Live Review: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band

It's been no surprise that Bruce Springsteen's shows on the Australian Summer '17 tour have so far been heavily politicised — given the government turmoil back in his native US of A — so for his Brisbane Valentine's Day show The Boss seems almost visibly relieved to have a reason to shed the heavy topics and focus on affairs of the heart for a night. And he and his crack troupe, The E Street Band, do that with complete aplomb, putting on a show that's light on diatribe and heavy on love and frivolity for the ensuing set's near-three-hour duration.

A local eight-piece string section has been enrolled to help with the orchestral swells of epic opening track New York City Serenade — which harks back his 1973 second album The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle — and, after Springsteen takes the time to individually shake the hand of each member as they shuffle into backstage darkness, we're off and running. He delves into his deep repertoire of hometown rock with Lucky Town, before yelling, "We've got a Valentine's Day special for ya!" and indulging in his first sign request — whereby he takes a placard held up by an adoring crowd member and shows the band before they tear into that number — and leads them into '80s B-side Janey Don't Lose Your Heart like it's a natural part of the set list.

Three more relative rarities follow in the Valentine's Day-inspired tumble (which strangely omits the track Valentine's Day from 1987's Tunnel Of Love, clearly not a favourite) — Rendezvous, Be True and Back In Your Arms — the latter of which the band completely makes a meal, Springsteen stopping them mid-song and soliciting guitarist Nils Lofgren to play the right progression to get them back on track. What to many would be an embarrassing situation becomes a fun diversion courtesy Springsteen's everyman appeal, the consummate frontman shrugging it off with a grin and jumping straight back the soul sermon without the slightest setback.

Next, The Boss grabs a sign requesting Better Days and growls, "We're preaching on love tonight!", following this gambit with a trio of tracks from 1980 album The River; a joyous and rousing rendition of The Ties That Bind, a supple run-through of Out In The Street and then a take on Hungry Heart that nearly lifts the lid off the venue, Springsteen running onto a ramp in the middle of the ravenous throng and then crowd-surfing all the way back to the stage atop a sea of mobile phones and adulation. The band are in typically fine fettle: saxophonist Jake Clemons has by now made his sadly passed uncle Clarence's spot his own, Max Weinberg and Garry Tallent lock in together in a manner befitting a rhythm section with over forty years experience together, and it's brilliant seeing Little Steven Van Zandt back in the fray, having missed the last couple of Australian sojourns. Roy Bittan remains his influential self, seated up high on the piano riser, and even multi-instrumentalist touring members Soozie Tyrell and Charles Giordano are pivotal in places — indeed, the only missing piece to this united ensemble is backing vocalist/guitarist (and Springsteen's wife) Patti Scialfa, who purportedly stayed behind in the States to participate in the Women's March held in their stomping ground of Asbury Park, New Jersey, a few weeks back.

Following Wrecking Ball and Leap Of Faith, the familiar harmonica intro to The River gets another rapturous response from the besotted crowd — the connection between the performer and his acolytes by now uncanny — before they run through war treatise Youngstown and dip back into their '70s canon with old faithfuls Candy's Room and She's The One. Springsteen reclaims Because The Night from Patti Smith — to whom he gifted it back in the day — then finishes the set proper with fist-pumping anthem The Rising, a killer version of Badlands and then a jaw-dropping take on perennial crowd-pleaser Rosalita (Come Out Tonight), the crowd participation aspect of which includes one of the greatest displays of mass-crowd jazz hands one's ever likely to experience.

An encore is a given — the band hardly even leave the stage, just huddle in darkness towards the back — and they return triumphantly with The Boss proclaiming, "Here's a little something special for Brisbane on Valentine's Day," and returning with '90s standalone single Secret Garden (apparently only ever played live a handful of times in the past). They hammer into Born To Run, which has somehow gained galvanising power with age, and then strangely the full house lights come on for Dancing In The Dark (presumably so we can see the crowd members who are traditionally invited onto stage at this juncture for a dance), after which Springsteen re-enters the crowd for classic oldie Tenth Avenue Freeze Out and then channels the great James Brown during their rip-roaring cover of The Isley Brothers' rocker Shout (during which he announces with great fervour, "I'm just a prisoner of rock'n'roll!"). It's almost an anti-climax when they finish with Bobby Jean — a great song in its own right but no match to its predecessors — and then take a group bow to announce the show's finale, such has been the raw power exhibited in that thrilling final half-hour.

There's a lot of love in the room tonight, and only a small portion emanating from the stage as part of the Valentine's Day spectacular. This writer saw Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band in their mid-'80s pomp as a 15-year-old during the Born In The USA tour and was absolutely blown away by the potential power of rock'n'roll as a unifying force, and it's testimony to this mighty band's indubitable legacy that they can still elicit that exact same response more than three decades later. Here's to next time.