Live Review: Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band

The superlatives have about run out. Bruce Springsteen's place in music history well lauded. The sheer phenomenal delicacy and power of this edition of The E Street Band – even as it mourns two of its own. The almost ludicrous stamina of a 63-year-old man who feeds off the energy from that band, and the joy that burns back from his audience. And after two-and-a-half hours, one of the few complaints was he still didn't get through all the hits. Even the most determined demystifier – and that was never going to be me – will get caught up in the sheer brilliant madness of Springsteen throwing himself back-first into the audience, to be confidently crowd-surfed back to the stage. And that was Hungry Heart, sixth song in.

There are moments it's so damn showbiz hokey: plucking the ten-year-old from the masses to sing the cockeyed optimistic chorus of Waitin' On A Sunny Day; the spotlight marking the spot where his rock, soul, and heart, Clarence Clemons should be standing as he roll-calls the now 16-piece band; the “C'mon Sydney, sing it!”. But the 20,000 here not only allow it – we welcomed it, revelled in it. But this band – special mention to two of the elder statesmen: Roy Bittan's rippling then stately piano, and the unflagging big beat of Mighty Max Weinberg – they conjure real emotion. Wrecking Ball's pugnacious challenge, My City Of Ruins' desolation waltz, the dark need of Candy's Room, straight into She's The One's heat, then Pay Me My Money Down's zydeco marching party, or The Rising's spiritual uplift – even as the towers crumble.

Then they make grown men weep. For, in that mournful harmonica and opening couplet “The screen-door slams/Mary's dress waves”, Thunder Road is the memory of every girl you've known. Into Born To Run, rock's greatest escape anthem still making sense in middle-age as it did in adolescence. The final, definitive brass blast of Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out, complete with breakdown video section celebrating late keyboardist Danny Federici as well as Springsteen's and Clemons' brotherhood. To stop it right then made perfect sense.