Springsteen In Good Company For Oakland Shows

The E Street Band returned to the Bay Area Friday for the first time in five years, selling out two nights in the same 17,000-seater that, not so long ago, was packed for the Warriors late-season run.

Rumblings were heard in the Bruce community that this tour, launched at the beginning of the month, was underselling—perhaps the Boss had alienated some of fans by being vocal about his left-of-center political views (2004’s “Vote for Change” tour was decidedly an Anti-Bush campaign) or by indulging in stylistically different projects (2005’s excellent acoustic Devils and Dust album and 2006’s Seeger Sessions).

On Friday night, Oakland’s Oracle Arena was still only half-full at the 7:30 start time, but with working moms and dads trickling in from the far reaches of the Bay Area and beyond, the place was packed full by 8 p.m. It was a welcome return for the group with whom Springsteen has produced his best work and reached his largest audiences. Of this night, the second of a two-night stand—said Springsteen “tonight is night one!”

Springsteen had to work out a little stiffness early in the set. He and the band looked remarkably human on stage Friday. They sounded this way too, as their playing contained stumbles and hiccups. But after thawing out onstage over the course of the first four or five songs, there was an unmistakable shift in energy on stage when longtime pianist Roy Bittan snuck into the intro of “She’s the One,” off Bruce’s breakthrough album, Born to Run. Now, as Bruce warmed up, so did the audience, and as the audience warmed up, so did the band. By the set’s end, Springsteen and the E Street band were in top form.

And top form for Springsteen is a form like that is rarely seen in any performer—an exuberant high, both frenzied and restrained. It’s the Springsteen we know as the 1980s stadium rock-king, from the “Dancing in the Dark” video, that dancing fool with the infectious moves. Playing through nothing more than some Fender Twin Reverbs and a single Marshall stack, his band’s booming ‘wall of sound’ filled the arena, though muddled from the effect of the echoing cement walls.

Springsteen’s set was generous to his newest album, Magic, and these tracks collectively show a modesty and even approach that seem appropriate as the work of the less tormented family man that the Boss now is. These songs were received warmly, as were those from his more cathartic post-9/11 album The Rising.

Near equal attention was given to his back catalog, and the set drew from his now nearly 40-year history as an active musician. “Thundercrack,” an obscure fan favorite “from ’69 or ‘70”, was a reminder of the days when Bruce still rapped and babbled as an aspiring Van Morrison. A highlight of the set, an inspired rendition of “The Promised Land” off of 1978’s Darkness at the Edge of Town, provoked the most inspired audience response. Off the same album, the somber “Racing in the Streets,” and the set-closer, a charged rendition the backbeat-driven “Badlands,” were equally well received. Obligatory fan favorites like “Born to Run” and “Dancing in the Dark” were saved for the encore. These songs, more than any, inspired a majority of the audience to sing along, flailing their arms shamelessly like sixth-graders at a school dance.

The night left little doubt that The Boss is at his best with the band he has been with since the early 1970’s. Chemistry like theirs does not come around often.

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