Man of the People
Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band certainly know how to put on a show - and they did so last night with a vengeance at Hampden Park in Glasgow with a wonderful mixture of musical talent, a gift for engaging with their audience and a high energy performance which belied their leader's age - which he told us was 63.
That's the first time I've ever seen Bruce Springsteen live and I have to say his set nearly blew me away - along with everyone else in stadium which was bouncing to the sound of rock n roll at its very best - delivered with enormous good humour which marks Bruce Springsteen out as a real 'man of the people' unlike some rock superstars you could name.
For a while I couldn't take my eyes off Steve Van Zandt, one of the E Street Band's lead guitarists, as I saw him not so much as a skilled musician - but the star of the quirky Norwegian based TV series Lillyhammer which told the unlikely, yet very funny, tale of a New York Mafia Boss who flees to Scandanavia under a witness protection programme.
Steve Van Zandt also played the mournful-looking Mafia boss of the Bada Bing Club in The Sopranos for many years - and if he's going to get typecast, then it's probably just as well that he's got a larger than life personality to go with the characters he plays these days.
Nils Lofgren was in the E Street line up too - another world renowned guitarist who played with Neil Young on his unforgettable 'After The Goldrush' album - along with a host of other not so well-known names and faces (to me anyway) who all came together to produce an unbelievable wall of sound for many of their numbers.
The whole gig lasted almost three and a half hours with hardly a pause for breath, never mind a break, as one memorable tune followed another - interspersed with Bruce Springsteen working the crowd in his own inimitable way - which included dancing with Hazel (and her daughter), a 'duelling guitars' scene with another young woman who was also invited up on to the stage.
Perhaps best of all was the exquisite moment when a young teenager was invited by the great man himself to take Bruce Springsteen's own microphone - and pick up on his rendition of 'Waitin' On A Sunny Day' which he did with great aplomb before the E Street Band kicked back in again - to wild cheers from the crowd.
So it was a fabulous spectacle which featured many of the great hits from Springsteen's back catalogue - though best of all, I thought, was his version of 'Shout' which tipped his hat warmly to Glasgow being a breakthrough song for Lulu all those years ago back in the 1960s.
