Badlands
No Surrender
We Take Care Of Our Own
Wrecking Ball
Death to My Hometown
My City of Ruins
Spirit in the Night
The E Street Shuffle
Jack of All Trades
Atlantic City
Prove It All Night
(78 Intro)
Two Hearts
You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)
Darlington County
Shackled and Drawn
Waitin' on a Sunny Day
Save My Love
The Promise
(solo piano)
The River
The Rising
Out in the Street
Land of Hope and Dreams
Encore:
We Are Alive
Thunder Road
Born to Run
Bobby Jean
Cadillac Ranch
Dancing in the Dark
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Twist and Shout
WOW WOW WOW WOW!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT A SHOW!!!!
The trip down to manchester was horrendous on Friday, thank goodness Iain was driving because I would have just pulled onto the hard shoulder and cried! The road, the sky, the spray were all the same colour it was awful and the rain just didnt stop.
What should have been a 20 minute journey to the stadium from our family in Sale took us about an hour and a half, but we made it Frosty......just, with me in borrowed wellies, to the opening bars of Badlands.
Bruce made a tribute to Clarence just before "My city of Ruins", he was saying over and over to louder and louder cheers "are we missing anybody tonight".....it was all really emotional. The crowd were all cheering Clarence!!
His son Jake was playing sax and what a welcome. I don't know how he held it together.....I didn't
When they played Tenth Avenue Freeze out, and the lyrics came round to "when the big man joined the band", the music stopped dead and there followed a two minute montage of photos on the big screen with 60,000 fans applauding the great Clarence Clemons!! Then they just started right back to the bit of the song they had stopped at. I get goosebumps even thinking about it!! It was quite incredible.
Earlier in the show Bruce pulled a girl out the crowd who was holding up a sign saying "I want to dance with Jake". She came on stage and danced while he played sax. He also pulled out a girl wearing a union jack "onesie" out who was hugging him and made Bruce take a bow with her. He was in fits of giggles. Also as I've seen done before, he picked out a wee one in the audience singing along to "Waiting on a sunny day".
The new album stuff is just amazingly good live.....I have been humming "Wrecking Ball" ever since. The brass section instrumental with it was great. Nils Lofgren's guitar solo at "Jack of all trades".....another WOW!!
Iain's favourite has always been "Land of hope and dreams" and it didn't disappoint.
This was another reminder of what a showman The Boss is. At nearly 63 to get on stage and play for 3 and a half hours solid while grinning from ear to ear and looking like you are enjoying every single minute is just joyful.
The last time he played Manchester, Bruce played at Old Trafford and when he eventually stopped playing after 5 songs to greet the crowd he said "I've learned so much since I was last here in Manchester. I have learned that there are 2 football teams in Mannchester and i heard one of them just........no......I won't go there...."
The Manchester evening news said he "launched into My City of Ruins" Launched is the right word as no performer ever does it quite like Springsteen for intensity of performance coupled with real meaning. He is the last of the big name protest singers, the consience for a nation as well as a storming rock n roller." They continued "As world recession bites the common man and leaves the well heeled untouched, Bruce is back with a vengeance, standing up for the ordinary Joe and singing of love, loss, destruction and hope. From the first song in the 3 and a half hour set when Eastlands became Badlands the masses were captivated. The refreshingly angry "Wrecking Ball" album was plundered in the first half of the gig. The album is a triumph and works beautifully live".
All hail the "Heart Stopping, Pants Dropping, Hard Rockin, History Making, Knee Shakin, Viagra Takin LEGENDARY E STREET BAND".......