Waitin' On A Sunny Day: Springsteen at the Etihad 22/6/12

So this was it. As excited as I was to be seeing Pearl Jam, this was the gig I had been obsessing over the most: my chance to see the hard rockin', heart stoppin', pants droppin', booty shakin', Viagra takin', earth quakin', history makin', legendary E Street Band.

I'd spent an inordinate amount of time before the gig listening to the bootlegs of Bruce's tour (check out maury6811 on Youtube, he uploads tonnes) and so I was excited beyond words for this gig.

My excitement was tempered a little bit on the day by two things: 1) the awful weather arriving at the venue which I was stood in waiting for the doors to open (thankfully this cleared up for the most part when the show started) and 2) the blue wristband bullshit.

Basically you couldn't get right near the front of the stage unless you had arrived at the venue at ridiculous o' clock in the morning and collected a blue wristband from the event staff, the idea being you were rewarded for waiting by getting near the stage. This was of no consolation to myself and the thousands of us who got to the venue about an hour before doors opened, completely unaware that this was going on.
So I wasn't at the very front of the crowd (so Bruce wouldn't be walking past me on the walkways they'd built), but I got as far to the front of the crowd as I could and managed to get a very good view of centre stage.

So I'll end my rant there and get to the gig.

As soon as the band came out - Bruce taking to the stage last to omnipresent cries of "Brooooooooce!" from the audience - and we got that oh-so familiar count-in ("one-two-three-fouwwah!") followed by Professor Roy Bittan tinkling the ivories for the opening to "Badlands", all my misgivings about the weather and the blue wristbands were forgotten and I felt completely at home.

There are three rules of thumb one may note about Springsteen gigs.
The first is when in Europe, he'll play more stuff from "Born In The USA" than usual (I'm aware of the irony). This was the case here, with "No Surrender" being a particularly nice surprise early on, and later on the encore included probably the best version of "Dancing In The Dark" I've heard the band do, Jake Clemons' (nephew of the late great Clarence "Big Man" Clemons) sax solo in particular being fantastic.

We were also treated to a great bit of audience interaction during the latter: one girl in the crowd had a sign asking to dance with Jake, so Bruce pulled her out of the crowd to grant her wish. Not to be outdone, however, Bruce hilariously found himself a young woman in a Union Jack onesie to dance with himself.

The second rule one tends to find is that when in Britain, Bruce will play more songs from "The River" than usual. Once again this proved true. Watching the screens behind the band on stage, you could see women in tears during the band's rendition of the title track. On the other end of the scale, Bruce and Steve's chatter during "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)" drew lots of laughs.

Bruce: "It's on channels 92 to 100, I've seen it! They have numbers scrolling along the bottom!" 
Steve: "Oh you better not look."
Bruce: "Oh You can look!"
Steve: "You better not even look!"
Bruce: "You can look. You can call in!! But you caaaaaaan't touch."

On a personal note I was just delighted they played "Out In The Street".
 

The final rule is that you can tell how much faith Bruce has in his new album by how prominent the songs from the album are in the set. So it seems that Bruce is pretty chuffed with "Wrecking Ball" (which he has every right to be) on the evidence of this night.

It might be in part down to the fact that the title track and "Land Of Hope And Dreams" have been played live years before the record was released, but with the likes of the Irish jig of "Death To My Hometown", the sombre, resilient "Jack Of All Trades" (which got a big cheer for the line "if I had me a gun, I'd find the bastards and shoot 'em on sight" in reference to the bankers) and the rousing "We Are Alive" I never felt robbed out of one of one of the older classics when he played the new stuff.

One more thing you need to understand about Bruce is this: the man is inhuman! The stamina he has is just incredible. This gig went 3 and a quarter hours, and they played it all pretty much straight with little or no breaks. The gap between the band leaving stage for the end of the main set and walking back on for the encore was barely a minute. AND THE MAN IS 63!!! Just incredible.

