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Rating: For almost 10 years now, since the reunion of the E-street band, Bruce Springsteen seems to want to make up for the time spent without his companions in the 90s. Between record releases and a sort of neverending tour, he seems to be living a unique second youth in this first decade of the new century.
In September, Springsteen will blow out sixty candles, but believe me, after seeing him for the eighth time last night at the Olimpico in Turin, I have more and more the idea that today there are no performers of his level. Even in Turin, the concert almost reached three hours (2 hours and 50 minutes to be exact), hours marked by 31 songs without interruptions or false exits and re-entrances (finally someone who avoids these antics), spent sweating on an essential stage without pyrotechnic effects or structures designed by scientists (U2??) where the only protagonist was the Music, or rather Bruce.
The Springsteen crowd, loyal and in some cases pathologically obsessed with his myth, can now encompass three generations, and the t-shirts worn by fans clarify who Springsteen’s audience is. I saw t-shirts from Sepultura, Dream Theatre, and Bob Dylan coexist peacefully.
If up until the early nineties seeing Springsteen in Italy was an event, for seven/eight years now it has become an almost annual appointment, in which we can assess the conditions of Bruce and his band on a regular basis. There are no substantial differences from last year's tour, except for noticing an E Street Band always ready to follow the boss's orders but which has lost some dynamism, the ailments of age taking their toll. Now that the absence of the late Federici has been absorbed, it is worth noting the presence of two backup singers and the remarkable performance of Max Weinberg on drums, a real metronome, undervalued for some unknown reason when speaking of great drummers.
The start, with a quarter-hour delay, is rather curious: Springsteen goes back to "Loose Ends", a song from 1979 found on his box of leftovers (??) "Tracks". How many would have the possibility of opening a concert with a leftover?? From "Tracks," he will also extract "My Love Will Not Let You Down".
Among indispensable classics such as "Badlands" and "The Promised Land" from "Darkness On The Edge Of Town" (1978) and "Born To Run", Springsteen gifts the Turin audience with a full band, curious and country version of "Johnny 99" from "Nebraska," "Hungry Heart", three tracks from "The Rising" ("Lonesome Day", the title track and the now indispensable "Waitin' On A Sunny Day", a pretext for humorous sketches with the fans).
Then, as in the last tour, he meets the audience’s requests, playing some songs proposed and written on some signs that he carefully chooses. Thus, we have the opportunity to listen to always different songs at each date of the tour. Among a nocturnal and twilight "Drive All Night", an energetic "Two Hearts", Bruce satisfies those who wanted him to play "Travelin' Band" by the great Creedence Clearwater Revival of his friend Fogerty.
The finale offers us an always delightful "Dancing In The Dark", complete with a very embarrassed little girl invited to dance on stage, with Bruce dictating the steps, the Irish exuberance of "American Land" and the finale entrusted to "Twist And Shout" mixed with "La Bamba". Fortunately, he left aside the last album "Working on a Dream," of which he only extracts the long saga of "Outlaw Pete" (could the resemblance to "I Was made..." by Kiss be intentional?) and the sugary "Working On A Dream."
Springsteen, displays all his live strength, giving himself 100% to the audience by running, sweating, jumping on top of the piano like a true athlete, kissing it, letting himself be touched, and immersing himself completely among them in a continuous exchange of give and take that is the strength of his shows. Then after almost three hours of spectacle, the band and the boss bid farewell, and you're there wondering if he will come back again?
Unique and for now without heirs on the horizon.
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