March 13, 2016: I Went Down to the River....

Oakland, CA
Oracle Arena

It's taken a full day to recover from another epic, loud, rocking, raucous, high energy, three and a half hour marathon of a show. If you've never seen Springsteen live and you are a fan of rock and roll, you are seriously missing out on one of the best experiences in live music ever. This is not hyperbole -- there is no one else who puts on shows like this every single time out.

Sunday was a pretty rainy lazy day until it was time to head out the door to meet Cheryl who'd flown up to join me for the show. After grabbing a light early dinner and catching up on things, we hopped on BART and headed over to the Oakland Coliseum Arena (yeah, yeah, it's called Oracle Arena now, but it's always the Coliseum Arena to me.) The lines to get in were ridiculous and, naturally, it started raining while we were waiting. We kept looking at our watches as it was getting closer and closer to 8:00 and showtime. I thought that perhaps because it was a Sunday night the show would actually start on time. There was no way it would with the crowds of people still trying to get in at 7:45.

We got in and got to our seats behind the stage a little before 8:00 (even managing to grab a couple of bottles of water from a near empty concession stand!) and settled in for the show. I've had seats behind the stage for Springsteen several times and they're usually pretty good, but this time we were at the wrong angle and there were cables obscuring center stage most of the night. What that meant was I could see most of the E Street Band through the heads of the people in front of me, but Bruce was a bit hard to see. Ah well!

For those of you unaware of this tour, Bruce is out performing the entirety of his 1980 release The River -- a 20 song double album. That makes for a very strict set list, even for someone who routinely does three hour plus long shows! It also meant I needed to do some homework before the concert. When The River was released in 1980, I was twelve years old and just discovering different kinds of music than the things my parents listened to and simple pop music. "Hungry Heart" was the huge hit single from the album and probably the first Bruce Springsteen song I ever heard. Fast forward in time and Born in the USA comes out while I'm in high school and I really start listening to Springsteen, but it wasn't until I got a copy of Live 1975-1985 that I actually heard some of the other tunes from The River and fell in love with them. Still, when this tour was announced, I knew I had to go back and listen to it in full to remember all of the songs.

The band took the stage about 8:30 with the houselights still up and kicked off with "Meet Me in the City," an outtake from The River recordings. It's a great rocking song and feels a little like something The Ramones might have done. It's a high energy song and a great opener. Bruce then welcomed everyone to the show and explained what he was thinking about when he wrote and recorded The River. Then off we went, back in time 36 years to listen to that album in full. As a whole, it's interesting to listen to a whole double album performed live, but I do have to say that the sequencing of the songs makes more sense for an album than for a live show -- especially a live Springsteen show. Most of the uptempo, rocking songs were in the first part of the set and then things slowed down to a bit of a mellower pace.

Still, there were lots of great moments during the performing of The River. Two of my favorite songs from this album came early in the set -- "Two Hearts" and "Independence Day." Then came THE HIT -- "Hungry Heart." I don't know when it started, but somewhere along the way Bruce started letting the crowd sing the whole first verse and chorus before starting over himself with the band, and this show was no different with a loud singing crowd. During this point, Bruce walked out into the general admission floor and out to a small stage in the middle of the arena. After hugging and high-fiving fans along the way, he fell backwards and crowd surfed his way back to the stage.

My next personal high point was the title track, which is a song I absolutely love and is way up on the top of the list of favorite Springsteen songs. The line "Is a dream a lie if it don't come true/Or is it something worse" is one that grabbed me the very first time I heard it and is something that has always made me think.

The River wrapped up after two hours with "Wreck on the Highway" and then it was time for some more! After the briefest of pauses to let The River fade away, it was off to the rocking "Badlands" and from this point forward, there were several times where the crowd was singing along so loudly that Bruce and the band were drowned out -- truly impressive! Since there was only about another 90 minutes left for the show (!!) it was mostly the songs you would expect to hear, but all performed with the same amazing high energy. And all of it was performed in rapid succession. There were a couple of times when the video screens would show shots of drummer Max Weinberg and I'd swear he looked like he was about to have a heart attack with all the energy he was expending! I think that's probably one of the most impressive things about a Springsteen show -- he and the band performing 30+ songs with only the briefest of breaks between them.

