Bruce Springsteen
Live@Arena di Verona, 05\10\06

Brief preface before drafting the review: until now I have never reviewed absolutely anything and the highest literary award achieved was a "sufficient" received for an essay describing my own house back in middle school days.

Anyway, the fact that I got my hands on tickets for a "Boss" concert for the second time in a few months, after the one in Assago on May 12th, prompts me to write this review on the aforementioned performance.

After an epic Milan-Verona journey with an accompanying devastating traffic jam in the city center and having eaten a pizza a stone's throw from the Arena, I passed through the gates at 9, and with a slight delay, at about 9:20 Bruce took the stage. The concert, I’ll say it immediately, was not an explosive rock blast like when Springsteen is accompanied by the E-Street Band (whose performances are documented in the live era 75-85), rather it draws more from the roots of American folk-blues-black music. The concert’s opening was equally explosive with "John Henry," while the violin, acoustic bass, and piano showed their best in tracks like "O Mary Don't You Weep," "Eyes on the Prize" and "Mrs McGrath" all performed masterfully, as well as "Pay Me My Money Down" which engaged the entire Arena.

Regarding the repertoire outside of "We Shall Overcome" (whose title track was an absence inexplicable to me), there were excellent performances of "Bobby Jean" and especially the immortal "The River." Bruce appeared to be in great shape, giving room to his excellent Seeger Session Band and to his wife when necessary, interacting excellently with the audience and performing (almost) unexpectedly "Fire," along with a long series of encores, among which stands out Mrs. McGrath. In conclusion (and apologizing in advance if the review turns out to be too long or redundant), I must say it was a slightly inferior performance compared to Milan, but still at his age (57 springs if I’m not mistaken) in live performances Springsteen is an infallible war machine.

A round of applause also to the Verona audience who showed great participation throughout the approximately two and a half hour performance.