Review: Bruce Springsteen delivers incredible evening of music for fans
Jetlag? What jetlag?
Bruce Springsteen certainly seemed no worse for the wear after making two quick cross-country flights over the last few days before playing what turned out to be a dynamite show at Chase Center in San Francisco on Thursday.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer performed Monday in San Diego and then zoomed back East and made a guest appearance (with fellow troubadour Maggie Rogers) at a show by country star Zach Bryan at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Wednesday night.
Then it was right back to the West Coast in time to play the first of two sold-out shows at the home of the Golden State Warriors.
The next gig is on Sunday, which gives Springsteen the time to — oh, I don’t know — perhaps fly to Kauai for fish tacos before returning to Chase for Night 2.
And if he does decide to do just that, well, you can rest assured that he’ll still deliver the goods for Bay Area fans on Easter Sunday.
That’s why he’s The Boss.
The 74-year-old Springsteen was in nothing short of legendary form as he led his mighty E Street Band through a 29-song show that absolutely held the audience captivated for its entire three-hour runtime.
He’d draw from a wide selection of his songbook, touching upon 11 of his studio albums. There were a few debuts for this tour — which, granted, is only a few dates old at this point — as well as all the favorites that fans can pretty much expect to hear at every Springsteen show these days.
Backed by 17 people onstage — including a versatile horn section and excellent backing vocalists — the bandleader opened the show right around 7:45 with “Something in the Night,” one of five songs that he’d pull from the classic 1978 platter “Darkness on the Edge of Town.”
The song — which was being played for the first time on this tour — proved to be a bit of a mellow starter, but things would quickly heat up as The Boss turned to 2002’s “The Rising” for a powerful version of “Lonesome Day.”
The next two offerings, “Ghosts” and “Two Hearts,” were both solid, but the show reached a whole new level when Springsteen and company unleashed “Prove It All Night.” The tune, another “Darkness on the Edge of Town” standout, featured the first prominent sax work from Jake Clemons (who is the nephew of the late E Street legend Clarence Clemons) as well as some really aggressive and muscular guitar playing from the bandleader himself.
They’d keep the party rolling in high gear with the defiant “Born to Run” anthem “No Surrender” before thrilling the audience with the tour debut of “Atlantic City,” delivering a full-band version that shared the lyrics — and not much else — with the stark solo recording originally found on 1982’s “Nebraska.”
Springsteen’s voice was on point throughout the night, showing no signs of the medical condition that originally forced him to postpone these Chase shows — which were originally scheduled for last December — as well as other dates. The star did bring up the subject about 80 minutes into the show, which was first time he paused to really talk to the crowd all evening.
“My belly hurt so bad, I couldn’t sing,” explained Springsteen, who underwent treatment for peptic ulcer disease. “Every time I went to sing, my belly ached. When I went to do anything, my belly ached. Then it ached some more. So, we couldn’t make it. But I’m glad to be back tonight.”
The last third of the main set was all A-list material, as the singer rolled through “Backstreets,” “Because the Night,” “She’s the One,” “Wrecking Ball,” “The Rising” and “Badlands” before closing, some 130 minutes after he started the show, with the always-popular “Thunder Road.”
The 18 musicians would take their well-deserved bows, but then, instead of leaving the stage, it was right back to business as they rolled through a generous encore highlighted by “Land of Hope and Dreams” (another tour debut),” “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” and, of course, “Born to Run.”
“San Francisco!” Springsteen exclaimed as the encore drew to a close. “I want you to go home tonight and then I want you to wake up tomorrow morning and I want to tell everybody that you see that you that you’ve just seen the hearts-stopping, pants-dropping, earth-shocking, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, earth-quaking, love-making, Viagara-taking, history-making legendary E Street Band.”
Consider it done, Boss.
Setlist:
1. “Something in the Night”
2. “Lonesome Day”
3. “Ghosts”
4. “Two Hearts”
5. “Prove It All Night”
6. “No Surrender”
7. “Atlantic City”
8. “Death to My Hometown”
9. “Letter to You”
10. “The Promised Land”
11. “Hungry Heart”
12. “Spirit in the Night”
13. “Nightshift”
14. “Racing in the Street”
15. “Last Man Standing”
16. “Backstreets”
17. “Because the Night”
18. “She’s the One”
19. “Wrecking Ball”
20. “The Rising”
21. “Badlands”
22. “Thunder Road”
Encore:
23. “Land of Hope and Dreams”
24. “Born to Run”
25. “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”
26. “Bobby Jean”
27. “Dancing in the Dark”
28. “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”
Encore 2:
29. “I’ll See You in My Dreams”