the harmonica solo at the end.
grown cathedral
roaring Bruce, distilling an ancient energy and outlining a youthful smile in contact with the fiery front rows, dotted with banners of support. Bruce with his back well covered, pumped up by that biological prodigy named Max Weinberg. The foundations of the cathedral laid by Roy Bittan and the guitar playing of ‘Miami’ Steve Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren, putting together the solid architecture of the E Street Band (amplified with choirs and brass, and without Patti Scialfa… until the time of the encores).
It was him first stadium concert of this ‘Tour 2023’, and the first of that format since 2016, and the feeling was that Springsteen was returning home, to that ‘king size’ notion of rock’n’roll as a language that still agitates crowds. Session perhaps for all audiences, but with his daring: the electrifying whirlwind of ‘Candy’s room’, pearl of the idolized ‘Darkness on the edge of town’ (1978), and the very unique quotes from the remote (and memorable) second album (1973), ‘Kitty’s back’ and ‘E Street shuffle ‘, displaying the youthful Bruce’s mishmash of styleswith its swing cadences, its ‘funky’ guitars and its jazzy metals.
script changes
The repertoire is little departed from the concerts of the recent American tour, and as peculiarities we must highlight the repechage of ‘Human touch’ (theme from his days of infidelity with the ‘E streeters’), with redoubled weight of the guitars, and a memory of his tribute album to Pete Seeger with ‘Pay me my money down’, with his airs of New Orleans. From the recent album of versions of him only ‘Nightshift’, by Commodores, fell contributing soul accents that connected with the spirit of ‘Mary’s place’. The ‘showman’ Bruce, stopping the show to the popular sound of “oe, oe, oe…” and putting the Estadi eating from his hand.
And the serious, introspective Bruce, picking up the acoustic guitar to tell us about the very real story that inspired ‘Last man’s standing’. Song about “un vell amic & rdquor ;, he explained, going into English to evoke George Theiss, a partner in his first band, The Castiles, when he was between 15 and 17 years old. “The greatest adventure of my young life”. Theiss died in 2018, leaving Springsteen the sole survivor of the group. Little talkative reflection: “When you are 15 years old, everything is ‘hello’ and ‘tomorrow’, and As the years have passed, everything is more like ‘goodbye’ and ‘yesterday’& rdquor;.
Backing vocals by Michelle Obama
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facing the final stretch of the central ‘set’, and entering the encores, the album ‘Born to run’ (1975) took over. After a thousand and one debates, is it the definitive and unbeatable work of Springsteen? It is possible, and there they were, first ‘Backstreets’ and ‘She’s the one‘, and then ‘Thunder road’, the title track and ‘Tenth avenue freeze out’ to arm ourselves with reasons. Making the ball bigger, ‘Because of the night‘, the piece that the Boss was kind enough to give to his friend Patti Smith, and ‘Badlands’, and a ‘Born in the USA‘ with the voice already a little punished.
Springsteen has come to see us many times, but this time, seven years after the previous one and with some global calamities on the way, the visit presents an added emotional value, embracing the safe value, a shared vibration that floated this Friday at the Estadi. That’s how it was until the last breath of the ‘show’, at the blow of a ‘Glory days’ with extended choirs: Patti Scialfa, finally added to the ‘troupe’ With Michelle Obama and Steven Spielberg’s wife, Kate Capshaw. And ‘Bobby Jean’, singing to friendship, and ‘Dancing in the dark’, prolonging the party as if there were no tomorrow and as if the Boss didn’t care expect another demanding session this Sunday.