In my favourite bit of the gig, after "Dancing In The Dark", Bruce feigned exhaustion and lay down on the stage hugging his guitar like a pillow. This leads to Steve stalking Bruce with a wringing wet sponge to revive him. The looks on both their faces during this exchange were just hilarious! "Ah Manchester, you tired me out already!" claimed Bruce.

Still, there was time during "My City Of Ruins" to conduct the band roll call and say hello. There's nothing like an E Street Band roll call, it's both humorous (he informed us wife Patti was back home "keepin' the kids outta them drugs" and that any red-headed English women should keep back because he misses her!) and spirited, touching upon the much missed organist Dan Federci and saxophonist Clarence Clemons ("if you're here, and we're here, then they're here").
He also informed us he'd learnt a lot since last visiting Manchester: "I've learnt that there are TWO football teams in Manchester! And one of them has just... eh, I'm not going into it."

I was also unbelievably lucky to be seeing the band on a night when they played so many of my favourites. "Spirit In The Night", my favourite song from his debut, stands out in my mind in particular. Being there to hear that song was like a religious experience.
Seeing "Atlantic City" make an appearance was a very pleasant surprise, with Soozie Tyrell's violin becoming the focus of the song instead of Bruce's harmonica like on the record. So when they immediately followed that up by playing the '78 version of "Prove It All Night", with Roy and Bruce playing the extended intro, I was ecstatic.

The biggest surprise though was the appearance of "Save My Love" and "The Promise" in the set, which left me a very happy bunny indeed since I got into Bruce because of "The Promise" as I've mentioned in an earlier entry.

By the end of the show, with the band's infamous version of "Twist And Shout" (referred to as "the stadium-breaker" after a crack was discovered in a venue in Sweden after the band played the song there) ringing out through the stadium, I was wishing the night didn't have to end, I could listen to the band play all day long. They'd probably be able to play that long at a stretch too!
Alas, the show had to end at some point. At the finale's end one of the blokes I was stood with shook my hand and congratulated me on my first Springsteen gig, which felt like a bit of a right of passage. Here's hoping it won't be the last Springsteen gig I go to!


At this point, I shall bid you adieu, and leave you with the full set from the show.
See you soon!

Setlist

1. Badlands
2. No Surrender
3. We Take Care Of Our Own
4. Wrecking Ball
5. Death to My Hometown
6. My City of Ruins
7. Spirit in the Night
8. The E Street Shuffle
9. Jack of All Trades
10. Atlantic City
11. Prove It All Night (78 Intro)
12. Two Hearts
13. You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)
14. Darlington County
15. Shackled and Drawn
16. Waitin' on a Sunny Day
17. Save My Love
18. The Promise
19. The River
20. The Rising
21. Out in the Street
22. Land of Hope and Dreams
    Encore:
23. We Are Alive
24. Thunder Road
25. Born to Run
26. Bobby Jean
27. Cadillac Ranch
28. Dancing in the Dark
29. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
30. Twist and Shout

Playlist (courtesy of maury6811)

Pearl Jam, Manchester Arena 20th - 21st June

Right, it's been far too long since I've done this and a LOT has happened since I last payed any attention to this blog, so I'm just going to steam-roller through things and see how far I get.

With exams, and as a result my degree, finally coming to an end, I thought I'd tick two of my favourite acts ever off my gigging bucket list: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band and Pearl Jam. I'll get to Bruce later, for now let's talk Pearl Jam.

The band were only due to play one date at the MEN, making a passing visit to the area before heading to the Isle of Wight Festival the following weekend, but tickets were going fast and all standing places went in the presales (the bane of my life!), so they decided to stick around and play the next night too. I wound up at both (more on that in a bit) and was in the seats at the back both nights - the second night's seats were much better, you were practically at eye-level with the stage.

Night 1 - June 20th

This set was probably more heavy on the "hits" than the following nights with seven songs coming from their bazillion selling debut "Ten", but it still had it's quirks.

