Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band

The Rising 2002-2003

After 14 months of traveling around the world with the E Street Band, Bruce Springsteen concluded "The Rising” world tour concluded with 3 sold out shows in New York’s Shea Stadium on October 1st, 3rd & 4th. Not surprisingly to some of you dear readers, this concert reviewer was in attendance for the tour opener on August 7 2002 in New Jerseys Continental Arena, the tour closer at Shea on October 4^th and another 7 shows in between.

Sure, this may seem to be way overkill even for die-hard rock and roll fans but I figure that if some of my peers can attend as much baseball, hockey or football games in the same period of time than who’s to say? So I will take this opportunity to review,  what for me were the highlights and low points of these 9 concerts.

 

August 30, 2003 Giants Stadium New Jersey 

 

One of the things that was clearly demonstrated on this stadium tour was the apparent and extended appeal of Bruce & the E Street Band. It is probably also due to the aging process but I was impressed by how many families had attended the July concerts. I had seen kids as young as 2 or 3 years old with their parents and the only real negative I see about this is the volume on these still developing eardrums.

So it was bearing this appeal in mind when I had come to the determination that this show was the best opportunity to introduce my then 10 year old daughter Julia to live rock & roll. Who better to baptize, revitalize, mesmerize and hypnotize my kids with rock & roll than the Boss (you all know the answer, NOBODY!)?

An unexpected opening with a Born In The USA era “b” side single, a country tinged song called Janey, Don’t You Lose Heart was only recognized by us hard core fans. In fact, the entire evening was leaning acoustically as Bruce introduced Emmy Lou Harris to the audience in support of a true relic known as Across The Border. Another country-ish song played tonight was This Hard Land (very Wood Guthrie’ish, this one is) which led into an old number that Steve Van Zandt used to play with Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes called Raise Your Hands (and we sure did!).

The last acoustic nod was a lovely song from Tracks called Pretty Flamingos. Also during tonight's show was the first song I’ve seen Bruce do from the early 90’s albums called Human Touch and Lucky Town. These 2 albums did not have the E Street Band on the recordings so seeing them do Roll Of The Dice was something of a treat.

In all, Julia probably would have liked a few more songs from the Rising but even for the cool cucumber that she is, I could tell that she really enjoyed this concert. There really is no feeling like being in New Jersey when Bruce turns up the house lights and blows the state away with Born To Run!