If it’s pure, primal rock and roll thrills you’re looking for in a live performer, Bruce Springsteen is your man. It just seems to be what the New Jersey-born singer, songwriter and band leader was put on this planet to do.
On record, he’s released some of the most significant albums of the last 50 years and given us some of the most life-affirming, heart-swelling anthems imaginable, but it’s in the live arena that the man they rightly call ‘The Boss’ really comes into his own.
If you’ve seen him live you’ll know what I’m talking about. Put simply, a Bruce gig is a constantly rising tide of musical emotion, a quasi-religious experience where a master technician and his gang of likeminded souls push the faithful to ever-rising heights of euphoria until curfew hits and we’re sent home happy with the redemptive power of rock and roll ringing in our ears.
OK, that’s a touch fanciful - but we are talking about something truly magical here. It’s as if Bruce has never lost that teenage belief that all you need is a cranked up electric guitar, a wailing saxophone and a song to sing, and everything will be alright.
We may not know for sure what songs he’ll pull out into the light when he and his trusty E Street Band hit the stage on Belfast’s Boucher Road on Thursday - there’s always an element of surprise in a Springsteen setlist that keeps even the most hard core supporter guessing - but there’s one thing you can firmly bet your house on: Bruce and the band will deliver the goods. They always do.
The Boss, you see, never lets you down.
Now, if that sounds a little glib, let me explain. In the four decades that Bruce has been playing Ireland, I’ve been lucky enough to watch the man do his thing in a variety of cities, from Belfast to Dublin and Kilkenny, and every single time he’s turned in performances that have rarely dipped below the level of sheer brilliance.
Too much? Well, clearly you haven’t experienced the magic for yourself then.
I’ve seen a lot of gigs in my time, but Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are the only act I’ve ever witnessed on multiple occasions who’ve actually gotten better with every single performance.
My tolerance level for long shows has dropped alarmingly in recent years - well, we all like to be back in our beds nice and early once the first flush of youth has been well and truly flushed, right? - but with Bruce, I barely notice the hours passing, such is the power and passion in his onstage persona.
Musically, I love most of the man’s recorded output as well. Like many a fan of a certain age, I’m partial to that mid-to-late ‘70s purple patch, when the albums Born To Run (1975) and Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) arrived to build the legend we revere today. But I’m just as given to the angry Bruce you can hear in more recent, relatively speaking, tracks like Death To My Home Town (2012) and Wrecking Ball (first released as a live single in 2009).
It’s hard to beat The Boss when he’s got the political bit between his teeth.
There’s one thing you can firmly bet your house on: Bruce and the band will deliver the goods. They always do. The Boss, you see, never lets you down
Bruce the blue collar storyteller is who I pine for the most, though. While I can always find a place in my heart for those fist-pumping widescreen vistas provided by the E Street band at their most brilliantly bombastic, it’s the stripped-back stuff that always has me coming back for more.
Take an album like Nebraska, which is essentially a collection of red-raw solo cassette demos that wound up being released in all their unadorned glory in 1982. Flick your way to the fifth track, Highway Patrolman. For me it’s one of the greatest short stories ever condensed into 5 minutes and 39 seconds of recorded space.
The simple tale of Joe Roberts, the highway cop of the title who tries to keep his wayward brother Frankie on the straight and narrow, is told with an economy and eye for stark emotional imagery that recalls the likes of Carson McCullers.
Honestly, it’s that good.
The magic is, of course, in the detail. As the backstory is sketched against a simple acoustic strum, we hear how Frankie got drafted while Joe stayed at home to work on the farm but it’s the image of the brothers out drinking and taking turns to dance with Joe’s childhood sweetheart Maria “while the band played The Night Of The Johnstown Flood” that really hit home.
It’s the naming of the song they danced to that takes you so close to that small town bar room that you can almost smell the floor polish; and when Joe gets a call to a local tavern where a man lies dying and Frankie is the main suspect, everything comes together with devastating results.
A Bruce gig is a constantly rising tide of musical emotion, a quasi-religious experience where a master technician and his gang of likeminded souls push the faithful to ever-rising heights of euphoria
Spoiler alert coming for anyone who hasn’t heard the song, but when Joe tracks his fleeing brother’s car through town and decides to simply pull over and watch his brother’s tail lights fade to black as he crosses the state line and out of his jurisdiction, it’s as devastating as any line in a Cormac McCarthy novel.
As Bruce delivers the killer couplet, “A man turns his back on his family, Well, he just ain’t no good”, it gets the hairs standing to attention on the back of my neck every single time.
Seeing Bruce and the band deliver Highway Patrolman in Dublin ranks up there with my very fondest memories of decades of devotion to the man and his music. There are plenty others, of course.
Taking my 15-year-old son Dan to the same city last year for a night in the RDS with The Boss and watching him walk in, despite my best efforts at childhood indoctrination, a non-believer and walk out a fully-fledged fan springs immediately to mind.
Here’s hoping there are plenty more great memories to come, starting this Thursday night in Belfast.
Personally, I can hardly wait.
