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.

 

 

 

July 15, 2003 Giants Stadium, New Jersey

 

 

When the summer 2003 stadium shows were announced in March of this year, the initial announcement was for 7 shows during the month of July at Giants Stadium. Most of the big stadiums in the US averaged 1-3 announced shows per city but due to overwhelming demand, there wound up being a total of 10 shows in Jersey, with 3 added at the end of August.  

So it was with a lot of excitement that Ralph & me headed over the George Washington Bridge for opening night of the NJ run. In recognition of his humble musical beginnings on the Jersey shore, the parking lot outside of the Stadium had an area set up to replicate the old Asbury Park boardwalk scene. This included a live band stage setup, a carnival, sausage and hoagie stands and boardwalk with real sand. The only thing missing was the ocean! 

Besides the excitement of being opening night, I would say the highlight of the show was the opening number. Bruce had the guts to walk out in front of 55,000 fans alone with an acoustic slide guitar to play a hard to recognize version of “Born In The USA”. I say he had guts because most of the audience had expected the entire band to open with “The Rising” but instead we were confounded with this opening. The low point was also the opening number because these were the worst seats that I had for the 2003 shows, stage opposite and about 20 rows from the very top of the Stadium.  

Nonetheless, the remainder of the show was more than satisfying and we did manage to weasel our way to at least being on the side of the stage, albeit still well up in the nosebleed section.