Has anyone on earth aged better than Bruce Springsteen? As the New Jersey rocker strides, fist pumps and swivels on stage tonight at Hyde Park, it’s a question I ask myself repeatedly. Apparently, The Boss is immune to the decades that have passed since he stormed out of the gate in 1973 with his debut album Greetings From Asbury Park. The elixir of life, it seems, is blue jeans, a good-guy grin and, most importantly, a down-home attitude that belies immense success.
Springsteen shows are the stuff of legend: epic, prodigious musical marathons that put the pedal to the metal and hold it there for three (sometimes four) hours. How and why after all these years, the musician, now 73, still wishes to put himself through such a physically gruelling set is a mystery but one that serves the 65,000 people in the crowd tonight well. From the moment he and the E Street Band arrive on stage promptly at 7pm, it’s a breathless race to the finish line. With a beat-up yellow guitar slung over his shoulder, Springsteen launches into the hard-won optimism of 1984’s “No Surrender” with that famous showman’s countdown of his (“Two, three, four!”) – and we’re off.
