BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

The debate was swirling through my head most of the day on Thursday. To go or not to go? Part of me said – I’ve recently seen him, tickets could be hard to find and I don’t want to put up with the traffic. The other part of me said – it was a really good show when you saw him last time, you know tickets won’t be that hard to come by and just deal with the traffic.

Bottom line – Bruce Springsteen is worth it. I paid well below face value for my ticket and the traffic really wasn’t. Plus, I really didn’t get back to my apartment that late in the evening.

"We're here with a mighty purpose in mind! We're gonna rock the house! But we're not only going to rock the house, we're going to build a house. We're going to take fear and build a house of love; we're going to take sadness and build a house of joy; we're going to take doubt and build a house of faith; we're going to take despair and build a house of hope."

And with those words, here’s how that house was rocked and built:

Badlands
Candy's Room
Outlaw Pete
No Surrender
Adam Raised A Cain
Working On A Dream
Seeds
Johnny 99
Youngstown
Raise Your Hand
Proud Mary
Growin' Up
Hungry Heart
Promised Land
The Wrestler
Backstreets
Bad Luck (with Mike Ness of Social Distortion)
Lonesome Day
The Rising
Born To Run
(Encore)
Hard Times
Thunder Road
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Land Of Hope And Dreams
American Land
Glory Days

I don’t know how he does it at 59 years old but his first song out the gate is as energetic as what most bands final song(s) would be. The minutes the lights go up on a Springsteen show it’s like getting shot out of a canon and that adrenaline rush doesn’t stop. On Thursday night that adrenaline rush lasted for 26 song, 2 .5-plus hour set! In fact, I was kind of tired by the end of the show and it wasn’t because I was out later than I normally would be.

There were so many highlights of the show. The first three songs were perfect in back-to-back-back form! The Wrestler was a perfect ballet then to play into Backstreets in the middle of the show was great! Born to Run again was awesome and to close with Glory Days was perfection!

What made the song just a little more amazing was I believe Springsteen was sick. His voice was a little more horse (raspy if you will) plus he blew about five “snot rockets” during the performance. Regardless of any sickness he still had enough energy to perform at Springsteen worthy level!