Bruce Springsteen, review: Epic show puts all retirement chatter to rest

“I’ll see you in my dreams,” Bruce Springsteen crooned at the end of another epic set, opening another British tour at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium. We should count ourselves lucky to still be seeing him in the flesh.

Perhaps the greatest live performer the rock era has ever witnessed, Springsteen will turn 75 this year, and is coming back from a health scare that forced him to postpone this second leg of his world tour.

He recently admitted that he had been suffering from peptic ulcers so severe he was afraid he would never be able to sing again. There had been hints of finality about the whole tour, which was full of songs of loss, mortality, memory and the weight of passing time. Was it time for the Boss to consider retirement options?

He put any such notions to rest in Cardiff, singing and playing for three hours with the vigour of a man in the prime of life. An astoundingly physical performer, Springsteen still moves about the stage with a spring in his septuagenarian step, strikes his guitar as if determined to wring every last drop of music out of it, and sings with a lung power that pushes past the limitations of his vocal cords to land whatever note the melody and emotion demands, his face contorted with concentration, conviction and, sometimes, a kind of joyous amazement that he’s pulled it off. He certainly doesn’t look or sound like he’s just been let out of sick bay, or is worrying about heading back that way.

Amidst a thoughtfully conceived set that locates a narrative of remembrance and commemoration from songs drawn from across his 50 year career, Cardiff was treated to some rarities (So Young and In Love, Better Days, and a fantastic first ever performance of If I Was The Priest from 2020’s Letter to You) and some choice favourites he doesn’t always deign to play (a thumping Born In The USA, a brooding take on The River). The rest was rip-roaring classics from his superlative catalogue, with a final romp through Born To Run, Bobby Jean, Dancing in the Dark, Tenth Avenue Freeze Out and a riotous cover of Twist and Shout with the house lights on so that the dancing, singing, yelling audience became as much a part of the experience as the band.

The challenge of writing a Springsteen review is to come up with superlatives adequate to the occasion, and perhaps to persuade the few remaining sceptics that this supreme rock and roller really is as great as everyone says he is. Because he really is. I first saw him back in 1985, at Wembley Stadium, and I was astonished that a man and a band could command such a huge space with such intimate charisma, summoning a spiritual bond of sweat, blood and music. Every Springsteen gig feels like the greatest show on earth, and this was no exception. The band played, the audience sang, and 60,000 fans and 17 musicians were engulfed in a spectacle of unadulterated joy and human connectedness. For one night with Springsteen and his extraordinary E Street Band, Cardiff was the rock and roll centre of the earth. So yeah, it was good. Of course it was good.

Can Bruce and his ageing band mates really keep this level of performance up for much longer? The octogenarian Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney have shown that it is possible. Last year, I detected sombre notes in a set that intimated approaching endings. But a year down the line, and despite health-related interruptions, the set has become looser.

The smiles and eye contact, expressions of absolute delight passing amongst the band and their leader as they perform with so much energy and commitment gives pause for doubt. Springsteen may still be closing the show with an acoustic solo performance of the elegiac I’ll See You In My Dreams, but it has become noticeably less sombre than before, as if he has located new possibilities in his remembrance of things past.

I don’t think this rock and roll hero is going to give up without a hell of a fight.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play Belfast’s Boucher Fields on Thursday, May 9th. They are touring until July 27. A new compilation album, The Best of Bruce Springsteen, is out via Columbia Records.