Who's the Boss?
Who is the Boss indeed? Not such a strange question if you happened to be at the Bruce Springsteen concert at Wembley Arena last night.....
Myself, Darroll and Bruce (not the actual one) headed north from London along the Jubilee line towards Wembley last night, travellers (beers) in hand, smiles on our faces, and the feeling of joy in our stomachs because we were about to go watch Bruce Springsteen unleash the fury in front of a sell-out crowd.
After arriving early we dove-tailed on the drinking-before-a-concert-rule and found ourselves a small pub / restaurant type establishment which had a distinct Texan theme about the place. In hindsight this was a fairly good clue as to how the events of the night were about to unfold. After a quick feed the bellies were lined, the doors were open.....it was time to get inside Wembley Arena. Once inside it was the usual run for the bar followed by locating a good spot in front of the stage. A few more beers, some weekend banter and then.....the lights dimmed and Bruce arrived on stage.
Come on stage he did, but after about 4 songs I still wasn't sure if this was really Bruce Springsteen. Everyone around me seemed to think it was, and they were singing along to all his songs like there was no tomorrow. The fact that they seemed to be singing Country and Western songs troubled me somewhat and I reckon from where Bruce (the actual one) was standing he must have been quite surprised to see me staring back at him with a blank expression on my face while I tried to put the pieces together amidst a mass of heaving fans.
The concert was actually, Bruce Sprinsgsteen with the Seeger Sessions Band. The Seeger Sessions band comprise of about a million people all on stage at once, all with different instruments. Instruments range from banjos to trumpets to flutes to 'squash-boxes' to violins and pretty much anything else you could possibly think of. Apparently Bruce has turned to Country and is now touring with these guys and putting out a totally different song compared to what I'm used to, and was indeed expecting. So much for 'Dancing in the Dark' or 'Born in the USA', he didn't play any of his well-known hits. Not one single from the Glory Days...nothing!! And yet to be brutally honest it was one of the best live gigs I've ever seen.
I guess it had something to do with not knowing any of the songs and then being pleasantly surprised each time a new one got going. I'm certainly not a Country and Western music supporter by nature but if you're going to do it then do it properly, and apparently it would seem that Bruce Springsteen can do it properly when it comes to this type of music. I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything less from the hero that he is, but I'll admit I was caught off guard initially, but once I was 6 pints down and had resigned to the fact that I was in for something different I really started cutting loose. I especially liked the one section during the encore where they all belted out a good Irish number. Superb stuff !!!
I probably won't ever go to another Country concert ever again but I can recommend this one highly. There's just something awesome about having 17 people on stage and watching them all give it horns with Bruce Springsteen on vocals.
http://www.brucespringsteen.net/site.html
Myself, Darroll and Bruce (not the actual one) headed north from London along the Jubilee line towards Wembley last night, travellers (beers) in hand, smiles on our faces, and the feeling of joy in our stomachs because we were about to go watch Bruce Springsteen unleash the fury in front of a sell-out crowd.
After arriving early we dove-tailed on the drinking-before-a-concert-rule and found ourselves a small pub / restaurant type establishment which had a distinct Texan theme about the place. In hindsight this was a fairly good clue as to how the events of the night were about to unfold. After a quick feed the bellies were lined, the doors were open.....it was time to get inside Wembley Arena. Once inside it was the usual run for the bar followed by locating a good spot in front of the stage. A few more beers, some weekend banter and then.....the lights dimmed and Bruce arrived on stage.
Come on stage he did, but after about 4 songs I still wasn't sure if this was really Bruce Springsteen. Everyone around me seemed to think it was, and they were singing along to all his songs like there was no tomorrow. The fact that they seemed to be singing Country and Western songs troubled me somewhat and I reckon from where Bruce (the actual one) was standing he must have been quite surprised to see me staring back at him with a blank expression on my face while I tried to put the pieces together amidst a mass of heaving fans.
The concert was actually, Bruce Sprinsgsteen with the Seeger Sessions Band. The Seeger Sessions band comprise of about a million people all on stage at once, all with different instruments. Instruments range from banjos to trumpets to flutes to 'squash-boxes' to violins and pretty much anything else you could possibly think of. Apparently Bruce has turned to Country and is now touring with these guys and putting out a totally different song compared to what I'm used to, and was indeed expecting. So much for 'Dancing in the Dark' or 'Born in the USA', he didn't play any of his well-known hits. Not one single from the Glory Days...nothing!! And yet to be brutally honest it was one of the best live gigs I've ever seen.
I guess it had something to do with not knowing any of the songs and then being pleasantly surprised each time a new one got going. I'm certainly not a Country and Western music supporter by nature but if you're going to do it then do it properly, and apparently it would seem that Bruce Springsteen can do it properly when it comes to this type of music. I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything less from the hero that he is, but I'll admit I was caught off guard initially, but once I was 6 pints down and had resigned to the fact that I was in for something different I really started cutting loose. I especially liked the one section during the encore where they all belted out a good Irish number. Superb stuff !!!
I probably won't ever go to another Country concert ever again but I can recommend this one highly. There's just something awesome about having 17 people on stage and watching them all give it horns with Bruce Springsteen on vocals.
http://www.brucespringsteen.net/site.html
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