Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band [18.07.2023: Ernst Happel Stadion, Wien]

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by Oliver on July 19, 2023 in Featured, Reviews

Stadium magic: Bruce Springsteen and his (exclusive the absent Patti Scialfa alongside proven tour members and other guest musicians grew to an 18-strong line-up) E Street Band honor (possibly even for the last time, as is speculated in some places?) on their first tour since 2017 also the Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna.

Soon to be celebrating his 74th birthday, the boss’s age is now a little noticeable in some of his movements – no matter how demonstratively and teasingly he can tear open the shirt of his rockabilly outfit and show his bare chest in the formal block of encores; placing his passionate performance in the soulful arms of a band that not a few will praise as the best of their kind; or unleash a joy of playing for almost three hours, the entertainment value of which you can’t even evade, if you possibly only made the pilgrimage to the Ernst Happel Stadium, which was sold out with more than 50,000 visitors, to witness an event character that doesn’t need any pyro scenes, staged sensationalism or other gimmicks, but instead relies without exception on the art of musically experienced exceptional talents who Stage 26 songs with a disarmingly overflowing amusement.

While the selection of the numbers repeatedly testifies to a latent nostalgia, sentimentality and melancholy in the face of transience (especially in the two quasi-acoustic solo pieces – the one that gets under your skin The Last Man Standingin which Bruce is accompanied by occasionally somewhat bumpy subtitles and later also Barry Danielian’s trumpet at the beginnings of the Castiles and the death of his former colleagues, as well as the weary Closer, which the audience, however, carefully supported I’ll See You in My Dreams; but also at the one commemorating Danny Federici and Big Man Clarence Clemons Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out) is another sign of the times: this time, Springsteen doesn’t rely on the unpredictability of a set list that varies daily, but instead plays more or less the same set list at every tour stop.
Without the exceptions that appear here and there that confirm the rule, Vienna is served a program that is to be expected in advance – but at no time does it feel like a rigid, routine duty: Where else mass processing would resonate, here more than a dozen impeccable craftsmen so obviously love what they do and, thanks to their unprecedented authenticity in this mega-frame, enjoy the thing, the spark jumps over immediately. How much joy of playing alone in Kitty’s Back is actually immeasurable.

In general, it is difficult if not impossible to pick out one’s personal highlights on an evening that one would like to go on forever.
Springsteen’s spine-tingling recitation in perfect, profundity gaining Backstreet? The hardly less uplifting soul (SOUL!) of the percussive one Nightshift including an outlaw Nils Lofgren? Or the massively driving drums in a duet She’s the One — before eccentric Steve Van Zandt in Working On The Highway or especially in the grandiose pose-breaking slapstick passage Glory Days, Dancing in the Dark and the the Born In the USA-Run introductory Bobby Jean can show why Silvio Dante the best possible lieutenant for his pal Bruce remains because those butt-wagging scenes might seem just too fake and latently ridiculous, but really everyone – on and off stage – has a blissful smile on their face?

The hands-on endorphins that make you feel merciless The Rising, Mary’s Place and Prove it All Night? Or rather the immortal hits like Born to Run along its brilliant horn section with a long-arrived (though still not officially in the fold) Jake Clemons? The one supported by the audience Thunder Road with all its universal emotional surface? The joy on the faces of young and old visitors, effectively captured by the camera department, when they grab picks or even a harmonica, while Bruce keeps walking to the front of the stage for direct audience interaction?

In fact, you don’t have to decide: Wherever the set manages without any real interruption, one fantastic moment blurs into the next, only the heavily exaggerated merch prices remain (which, however, require a tailor-made preparation for Depeche Mode next week) a negative downer, all the countless signs and posters brought along dance in an enthusiastically participating crowd, which is also served a really well-done sound and which is presented with a timelessly good show with a lot of momentum so motivated, so lively, fresh and motivated that one can only hope that this, almost 50 years after its foundation, still dictating the standards, is not actually the last tour of the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, love-making, earth-quaking, Viagra-taking, justifying, death-defying, legendary E Street Band and their hardworking, glorious leader, Springsteen.

Setlist:
No Surrender
Ghosts
Prove It All Night
Letter to You
The Promised Land
Out in the Street
Darlington County
Working on the Highway
Kitty’s Back
Nightshift
Mary’s Place
The River
Last Man Standing
Backstreets
Because the Night
She’s the One
Wrecking Ball
The Rising
Badlands
Thunder Road

Born to Run
Bobby Jean
Glory Days
Dancing in the Dark
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
I’ll See You in My Dreams

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