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Bruce Springsteen’s album “Born to Run” came out in 1975. He was 25 years old – young and brilliant, scared and angry, frothing with emotion, yearning for escape.
It was a mid-70s masterpiece and the album that pushed Springsteen onto the cover of both “Time” and “Newsweek” simultaneously. “It was the record that started a lifelong conversation between me and you,” Springsteen told his fans Tuesday night in Charlotte, just before he launched into the best part of a tremendous night of music.
Springsteen, now 60, arguably remains America’s biggest rock and roll star. He still cavorts on and around the stage like a 40-year-old and is in shape enough to wear tight blue jeans without looking ridiculous.
And, of course, he can do whatever he wants on stage. Fortunately, what Springsteen has decided to do toward the end of his current tour with his E Street Band is to play one of his entire albums during every concert – song by song, in exact order. So starting on the fifth song Tuesday night (a gorgeous “Thunder Road”) and continuing through song No. 12 (a plaintive “Jungleland”), Springsteen spent close to an hour singing the songs he wrote in his mid-20s and making them all sound new again.
If you hadn’t heard the full album in years, it was enjoyable to rediscover the way the lyrics burst with pain and promise and how the piano, not the guitar, introduces almost every song.
Particularly noteworthy Tuesday was the title track from “Born to Run.” It was also somewhat jarring because Springsteen has the entire arena brightly lit during the song. This is generally a concert no-no – you keep the lights dim until it’s time to go home – but Springsteen made it work.
His harmonica work on “Thunder Road” and the E Street Band’s exuberance in “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” also were crowd-pleasers, as was band member Clarence “Big Man” Clemons. Clemons, 67, doesn’t get around well anymore due to hip and knee issues, but he can still blow that sax.
The full-album concept – really a mini-concert within a concert -- was the biggest highlight of an energetic night that had Springsteen sporting a sheen of sweat on his forehead 10 minutes into the show.
Springsteen’s shows are legendary for good reason. His interaction with and trust in his fans is something to see. Springsteen went on a number of touchy-feely walkabouts Tuesday. He ended one by sprawling out on his back and let fans pass him, hand over hand, about 40 feet back up to the stage Tuesday, all the while singing “Hungry Heart.”
And he took requests. The Springsteen junkies know this is a staple. They bring handmade signs with their song requests written on them. The best of the requests Tuesday turned into Springsteen’s high-spirited cover of Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl.” Springsteen doesn’t automatically sell out concerts in Charlotte like he used to. While the lower bowl at Time Warner Cable Arena was packed, the upper deck had at least a few hundred seats vacant in the top 10 rows.
And here’s a complaint: the concert officially was supposed to begin at 7:30 p.m. Every veteran concertgoer knows that no headline act starts on time. Usually a show will begin 15-30 minutes late to allow everyone to buy drinks and find their seats. Springsteen, however, had no opening act and then didn’t appear on-stage until 8:27 p.m. That’s simply too long to keep fans waiting.
By the end though, at 11:15 p.m., Springsteen had the crowd in the palm of his hand as he performed the old soul chestnut “Higher and Higher” as the finale of a six-song encore. Then his fans went dancing out in the dark -- ears ringing, thoroughly pleased.
Set List
Bruce Springsteen's set list Tuesday night in Charlotte at Time Warner Cable Arena.
Seeds
Darlington County
Hungry Heart
Working on a Dream
Thunder Road
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
Night
Backstreets
Born to Run
She's the One
Meeting Across the River
Jungleland
Waitin' on a Sunny Day
I Fought the Law
Sherry Darling
So Young and in Love
Brown-Eyed Girl
Lonesome Day
The Rising
Badlands
Encores
Hard Times
Bobby Jean
American Land
Dancing in the Dark
Rosalita
Higher and Higher
