Bruce Springsteen at the Verizon Center in Washington DC, September 9, 2009. An incredible performance.
Prior to the “Face2Face” concert with Elton John and Billy Joel in July, I had never attended a rock concert. After seeing “Jersey Boys” recently, when I noticed that a Bruce Springsteen concert was scheduled at the Washington, DC, Verizon Center on November 2, I went to Stubhub and purchased excellent tickets.
Pre-Performance
The show was scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m., and when I arrived at 7:00, almost no one was there. At 7:30, the crew was still checking lights and sound, and still almost no one was there; not more than 10 percent of the seats were filled. I wondered whether Bruce would be performing to a half empty arena. I also overheard several other people wondering about all the empty seats. At 8:00, 12-15 crew, arrived on stage and climbed “rope” ladders to a large overhead frame housing the lights for the performance. They were dressed in black and once they arrived at the completely black light structure, they became invisible. I felt sure that the lights were operated electronically, so I wondered why these crew were needed. Still the arena was half empty.
While waiting for the concert to begin, two young men sat behind me chatting about dating. Their principal topic of discussion was that women expect men to pay for everything, so dating is expensive, many times even for dates that do not lead to second dates. On that topic, I found this woman's perspective interesting.
Also while waiting for the concert to begin, two young women sat in the row in front of me, a slender brunette and a massively obese redhead, so obese that she had to wedge herself into the seat, even though I sat with room left over. After the two of them talked for a few minutes, the redhead stood up and turned around to talk with me. She asked if I had attended a Bruce Springsteen concert before, and then told me that fans often had tears in their eyes at the end of the concert, although she said DC is a more restrained crowd.
Later, a married couple sat in front of me, with a tall, thin, pretty woman along with them. She was very striking, with brown hair. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties. The seats were bleacher seats, so the row in front of me was substantially lower than the row in which I was seated. After a time, I noticed something about the pretty woman – the hair in the part in her hair was silver gray. She didn't look old enough for gray hair; I was glad she colored her hair, as I am always glad when women color their hair.
A large man and his wife sat next to me, and he drank one beer after another from the time he got there until the end of the concert. He was constantly getting up to go get more beer.
Overall, it seemed to me that most of the crowd was age 40-60, although some younger people were there, too. Bruce was dressed in jeans, as he always seems to be, and most of the crowd also seemed to be dressed in jeans. I felt a bit out of place dressed in a suit and tie; I had gone directly to the concert from my office, and did not change clothes.
Concert
At 8:15, Bruce and the E Street Band appeared and the performance began, and suddenly every seat was filled, about 15,000, along with several thousand additional fans on the floor of the arena. The sudden appearance of the crowd was amazing. By comparison, about 55,000 fans attended the Elton John/Billy Joel “Face2Face” concert at Nationals’ Park, and close to 100,000 fans attended the Paul McCartney concert at FedEx Field this summer.
From the moment that Bruce stepped onto the stage, he exhorted the crowd to make noise, and the crowd happily complied. Throughout the entire performance, he continued to exhort the crowd to make noise. Throughout the performance, the crowd sang along on all of the songs, seemingly knowing all the words to all the songs, and Bruce held out the microphone to exhort the crowd to sing along. Indeed, throughout the performance, the crowd was a sea of people jumping and waving their hands to the beat of the music. It was an incredible sight. The crowd was MUCH more involved with the music than at the Elton John/Billy Joel concert, where they almost ignored the music.
The music was incredibly loud, with the bass actually throbbing the building. I was not familiar with the songs, and they all sounded very much alike to me, with the same beat. I could not understand any of the words to the songs, and I couldn't understand his words when he talked (or yelled) into the microphone.
Bruce was exceedingly active throughout the concert. He was everywhere on the stage, and he constantly stepped down from the stage to a platform that extended out into the crowd on the floor of the arena. He encouraged fans to touch him and to touch his guitar as he played. By comparison, the piano players, Elton John and Billy Joel, were at their pianos, and did not interact physically with the crowd.
The E Street Band was truly incredible. They have been playing together for more than 35 years, and they were incredible. The most noticeable band member was the drummer, Max Weinberg. He was truly amazing. He never stopped, playing the drums on all the songs, and in between songs as well. In addition, Clarence Clemons, the sax player, was great, as well. He is a large man, and as he played, the camera showed close-up videos of his hands on the sax. His large fingernails were painted gold, the color of the saxophone. In this band, the piano player played a dominant role, as did the lead guitar player. The other most notable band member was the only woman, Patti Scialfa, Bruce’s wife. She played the violin and guitar, and with her blonde hair, she was very striking on stage. The band expanded for some songs, adding a trumpet player, and several accordions. In one song, a young woman played the accordion, and she played very close to Bruce and he interacted with her a lot in a very playful way. Later he said she was the daughter of the drummer, Ali Weinberg.
(Photo from Washington Post)Clearly the band members were great friends, who have been together for a long time. Bruce seemed very close to all of them, and particularly close to the guitar players, Nils Lofgren and Steve Van Zandt, who sang with him on many of the songs. The band members looked older, as in fact they are.
The video above, taken from Fox News, shows Bruce’s interaction with the crowd. Note how Bruce held the microphone out for the crowd, and exhorted them to make noise. Note also the gold painted fingernails of Clarence Clemons. Finally, note Patti Scialfa in the background playing the guitar.
As he was playing one of the songs, Bruce stood on the platform extension into the crowd, and he noticed a boy about 11 years old singing. He helped the boy onto the stage and gave him the microphone, and the boy sang the song as the band played. Many people in the audience wore shirts and carried songs saying “We Love Bruce”. A group of women held a very large sign, “Lesbians heart Bruce”. He said I love you, too.
On the website nj.com, Stan Goldstein listed the songs played in the concert. As advertised, Bruce sang the entire set of songs from the album “Born to Run”, as well as some other songs. At one point, he took requests from the crowd, who gave him requests on large cardboard signs. He collected many of the signs, and then picked out four songs.
1. Outlaw Pete
2. Prove It All Night
3. Hungry Heart (crowd surf)
4. Working On a Dream
5. Thunder Road
6. Tenth Ave Freeze-Out
7. Night
8. Backstreets
9. Born To Run
10. She's The One
11. Meeting Across The River
12. Jungleland
13. Waitin' On A Sunny Day
14. Stand On It (tour premiere, request)
15. Seven Nights To Rock (request)
16. Growin' Up (request)
17. Pink Cadillac (request)
18. Lonesome Day
19. The Rising
20. Badlands
Encores:
21. Hard Times
22. No Surrender
23. American Land
24. Dancing In The Dark
25. Rosalita
26. Higher & Higher
The Washington Post review of the concert, along with great photos of the concert. I was also interested in many of the reader comments on the Washington Post review page.
The show ended at 11:00 p.m.; it lasted almost three hours, nonstop. By comparison, the Face2Face concert lasted three hours, with Billy Joel singing one hour, Elton John singing one hour, and the two singing together for an hour.
The Wikipedia article notes that Bruce was noted for great performances, and this performance was no exception. It was incredible. In his long career, he has sold approximately 125 million albums. By comparison, Elton John has sold about 200 million albums and Billy Joel about 100 million. Bruce’s “Born in the USA” sold 15 million albums, one of the greatest selling albums of all time.
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