Billusa99 Anonymous

Magic is a great album!

We have friends in London who saw him there end of December and they said it was "magic."

6 months, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

xdavidwattsx Anonymous

Well, the Boss strolled into town last night and he's aging well as evidenced by his boundless energy on stage. He ran through a lot of classics and fan favorites as well as a half dozen new tracks from Magic. The E-Street band was tight and sounded great even though our seats were awful and the sound up in the rafters were equally awful.

A couple of interesting moments:

Before he went into the title track from his recent album he made a couple of political words about the "undoing the last 8 years of magic" or something. As expected, a majority of the crowd cheered but there was a small set behind me complaining about his leftist politics and that he needs to just stick to the music. He made a few more comments at various points in the night but nothing too dramatic.

Here's the rub: It's freaking Bruce Springsteen! He's been espousing his populist and left leaning views for decades and even chewed out Ronnie Reagan for manipulating Born in the USA. The lyrics to 85 percent of his songs say exactly what he thinks. What do these people expect when they buy tickets and do they actually listen to his lyrics? End rant.

The most amusing moment of the show came when Bruce stopped the show to point out an especially raucous group of fans at the front of the stage. Turns out there were about 15 10-year old girls there with some Mom. Obviously, Bruce's audience is pretty old and grey so he couldn't get enough of them and went over and chatted with them and couldn't stop smiling. he asked them if they had ever heard a song called "Born to Run". Then, as they played Dancing in the Dark later during the encore he brought all 15 or so of them up on stage and rocked out with them as the crowd roared.

Another side note of interest was fellow Jersey homeboy Bon Jovi showing up on stage to sing Glory Days with Bruce. That got a good reaction even though I'm not sure they share matching demographics.

Easily the highlight of the show was Jungleland, Born to Run, Glory Days and Dancing in the Dark back to back during the encore. Bruce definitely still has it and I can't fathom him touring without the E-Street Band. They are so quintessentially Bruce.

3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Billusa99 Anonymous

"Eight years of black magic" was that great quote.

Agent 99 and I went, expecting a set of Three Penny Opera arias, and a rock 'n' roll show broke out. Go figure... that Bruce, always messing with people's heads....

Classic Springsteen. Miami Steve and Nils Lofgren were scorching on their guitars. Clarence blew hard but sat down a lot (in this big gold chair) between his solos. I think there's something wrong with him because he was moving very stiff-legged all night.

A guy our age with his 20 yr old daughter on one side of us and they never sat down. It was his 14th show since the 70s. Other side of us was a guy about 60 with his 13 yr old daughter and they rarely sat down either.

The best part was a lady with about 10 pre-teen girls (from Ft. Worth) jammed up against the stage on the west side. You'd think he was Hannah Montana the way they were freaking out. He called them the "wild bunch" and fulfilled their fantasies by spending time to bend down and talk to them.

Class act all the way.

3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

xdavidwattsx Anonymous

Ah, that sounds about right. I had a hell of a time making out what some of the stuff he was saying way up in the bleeders. It was a painful reminder to never sit up there for a rock show.

3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Billusa99 Anonymous

XDWX... here's a hint for future purchases. If the stage will be set up for 360 viewing and sound, like it was last night, then buy tiks in the 4 rows of the Platinum deck directly behind the stage -- sections 224-227. The leg room is better, the sound superb and the video monitors hang high, right in front of you. You can see everything on stage and behind. You can see all the floor action at front of stage. And in 2 minutes you can get to a bar with never more than 2 people in line, get beer, wine or any hard liquor, and have an empty restroom 40 feet away. Then, at the end you jump on the elevator and you're on the ground floor, beside the main south entrance, while everyone else is still climbing stairs or riding escalators.

Please don't tell anyone this... ;-)

3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

xdavidwattsx Anonymous

Problem is that getting certain seats is easier said than done. It was mostly sold out the day I tried getting tix. Eh, I generally try to avoid arena shows in general. I should know better.

3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )