Live Review: Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band

Four hours of Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band barely seems like enough tonight, the party that felt like it might not ever end showing us a completely different side to the charismatic King of Jersey than we saw on both his 2013 appearances. That was his first trip in a decade, he was eager to impress; running into the crowd at every opportunity, delivering greatest hits and pulling out all stops to make us like him. It feels like he's a little more comfortable and playful this time around, meaning we're getting a different side of The Boss, perhaps something a little deeper than before.

He kicks off with a surprising Brisbane classic in the Bee Gees' Stayin' Alive, complete with string section hired for the night, before 1973's Greetings From Asbury Park NJ is well represented with It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City, Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?, Growin' Up and Spirit in the Night one after the other.

After High Hopes and The Saints' Just Like Fire Would, the classic sign requests are obeyed; You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch), Sherry Darling and Fade Away (dedicated to guitarist Steven Van Zandt) from 1980's The River as well as Save My Love, which was scrapped from Darkness On The Edge Of Town, for being “too fucking happy”.

In other Aussie cities he's played albums in their entirety and tonight the band rip through 1973's The Wild, The Innocent & The E-Street Shuffle in its entirety for apparently only the second time in history. The revered album isn't packed with hits, but it's an amazing distillation of the freakish talent of a 22-year-old Springsteen and, most importantly, its songs still hold up. Wild Billy's Circus Story is a little awkward, but live favourite Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) sends the crowd into a frenzy and the string section return for a scorching New York City Serenade which wraps it up beautifully. It's all well and good for Springsteen the superstar to lead his band through these songs with such self-assuredness in 2014 but it's staggering to think about the wealth of ambition this artist had as a practical unknown 40 years ago.

More crowd-pleasing later fare follows the album's conclusion. Live favourite Waitin' On A Sunny Day, the solid rock'n'roll of The Rising and the haunting The Ghost Of Tom Joad (albeit featuring a little too much Tom Morello) bring back those whose minds might've wandered during the album, before Badlands begins a huge run of tunes that rile up the crowd to fever pitch. Glory Days has fists pumping like never before and we all revel in the anthemic Born To Run – even with the house lights on full the atmosphere is palpable.

We pay our respects to the Big Man Clarence Clemons with Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder ducks in to help out on a version of AC/DC's Highway To Hell, before Bruce thanks us and asks us to pass on his thanks to the rest of the country for being so welcoming. He plays Thunder Road all alone and it's perhaps the most affecting moment of the night; the brilliance of the 18-piece E-Street Band cannot be overstated, but it'll always be the songs of Bruce Springsteen that matter most. What a pertinent reminder of this fact tonight has been.