Bruce Springsteen &The E Street Band
Cardiff Principality Stadium
With a show that even a total Springsteen-phobe would struggle not to enjoy, he demonstates that even at 74 he’s still The Boss.
★ “Cardiff!” Bruce Springsteen screams to 60,000 roaring fans in the Principality Stadium. “The E Street Band is here tonight to bring you the joyous power of rock‘n’roll! But we’re gonna need some help! We’re gonna need a lot of help! We’re gonna need a shitload of help!”
Let’s be honest. The 17-strong multi-guitar, highdecibel, kick-ass rock-gospel monster that is the E Street Band do not really need our help. But if you want to see old-school, PT Barnum showmanship on a big stage, Bruce is still The Boss, working a stadium audience even more shamelessly than Bono, James Hetfield or Taylor Swift. Kicking off a run of European tour dates delayed from last summer by stomach ulcer problems, Springsteen is on sharp and energised form, barely breaking sweat across three hours.
Lean of frame and gruff of voice, Springsteen can still pass for a decade younger than his 74 years, maybe even two. He soon slips into full testifying preacher mode in Cardiff, trading guitars licks and ragged harmonies with Stevie Van Zandt, who is dressed as ever like a piratical turtle. He high-fives the front row, dispensing hugs and harmonicas to beaming acolytes. But he seems a little more anchored than a decade ago, with less frenzied hurtling around the stage. A strong sense of mortality also runs through tonight’s set-list, particularly the latter half, with its tributes to fallen comrades and absent friends.
All the same, the overall mood in the stadium is one of communal euphoric uplift. This is a full-blooded rock’n’soul carnival that even a total Springsteen-phobe would struggle not to enjoy. You might start the evening playing sarcastic Bruce Bingo, with a checklist of familiar tropes – corny hymns to dying heartland towns, factory sweethearts, rivers, bridges, railway tracks, rowdy dive bars – but the sheer widescreen roar of the E Street Band at full tilt will soon stampede over any cynicism. These long-serving baby-boomer icons still make an almighty maximalist racket, a vast, rumbling Pop Art tidal wave that churns up an entire century of Americana: from Elvis to the Ramones, JFK to Barack Obama, John Steinbeck to Jim Steinman, The Supremes to The Sopranos, Phil Spector to Suicide, Bob Dylan to Eddie Vedder. Something for pretty much every taste here.
This tour coincides with Springsteen’s latest career-spanning greatest-hits album, so hard-core fans might take issue with a set-list that overlooks Streets Of Philadelphia, I’m On Fire, Girls In Their Summer