The main set closed out with "Thunder Road" (more audience participation and drowning out the band) before what would probably be called the encore if the band had actually left the stage (there was just a longer than usual pause.) Using a request from the audience Bruce and the boys kicked into "Growin' Up" before heading into "Born to Run." He pulled a young man out of the audience to sing along with him for "Growin' Up" as "it's a young man's song" and the kid had a blast. For "Dancing in the Dark," Bruce pulled up a girl about 12-14 years old who proceeded to whip, dab, and nae nae on stage, much to Bruce's befuddlement! The next to last song was "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" and when they got to the important part -- "and the Big Man joined the band" -- up on the video screens appeared pictures of Clarence Clemons and a few of Danny Frederici, the missing members of the E Street Band. One of the things that crossed my mind throughout the show was what an excellent job Jake Clemons did on all the saxophone parts there were. He's really come a long way from the first time I saw him in the band as part of a larger horn section who stepped out front from time to time. The Big Man is irreplaceable, but Jake does a great job honoring his uncle.

The set list closed out with a cover of "Shout" and that's when Cheryl and I made our early exit about half way through the song. It was 11:45 by that point and there would soon be a mad dash for BART so everyone could catch their train. Cheryl and I said our goodbyes at the BART station and I hopped on a train as soon as I got to the top of the platform for the hour plus ride home. As always after a Springsteen show I was exhausted and energized at the same time and it was so worth a long late night on a "school night." (I wisely took Monday off work!)

Set List: (courtesy of brucespringsteen.net)

Meet Me In The City (The River: Outtakes)
The Ties That Bind
Sherry Darling
Jackson Cage
Two Hearts
Independence Day
Hungry Heart
Out in the Street
Crush on You
You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)
I Wanna Marry You
The River
Point Blank
Cadillac Ranch
I'm a Rocker
Fade Away
Stolen Car
Ramrod
The Price You Pay
Drive All Night
Wreck on the Highway
Badlands
Prove It All Night
Lonesome Day
Candy's Room
Because the Night
She's the One
The Rising
Thunder Road
Growin' Up
Born to Run
Dancing in the Dark
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Shout

October 25-26, 2007: The Magic of Springsteen

Oakland, CA
Oracle Arena

Had a great end of the week this week, taking in both of the shows Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band put on here in Oakland Thursday and Friday nights. For openers, I have this to say...

BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCE!!!

Anyone who's ever seen a Springsteen show knows that they are always high energy, great time, rock and roll shows. This past week was no different with two incredible nights. The Friday night show went on sale first and I got a ticket the minute the show went on sale and was a little disappointed that the best seat I could get was a seat to the side of the stage, so when the Thursday night show was added about 2 weeks ago I said "gotta try again!" Best I could do for THAT show was BEHIND the stage. Well, hell. Fortunately, what I thought would be a disappointment seat-wise, turned out to be anything but.

Thursday night I raced to BART from work, but even if traffic had been breezy smooth, work to the Millbrae BART station plus the ride to the Coliseum station is still a 2 hour trek! UGH, no time for dinner and please oh please oh please don't have a line for will call or I'm gonna be wiped out before the show even starts! Fortunately got through will call in record time so grabbed something to eat inside and went to take my seat. Lesson one -- Row 27 behind the stage is NOT a bad seat -- the rows start at about number 15. Turned out that my seat was dead center of the row right behind the stage AND was the last row in the section with wall behind me so I could stand and dance all I wanted with no one throwing things behind me! Woo hoo! (Of course, I had forgotten that Bruce really doesn't allow sitting at his shows and makes sure everyone is standing up!) So 7:30 comes and goes and of course the show doesn't start when the ticket said it would. 8:00 comes and goes and the two seats to my left and four seats to my right are still totally empty. Could it be that I've got a huge chunk of space all to my self at a near-sell out show?! Yep, it could be -- I had a ton of room to dance and bop around all night long.

8:15 Bruce and the band came out in total darkness and then kicked straight in to "Radio Nowhere" from his new CD Magic. If you've not heard it yet, it's just a kick ass rock song and great opener. The show rolled on from there and I had a great view of the band, the stage, and the CROWD. Kinda felt like a rock star myself looking out at what the guys on stage were seeing. Naturally, the crowd goes wild. If you've never been to a Springsteen concert, you really don't know what you're missing. I was up and dancing from the first note and barely sat all night long. There was a group of people a ways down the row from me and one of the guys kept coming over to dance and high five at different parts of the show. There's just that much energy going on.

