Gig review: Bruce Springsteen brings curtain down on triumphant three nights in Dublin
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band on stage during one of their concerts at the RDS in Dublin. Picture: Andres Poveda
He came, he had a jar in the Long Hall and a Burdock’s supper, and he conquered. The faithful - and Springsteen entertained close to 120,000 of us across three euphoric nights in the RDS - will be talking about this Ballsbridge residency for a long time to come. There’s no getting around it; Bruce Springsteen is the greatest live performer there is. In terms of showmanship and soul, the others just aren’t at the races.
Even the weather made nice for The Boss, despite his pleas to “Let It Rain” during ‘Mary’s Place’. There was a massive thunder storm in Dublin on Monday evening but that was just nature getting all that messing out of its system on Springsteen’s night off. Yes, there were a few showers before he came on Tuesday evening but you wouldn’t even call that rain and nobody cared anyhow.
Bruce maintained his good skin credentials by dropping in on Shane MacGowan, checking for distant relations in Kildare, taking a look at the Book Of Kells, and dedicating a beautiful ‘Land Of Hope And Dreams’ to Charlie Bird on Friday night. If he was acknowledging his own mortality in poignant readings of ‘Last Man Standing’, dedicated to fallen friends, and ‘I’ll See You In My Dreams’ (“Death is not the end”) then the blockbusting encore blast of ‘Born To Run’, ‘Glory Days’ and the heart-melting ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out’ stood as defiant hymns to youth that the passing of time cannot tarnish.
For us hopeless cases who togged out more than once there was occasional variation in the set lists. Sunday night’s attendees missed out on the timeless wonder of ‘Thunder Road’, as the man himself who stood back and let us serenade him although they did hear his immortal howl during ‘Darkness On The Edge Of Town’ and got to dance a wild jig to ‘Pay Me My Money Down’. On Tuesday we got a tour first ‘Something In The Night’ and a run at Jimmy Cliff’s ‘Trapped’.
As exceptional as every second of the first two shows were, Tuesday’s performance was, probably, the greatest I’ve ever seen by anybody. When you weren’t jumping up and down and grinning like a fool you were nodding thanks to the man who delivered again on what he’s always promised; rock'n'roll as a life-affirming celebration.
You wouldn’t bet any kind of serious money on it but if this was the final Irish hurrah for the mighty E Street Band then they’ve gone out on an almost impossible high. We were blessed to be there.
