After three hours of an epic concert with the E Street Band, in the middle of Twist and Shout Bruce Springsteen shouted to the audience at the Los Angeles Forum: «Do you still have any strength left?». After five decades of music, the magic of his concert is intact: if there is one who never lacks strength, it is Springsteen.
Even in 2024 he is the yardstick for every rock concert. He is 74 years old, yet his shows are longer and full of energy than those of many of his younger colleagues. Anyone who saw him live last year knows this, but it’s good to reiterate it after Springsteen had to postpone some dates in the United States scheduled for 2023, including yesterday’s one in Los Angeles. The peptic ulcer that blocked him was so serious that he feared he would no longer be able to sing. “I’m sorry we didn’t see each other last time,” he said from the stage. «I hope I haven’t caused you too much trouble, but I had the worst stomach ache imaginable. But it’s over.”
Unlike 2023, the 2024 set list is not fixed and so yesterday Springsteen attacked with a real rarity, the cover of Boom Boom by John Lee Hooker which he often did on the 1988 Tunnel of Love Express Tour, before moving on to Lonesome Day (rarely done last year, now back in the lineup), Prove It All Night And Trapped by Jimmy Cliff.
Surprisingly, Patti Scialfa, Springsteen’s wife and long-time member of the E Street Band who was almost entirely absent from this tour, took the stage. They made two songs together: Tougher Than the Rest reminded how well their voices go together, despite being very different, while the acoustics Fire it became a real duet.
Having reached their sixth concert after returning post-illness, it’s as if Springsteen and the E Street Band had never stopped. “Are you having fun?” Bruce asked after an hour. «Because we haven’t had fun yet. This was the part before the real fun. We are here to wake you up, to shake you up, to take you to heaven. The E Street Band is here to bring the joyous power of rock ‘n’ roll into your lives. But we need your help. We intend to send you home with painful feet, painful hands, paralyzed ass and stimulated sexual organs.”
Compared to other large concerts, the setup is very simple. There are just elegant video screens and stage lights. All attention is on the 17 musicians on stage with him. There is no need for anything else.
At one point Springsteen took one of the signs that fans held out to him with their requests, but he struggled to decipher it. “You can’t understand what’s written.” He raised it to get help from the audience and finally realized that it was the request for another rarity: the traditional Cajun piece Jole Blonwhich has been brought up every now and then since Springsteen did it with Gary US Bonds in 1981. “We haven’t played it in years, but we’re going to do it now.”
Yesterday’s concert, like those last year, partly revolves around the theme of mortality, which becomes even more poignant after the death of Springsteen’s mother, Adele, in January. “I know many of us are missing a special person,” Bruce said in one of the evening’s powerful moments, a heartfelt version of My City of Ruins which made its welcome return to the 2024 lineup after missing out completely last year. «I don’t know where we’ll go when it’s all over, but I know what’s left. I guarantee you that if you are here and we are here, then the people we miss are here with us.”
As he does every evening, he recalled George Theiss, a member of his first band, the Castiles, saying that «with death comes a certain clarity of thought. Mourning is the price you pay for love”, and then launches into two songs that are somewhat of a signature of the tour since the first show in 2023, namely Last Man Standing And Backstreets. They both talk about youth and loss, but from decidedly different angles.
From that moment it was only joy and catharsis, with a sequence of hits and live pieces, from Because the Night to the inevitable Thunder Rd And Born to Run. And finally, Springsteen closed the concert alone with I’ll See You in My Dreamshis meditation on life after death.
From Rolling Stone US.
