Broooooce

I love the Bruce Springsteen of Nebraska and The Ghost Of Tom Joad. And I’d love to see him play a bar or club. But that’s not likely to happen. So I had to settle for seeing him at the Emirates Stadium on Friday.

Despite the best efforts of Islington council and not-in-my-backyard local residents to fuck with the sound system, the muffled sound although irritating did not diminish the gig. What’s the matter with these miserable bastards ? – If I lived next door to the Emirates I’d ask them to turn it up to 11.

I don’t think there is any other performer – let alone a 58 year old one - who could work an audience for three solid hours as Bruce does. And so obviously enjoy ever minute of it.

Of course here’s the contradiction about Bruce – in many ways he is the consummate stadium performer, but in another sense, in his lyrics and in the passion shared with the crowd, he is the anti-star, an everyman.

A fantastic evening marred only by the heavy handedness of the fuck-wit boys in blue who decided that because the gig was in a football stadium, we should be treated like a football crowd after the concert. Thanks to being corralled around North London by the police, our twenty minute journey home became an hour and a half.