Early on in a show that tops out close to three hours, Bruce Springsteen does a guitar solo. He is joined at the front of the stage by saxophonist Jake Clemons, the nephew of Springsteen’s late stage foil Clarence Clemons. Jake stares at Springsteen’s fingers, apparently gawping in amazement at the dexterity of his playing. Then he closes his eyes and rests his head on Springsteen’s shoulder as he continues playing.
It’s a small moment that seems to sum up the continued appeal of Springsteen when in the company of his most celebrated backing band. It’s simultaneously hokey – could it be rehearsed? – and, with its echo of the pose struck by Springsteen and Jake’s uncle on the cover of 1975’s Born to Run, oddly moving.
A careful balance between the knowingly hammy and the earnest is very much what the E Street Band live experience is about: tonight’s show encompasses both Springsteen ripping his shirt open and hysterically enquiring whether Edinburgh “believes in the faith and the power and the holiness of rock’n’roll and introducing an acoustic version of Last Man Standing with a heartfelt eulogy for a member of the band he joined as a teenager. And, like the sheer length of their sets and the stagey cross talk routine that Springsteen and guitarist Steven Van Zandt indulge in towards the end of their performance (“Stevie! I think it’s time to go home!” “I don’t wanna go home!”, etc etc) it loudly telegraphs the sensation that this band are still having the time of their lives on stage, 51 years into their career.
For all the world knows, it might be icy silences, decades-old resentments and bitter arguments about money all the way to the dressing rooms, but under the spotlights, they invariably give off the air of people who are there because they desperately want to be there, a bar band that can’t quite believe their luck to be playing a stadium, despite the fact that they’ve been playing stadiums since the early 80s. Solos are spun out on a lengthy version of Kitty’s Back – a jazz-rock outlier in Springsteen’s oeuvre, from 1974’s The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle – as if it’s their solitary chance to grab the limelight rather than a nightly occurrence. It could all be for real or it could be a shtick, but even if it’s the latter, it’s infectious.
Infectious enough to carry the audience through a gig that unspools from a breathless opening – one song after another, delivered without pause, the selection leaping between decades while keeping the intensity roaring – into stuff such as Kitty’s Back and a cover of the Commodores’ Nightshift that semi-successfully attempts to dig past the original’s slick 80s gloss and retrieve an old-fashioned gospel-soul song from beneath it. And quite possibly infectious enough to convert the less committed observer, despite the fact that the set really isn’t designed for the uncommitted. The first song familiar to anyone who only knows the hits arrives an hour and 45 minutes in with Because the Night. The smashes – Thunder Road, Born to Run, Dancing in the Dark – are reserved for the show’s conclusion, which makes the opening sound like a band gently pacing themselves. Born in the USA concludes with a frantic, climactic drum solo and crashing guitars, with Springsteen yelling encouragement at drummer Max Weinberg, as if he’s somehow fearful that Born in the USA wasn’t sufficiently rousing and anthemic to start off with.
Then again, you wonder if there’s anyone uncommitted, or who only knows the hits in attendance. The bellows of “Broooooce!” never abate regardless of whether he’s excavating Candy’s Room from the recesses of 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town or powering thorough Glory Days. As the night wears on, the stage-side screens cut from the band to the crowd ever more frequently. You’d expect both to look a little wilted, but they don’t: it’s difficult to know who looks more euphoric.
• Bruce Springsteen’s UK tour continues on 16 June at Villa Park, Birmingham
