It was announced many months ago, we were looking for a fun summer concert to punctuate the season so we got our tickets and made our plans and finally last weekend the date came around. Bruce Springsteen was in town. (Not our actual town, but Auckland was closer than Christchurch.)
Now, some of you will remember, we saw Springsteen back in 2014 - almost on a whim in a way. That show was so incredible that we hardly thought twice about going again.
So, with friends we drove up to Auckland on Friday (when it's five hours away, we usually don't consider going the day of a concert!). At least we found some things to keep us busy Friday night - a food truck market for dinner and a free outdoor screening of the Richie McCaw story, Chasing Great.
The movie was great and it was pretty inspiring to see that he wasn't necessarily considered the fastest or the best but that he was determined, focused and knew how to use attitude to get where he wanted to be. I definitely recommend it if you can find it. (If you aren't into the All Blacks, it might be slightly less interesting but still good anyways.)
A beer and pizza stop fuelled us up and away we went. This was the first time our friends had seen The Boss. Two openings acts were on the bill (both were great - Marlon Williams and Jet). The sun was beating down like mad so we managed to find some shady seats in the section our tickets were in - nobody was sitting there on account of it being the top left corner at the very back but there was shade. (And our tickets were in the top middle of the very back so I don't think we were shortchanging ourselves by much!)
The plan was to just stay there until the shade reached our seats but we stayed the whole show instead - our actual section was packed and I was definitely making use of the dancing space we had around us!
Now, really, you can't fault a Springsteen show. Talented musicians, playing music that has been a part of so many peoples' history with a deep passion is always going to be amazing. The disclaimer is that the 2014 show was just SUCH a great show that perhaps this slightly subdued version was bound to rate second. We noticed he didn't seem to have as many backup singers or horns along this time.
I still didn't sit down much at all, grooving and shaking away all night. They played for just about 3 hours but in some ways you could feel that it was the last stop of the tour (i.e. a little lack of energy - not compared to anyone but Bruce himself since we'd seen him just rocking out last time.) They didn't interact with the crowd in the same way and I think only one song had people invited up on stage.
Honestly I do think the crowd was a factor - they didn't seem to be as engaged and excited which I'm sure plays a role. And some of the sing alongs he encouraged were a little sub-par in that the crowd couldn't keep the lyrics going on half of them! And there didn't seem to be very many signs!
I still had a blast, there were some songs we hadn't heard last time and I've found some new favourites too. A couple brought emotional tears but in a good way. Setlist here! I would still definitely go again and I still find he's such a great artist and performer. We're lucky to have witnessed their show twice now!
Here's one little video I took - at the very end of the show - it's the only without us singing and too-fast-moving angles...
Good ol' Youtube has already got a full video of the concert up in case you care to watch:
Now, some of you will remember, we saw Springsteen back in 2014 - almost on a whim in a way. That show was so incredible that we hardly thought twice about going again.
So, with friends we drove up to Auckland on Friday (when it's five hours away, we usually don't consider going the day of a concert!). At least we found some things to keep us busy Friday night - a food truck market for dinner and a free outdoor screening of the Richie McCaw story, Chasing Great.
The movie was great and it was pretty inspiring to see that he wasn't necessarily considered the fastest or the best but that he was determined, focused and knew how to use attitude to get where he wanted to be. I definitely recommend it if you can find it. (If you aren't into the All Blacks, it might be slightly less interesting but still good anyways.)
 |
| And the weather was perfect for it! |
On Saturday we caught up with our friend's cousin and also visited Kmart (yep, we get excited about that now since we only have a couple department stores in New Plymouth and neither of them are Kmart so it's good to have another option.)
A beer and pizza stop fuelled us up and away we went. This was the first time our friends had seen The Boss. Two openings acts were on the bill (both were great - Marlon Williams and Jet). The sun was beating down like mad so we managed to find some shady seats in the section our tickets were in - nobody was sitting there on account of it being the top left corner at the very back but there was shade. (And our tickets were in the top middle of the very back so I don't think we were shortchanging ourselves by much!)
The plan was to just stay there until the shade reached our seats but we stayed the whole show instead - our actual section was packed and I was definitely making use of the dancing space we had around us!
 |
| Born to Run got everyone on their feet finally! |
Now, really, you can't fault a Springsteen show. Talented musicians, playing music that has been a part of so many peoples' history with a deep passion is always going to be amazing. The disclaimer is that the 2014 show was just SUCH a great show that perhaps this slightly subdued version was bound to rate second. We noticed he didn't seem to have as many backup singers or horns along this time.
I still didn't sit down much at all, grooving and shaking away all night. They played for just about 3 hours but in some ways you could feel that it was the last stop of the tour (i.e. a little lack of energy - not compared to anyone but Bruce himself since we'd seen him just rocking out last time.) They didn't interact with the crowd in the same way and I think only one song had people invited up on stage.
Honestly I do think the crowd was a factor - they didn't seem to be as engaged and excited which I'm sure plays a role. And some of the sing alongs he encouraged were a little sub-par in that the crowd couldn't keep the lyrics going on half of them! And there didn't seem to be very many signs!
I still had a blast, there were some songs we hadn't heard last time and I've found some new favourites too. A couple brought emotional tears but in a good way. Setlist here! I would still definitely go again and I still find he's such a great artist and performer. We're lucky to have witnessed their show twice now!
Here's one little video I took - at the very end of the show - it's the only without us singing and too-fast-moving angles...
Good ol' Youtube has already got a full video of the concert up in case you care to watch:
Then of course since I've been a fiend listening constantly since the show - yay to working from home - I also found the recording from the 2014 show we went to. (Some of the video clips of the show are awesome, but I didn't find a full video so this is just the audio.) You'll hear the difference :)
Sigh. So it's come and gone and at the moment there's no upcoming concert to look forward to. The inevitable letdown after a good thing... but we know there will be more good coming at some point. For now, I'll just have to keep fiending on the recordings...
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