The Fat Angel Sings

There are so many triumphant moments built into Bruce Springsteen’s performance of “The River” that Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden. Before this tour, Springsteen and the E Street Band had only played all of “The River” once before, at The Garden in 2009 during a run of album-themed concerts.

Doing it now — all 20 songs — is a testament to how well it was made in 1980 and how well it has held up over the years. On January 27th at Madison Square Garden, Bruce Springsteen prefaced the E Street Band’s performance of his 1980 album, The River, by saying, “I wanted the record to contain fun, dancing, laughter, jokes, good comradeship, love, sex, faith, lonely nights, and teardrops.” Over the course of the next three hours, Springsteen and the band would provide all of the above, and then some.
It’s also a testament to how great the E Street Band was then and how great it is now. Van Zandt was thrilling throughout the night, offering call-and-response vocals or well-worn harmonies, while also offering metaphorical support. When Van Zandt pounds on Springsteen’s chest with his free hand during “Two Hearts,” it’s like best- man back-up for the love song, but also confirmation that “two hearts are better than one.”

As the sounds of “Big Boss Man” by the Pretty Things resounded from the loudspeakers a little after 8 p.m., the band took the stage in pairs, followed by the Boss himself, guitar aloft, greeting the crowd. House lights still on, E Street kicked into “Meet Me in the City,” an outtake from the 1980 River sessions included on the recent box set (The Ties That Bind: The River Collection).

“Hello, snowbound New York!” Bruce greeted the audience at the song’s conclusion, as the house lights came down. “Did you survive the blizzard?” he asked. “This is kind of a special night: The River was a record where I was trying to figure out where I fit in,” Springsteen continued, offering a brief introduction about the album before counting off its first track, “The Ties That Bind.” As advertised on the ticket, this tour’s main event is “Full The River Plus!,” or the performance of the entire River album from end to end with a selection of greatest hits rounding out the evening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohd50FuO7f0

That was proven even when Springsteen blew the opening of “I Wanna Marry You” twice, forgetting that he and Van Zandt had worked out a gorgeous extended opening. “Sometimes the tightest band in the world ,” said Springsteen, later adding, “Didn’t want to leave that out.”

The push and pull between party anthems like the Stones-drenched “Crush on You” and the wrenching ballads like “Stolen Car” and “Independence Day” has only grown stronger over the years.

It was as if the crowd was transported back to 1980, when Springsteen was fierier and more straightforward in his writing and delivery. The crowd sang the opening verse of “Hungry Heart” effortlessly without prompting, a reminder of how potent Springsteen’s first Top 5 single still is. That nostalgic feeling was amplified by Jake Clemons’ saxophone solo, which replaced the organ solo of the original.

The only nod to the present during the first half of the show was his reference to the blizzard that led to his Sunday concert being postponed to March 28th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR-RnN7jRpo

“Point Blank,” the thirteenth song in the set, an intense tale of lost love and bad decisions, but that wasn’t due to the performance onstage. While audience chatter during the quieter numbers was at Saturday-night-bar level, Springsteen and the E Street Band still executed magnificent versions of their most difficult and challenging material: “Stolen Car,” an utterly bleak tale of hopelessness, was delivered with tremendous pathos and depth; “Fade Away,” a slight, country-flavored number, was presented with perfect, delicate timing that made you want to hold your breath; and the grand, rolling rendition of “The Price You Pay” saw Roy Bittan commanding the performance behind the grand piano.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ_YaeGHZUQ

In the final part of the three-hour show, Springsteen showed how his writing had grown deeper and more layered since “The River,” especially on the stirring “Wrecking Ball,” which he sped up and extended, leading the crowd in a lengthy loop of “Hard times come and hard times go.” That was followed by another recent anthem of shaking off setbacks, “The Rising.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p-4I-y980I

Springsteen then shifted in party mode, rolling from “Thunder Road” to “Born to Run” to “Dancing in the Dark.” By then the house lights were up and the crowd at the sold-out Garden could see everyone else was as giddy as they were, shouting along and pumping their fists with teenage abandon.

Springsteen didn’t stop there, bringing out his good-time anthem “Rosalita” and pairing it with a raucous version of The Isley Brothers’ “Shout” that brought the house down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQrUoxaN344

But an undeniable highlight of the evening was the breathtaking, heartrending “Drive All Night,” where Springsteen swore, “I’ll drive all night/just to buy you some shoes/and to taste your tender charms.” In that moment, every woman in the Garden wanted to be the recipient of that ardor, and the men wanted to be brave enough to say that to someone. As your heart grew three sizes larger, Jake Clemons stepped into the center spotlight to play the sax solo with a warmth and majesty that the crowd cheered with glee, and that would have made his uncle, the late E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons, proud.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukc46eQcONo

The crowd’s response seemed surprisingly uneven during the album set. At moments like “Sherry Darling,” “Hungry Heart,” or “The River,” the Garden echoed like the world’s largest Springsteen karaoke night. But at others — even fun numbers like “Crush on You” or “I’m a Rocker” — Springsteen had to work extra-hard, heading out into the crowd a second time (after his first sortie to crowdsurf during “Hungry Heart”) to get any reaction during the latter. He would also have to exhort the crowd, “Shake your booty!” at the beginning of “Ramrod,” a song that is, literally, about shaking one’s booty. (Bruce himself would bust some moves that looked suspiciously like the Robot during the song.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_c_Ck38jk0

At the end of the album performance, Springsteen would acknowledge the band, and the moment, before noting that he was going to keep playing, diving straight into “She’s the One” from 1975’s Born to Run. The crowd’s reaction was akin to a rocket being launched, loud and raucous and immediate, the complete opposite of what it had been during the album set. This energy level would only increase through the rest of the show, which in Springsteen-land translates into “another 11 songs.”

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band have officially extended their current US tour and will extend the tour over to Europe! These have been recently talked about and highly rumored, now we finally have confirmation. We have also heard that the band may be coming back to the United States for a round of stadium shows after their European leg so be on the lookout for more info on that. Below are the official tour dates just released by The Boss himself along with their on sale dates and times. We also have added to the list the make-up date for the recently cancelled Madison Square Garden show which will be March 28.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzsdpfz2B1U