For instance, the band opened with "Release", a move which I always though was a brave one being one of their slower numbers. But after watching Cameron Crowe's documentary on the band, "PJ20" it's a choice that makes a lot more sense to me than it used to: essentially it's a statement of intent from the band that tonight they are open and at our will.

Certainly lead singer Eddie Vedder reflected that when addressing the audience. "How are you?", he asks, "It's a weird question to ask collectively, but we mean it individually, how is everyone tonight?".

While the closing strains of "Release" still ring around the arena, Ed tosses his jacket to the floor and you know business is about to pick up. This leads to an opening flurry that is just home run after home run: "Do The Evolution", "Corduroy", "The Fixer" and "Given To Fly" are all riotous singalongs. 

Things get more earnest with "...Small Town" (my favourite ballad they've ever done) and "Pilate" as Ed reflects on the band's history in Manchester: "We first played here in July 1991, we played ten songs, that was all we knew... we know a lot more now!"

At various points in the night I'm also left in complete awe of lead guitarist Mike McCready, who's riffs completely swallow up the arena, particularly on "Even Flow" and "Immortality". 

In a cool moment, Ed held the back of his guitar up to one of the overhead spotlights to shine some light on the audience, although choosing to do this during "1/2 Full", a cut from probably their least popular album "Riot Act", I couldn't help but think he was just checking to see who'd gone for a piss break.

The crowd really start to get boisterous after "Insignificance" though, and are still raucous by the time "Why Go" finishes the main set.

We're then treated to two encores, the first of which sees Eddie stroll out, bottle of wine in hand ("I've been trying to get in shape for this tour, they say a bottle of red wine a day keeps the doctor at bay... Oh shit, it's just a glass? Fuck that!") for the beautiful "Just Breathe", which is followed by "Black". 

I was really thrilled to hear the latter. Never having had a really bad break up myself I didn't know why that song struck such a chord with me until I read the "PJ20" book, and Ed had this to say about the inspiration behind the song:

"I've heard it said that you can't really have a true love unless it was a love unrequited. It's a harsh one, because then your truest one is the one you can't have forever."

Seeing that hit me like a tonne of bricks.

The second encore similarly starts off gentle with "Betterman" (the band's masterpiece in my book) before sending us home in thrilling style with their cover of Neil Young's "Rockin' In The Free World". And with that I was sent home a very happy bunny indeed.   

Night 2 - June 21st

...except that on the way home I couldn't help but thinking about the songs they DIDN'T play and knowing the band's reputation for changing set lists each time they play (especially for residencies at one venue) I just knew I had to go see them the next night too. Luckily the arena box office still had one for me the afternoon of the gig.

Boy was I glad I went to this show too! The moment the band came out to "Go" (the opener of my favourite album of theirs, "Vs.") I knew I would be vindicated in my decision. By my count only four songs were kept from the previous night.

As I expected this set contained a tad more fad service than the first night. I was particularly please to hear "No Code" tracks "Hail Hail", "Lukin", "Present Tense" and "Off He Goes". Other welcome additions to the set were "Down" (my favourite of their B-sides), "Amongst The Waves" and "Save You" (my favourite songs from their respective albums).

Eddie didn't have quite so much "banter" for us this time, but early in the set remarked that the audience already had more energy "than all those bankers and accountants we got last night" which was pretty funny.

We also got a first from the band: in honour of all of Manchester's record firsts (home of the first computer, being the place where they first split the atom and several more which Ed read off a sheet of paper he had!) the band played rarity "Hitchhiker" for the first time ever.

I think looking at the two set lists now, it seems like the first night was the better night, but I remember feeling that the second night was the better of the two after I came out of the venue. So I guess I'm split over which set I preferred. Nevertheless they were both magnificent gigs and I'm really grateful I was able to go to both.

Safe to say, the bar had been set very high indeed for Bruce the next night. But, as I'll discuss in my next blog, boy did he live up to them!

See you soon.