Thursday night's set list was filled with new material -- 9 of the 12 songs on Magic were played, plus a song off Patti Scialfa's new CD. That made 10 of the 20+ songs totally new and reasonably unfamiliar to the audience and while the band played the hell out of them with enough energy to keep the crowd with them, the energy of the crowd wasn't the level of previous shows I'd seen. The album's only been out for three weeks (wasn't Bruce nice to give me a present for my birthday?) and I've played the hell out of it since I got it and I probably know about 75% of the words to 75% of the songs. Most other people in the crowd knew far less. That didn't stop him from having the crowd sing back on "Girls in Summer Clothes" during the encore. And ya know, I loved it. Too many established performers don't believe enough in their new material and/or their fans to really go out and sell it to them on stage, which considering that's how so many legendary acts got famous in the first place. If you've got it, play it, believe in it, work the crowd so they're into it.

The crowd Thursday night did get into the new material, though not like they did with the old familiar favorites where they would sing along and drown out Bruce at points. The show closed out with a rousing version of "Badlands" which had all 20,000 people singing along at the top of their lungs and, to my mind, has one of the greatest lines in rock history -- "For the ones who had a notion/A notion deep inside/That it ain't no sin/To be glad you're alive" and the crowd WAS so alive.

Of course, no Springsteen show is over until you hear "Born to Run" and that was the third song of the 5-song encore (following "Thunder Road" which the audience ALMOST took over on, but lost the lyric somewhere in the first verse). With full house lights on and everyone singing along I could watch that every night. He closed out the night with "Dancing in the Dark" (ironically with the full house lights still on) and an Irish jig of a tune he wrote as part of his Seeger Sessions work "American Land" which was just great fun. Headed back to BART for the hour ride home and got ready to do it all again on Friday night and had a nice bookend moment to my night as "Born to Run" was the last tune played on my iPod as I pulled into the Millbrae station.

I wasn't nearly as harried getting to the show on Friday as I had been the night before and when I got to my side-view seat, I was again pleasantly surprised. Close to the stage, on the aisle of a 3-seat row. I chatted with the couple sitting next to me before the show started and it was the wife's first time at a Springsteen show and she was so excited it was incredible. I told her that the show the night before had been fantastic and she'd really enjoy it but she'd have to calm down a little since the band wouldn't take the stage until 8:15.

Once again Bruce and band came out and kicked off with "Radio Nowhere" and followed it up with one of my all time favorite tunes "No Surrender" from the Born in the USA album. I love love love that song and my night was completely made by then. The set list on Friday was significantly different than Thursday night -- only 6 new songs and no Patti song. According to his official website, they debuted three songs on Friday night -- "Two Hearts", "Racing in the Street", and "Working on the Highway." Every one of them played to perfection. Making that change in the set put even more energy into the sell-out crowd and people were on their feet most of the night dancing and singing along.

The energy level on Friday night was definitely higher than Thursday, and the response to the new songs was stronger, especially for the moving rocker "Last to Die" and the catchy "Living in the Future". It's pretty incredible when you look down the set lists for this tour (which can be found here*) and you see the catalog of songs performed. Between the radio hits and the concert anthems, there's just not a weak point anywhere in this show, no songs where you think "okay, I'm a bit tired of this one, move along please."

I was talking to one of my co-workers before heading out to the shows this week and he was telling me how he doesn't particularly enjoy concerts as they seldom live up to his expectations. Having seen Springsteen about 6 times now -- both with and with out the E Street Band -- I can say I have never been disappointed, usually it's beyond my expectations. I also recognized that one thing I take away from most any concert I attend is that two hours (or more) of stress free, live in the moment, let the music wash over you joy. Makes it worth every penny of the over priced concert tickets (though I will say at $93 before fees, Springsteen is pretty reasonable considering what he could charge) and hassles of transportation.

Finally, if you've never seen Springsteen, what the hell are you waiting for? Go. Now. I promise you will have a great time.

*The original link went to Bruce's official website which will post set lists for the shows, but it appears they've pulled anything before 2009, so that goes to the fan-zine Backstreets which pulls reports from fans.