Last night, after many years in the making, The Blot attended his first Bruce Springsteen concert at the Toyota Center in Houston. After listening to friends from the northeast talk for years about what an amazing concert Springsteen and The E Street Band put on I finally started considering going to a Springsteen show back in ’05. Springsteen was coming to Dallas and my buddy Lippy and I were going to go…that is until we found out Springsteen’s Devils & Dust tour was a solo tour without The E Street Band. That was a deal breaker for us both since neither of us had seen Springsteen before and we wanted our first show to include both the hits and The E Street Band.
Flash forward three years later to Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band’s Magic tour in support of the Boss’ latest album Magic. Once I heard the group was coming to Houston 5 months ago I jumped at the opportunity to get tickets. To be honest, I don’t know that many Springsteen songs, but figured once we were there I’d end up knowing a lot more than I realized (kind of like my experience at the John Cougar Mellencamp concert a few years back). Boy was I wrong! Between not knowing most of the new material from Magic and my limited knowledge of Springsteen’s extensive catalogue The Blot was clueless to most of the song’s played.
While knowing the songs definitely enhances the experience, I’d still give the concert an A+. Besides being one of, if not the, biggest crowds I’ve ever seen at the Houston Toyota Center for a concert, it was by far the loudest. Almost every song found the entire arena singing along and feeding off of Bruce’s every word. The crowd was definitely amped up to a 10 and from the looks on the people’s faces around me everyone was having the time of their lives.
Springsteen played the almost three hour set, with only a slight encore break, with the same intensity throughout. The Boss, along with The E Street Band, definitely put on an impressive performance. It seems like age has not slowed this great musical act down one bit and time on the road has not taken away their love of performing. After the encore brea, Springsteen first brought on stage Alejandro Escovedo to perform “Always A Friend,” the lead single from his upcoming release Real Animal. Springsteen then had Joe Ely join the band to perform his song “All Just To Get To You” from his album 1995 album Letter to Laredo. It was a wonderful performance by Springsteen and it was definitely well worth waiting the three years to finally see him live.
Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band
April 14, 2008 - Set List
Houston, Texas - Toyota Center
01. Cadillac Ranch
02. Radio Nowhere
03. Lonesome Day
04. Atlantic City
05. Magic
06. Because The Night
07. Candy's Room
08. She's The One
09. Out In The Street
10. Livin' In The Future
11. The Promised Land
12. Girls In Their Summer Clothes
13. The E Street Shuffle
14. Terry's Song
15. Devil's Arcade
16. The Rising
17. Last To Die
18. Long Walk Home
19. Badlands
20. Thunder Road
Encore:
21. Always A Friend with Alejandro Escovedo
22. All Just To Get To You with Joe Ely
23. Rosalita
24. Born To Run
25. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
26. American Land
