BRUCE LIVE IN SUNRISE

On Friday, May 2, I took my wife to her first Bruce Springsteen concert. Even after waiting in our seats - which were about as far from the stage as you can get in the Bank Atlantic Center - for over an hour due to hightenend security after a bomb threat at a recent Bon Jovi concert, Cindy called it the best concert she's ever seen. What can I say, I've converted another non-fan to a fan.

I have been coverting non-believers for over 30 years. But, when it comes to Bruce all you have to do is take someone to a show and let him to all the work.

After starting the show with a moving tribute to the late Danny Federici, Bruce and the band went out and played nearly 3 hours, mixing new songs and classics. I have seen Bruce 136 times through the years, and I have never been disappointed. This show was no exception. If I had one request, that would be that he would come back and play in a more acoustically friendly setting.

I was pleased to hear the new songs from "Magic" - the live version of Gypsy Biker blows away the studio version. I was also thrilled to hear Candy's Room, but the highlight of the evening for me came at the end of the show when the band played Kitty's Back. It was the first time I had ever seen Bruce play the song.

Yes, Clarence has slowed down and Bruce looks a little older, but this is still one of the best bands in the world. Some folks are saying that this is the farewell tour for the band. And I know that will happend and some point, but they can still muster up the energy, even during the last night of this leg of the tour, to warrant them going out again. Enough energy to convert yet another non-believer.



Here a story about the show from the local South Florida Newspaper, The Sun-Sentinel:

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN GIVES 'THRILLING' SOLD-OUT PERFORMANCE
By Sean Piccoli (Sun-Sentinel.com)
May 3, 2008

SUNRISE - If a maxim runs through all of Bruce Springsteen's songs, it might be contained in a line he sang on Friday night at BankAtlantic Center, from Badlands: "You gotta live it every day."

That imperative takes on more urgency as Springsteen and his audience grow older. But the New Jersey rocker isn't contemplating mortality in a state of panic. His approach in concert wasn't to defy age or wish it away; the characters in his songs live voraciously because they know the clock is running. Instead, Springsteen challenged himself and everyone listening to be vital and engaged at every stage of existence -- to be a little larger than life while it lasts.

Song after song in a sold-out show contained that message: to know "what it's like to live and die" on Prove It All Night; to cry "Is there anyone alive out there?" on Radio Nowhere; and to "take one moment into my hands" on The Promised Land.

Springsteen himself, with his ravenous stage presence, was nothing if not a living example of this creed. He and the eight-piece E Street Band put on a thrilling performance. From the rough determination in This Hard Land ("Stay hungry, stay alive if you can") to the stab of desire in Candy's Room, Springsteen and friends offered up the kind of spectacle that's bound to be called life-affirming -- but an affirmation drained of sentimentality and replaced with appetite.

The set opened with an elegy, Blood Brothers, played in a near-total stage darkness that directed attention to the video screens above. Photos and reels of Danny Federici, the E Street keyboard player who died of cancer last month, flashed by as Springsteen sang, "I'll keep movin' through the dark with you in my heart."

The rest of the show was for the living. The band played two dozen songs over the next 2 1/2 hours, putting strong material from a new album, Magic, next to standards such as Growin' Up, Rosalita, Born To Run, Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out and Thunder Road -- the latter played on request for a concertgoer celebrating his 21st birthday. Springsteen, 58, seems to have stopped worrying about being treated like a jukebox.

Taking requests was one demonstration of the band's great responsiveness and flexibility. Another was the willingness to depart from the script. More than once, fans in up-close seats behind the stage saw Springteen turn to his mates and call audibles on his set list, swapping something on tap for something that felt more right and more suited to the moment.

Magic has played a smaller role in Springsteen's live show since Federici's death, which led to a handful of postponements in Florida -- Friday was one rescheduled date -- and some deeper trips into the back catalogue.

Even so, Springsteen didn't shy away from the new album. Songs including Gypsy Biker and Last To Die showcased Magic's guitar-powered, garage-band feel -- a lean complement to the lusher arrangements of his Jersey-shore classics. If the older songs, with their chiming keys and percussion, carry the noise and music of seaside carnivals, Magic is the arid sound of desert and open sky.

Rumors have circulated on Springsteen fan sites that this could be the last E Street tour. Springsteen himself has said nothing definitive either way on that question. Beyond the willingness to field requests, nothing about the Magic show felt valedictory or like a ceremonial last lap.

Then again, it wouldn't be like Springsteen to project too far out, or to tip his hand. As a performer, he's always tended to put himself and the audience squarely in the present. He could be thinking about life after the E Street Band. But as he sang on Friday on Livin' in the Future, "None of this has happened yet."





SET LIST

Typical of a Springsteen show, there were set list changes throughout the show as evidenced by the difference between the hand written (pre-show) and actual post-show list.

HAND WRITTEN SET-LIST

ACTUAL SET-LIST

The Promised Land
I Wanna Be With You
Radio Nowhere
Out In The Street
This Hard Land
Gypsy Biker
Growin' Up
Candy's Room
Prove It All Night
She's The One
Livin' In The Future
Mary's Place
Girls In Their Summer Clothes
Devil's Arcade
The Rising
Last To Die
Long Walk Home
Badlands

Thunder Road
Born To Run
Rosalita
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
American Land

Kitty's Back