Vienna 18.07.2023 #SpringsteenTour2023

A perk from being on this tour, other than the chance to see my favourite band, is to discover places that I’ve never seen before. This includes Newark/Asbury Park, Barcelona and Utrecht. Now I’ve also taken the express sightseeing tour of Vienna.

We set off really early with the train from Ehrenfeld Bahnhof, Germany at 5 o’clock in the morning to be in time for the early flight to Vienna, Austria from the Köln/Bonn Airport. At the gate we ran into Werner, who is a friend and fellow Springsteen fan. Werner is well know for his way of travelling to Springsteen shows. Normally there are no hotels involved. Instead he dawdles about in the train station or the airport after the concert to catch the first ride out. It is called to “wernern” and it saves him a lot of money. In fact, this Vienna trip was his longest wernern ever.

Werner came with us to discover Vienna. First on the list was der Stephansdom (St. Stephen’s Cathedral), which is the number one symbol of the city. It was beautiful, but I must say that the famous Cathedrals I’ve seen haven’t impressed me. To me they are just too pompous and bombastic and they all look the same; no matter if you are in Vienna, Barcelona, Milan or in Cologne. However, there were a whole lot of other architecture that impressed me as we walked through the city. For example the buildings around the the museum’s quarter. We saw the exterior of majestic buildings of Hofburg, der Wiener Stadatoper (the opera), the Naturhistorische Museum and the Kulturhistorische Museum.

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Other stops on our express sightseeing were Café Central, where we had a coffee and a pastry and we passed by Hotel Sacher and the Palmenhaus. We also wanted to have a look at the “Bruce hotel”, but at first we couldn’t find the information on where the band were staying. Instead, we found out where they didn’t stay (the Imperial). Anyhow, finally we were pointed in the right direction.

There was a quite small gathering of people wearing Springsteen t-shirts outside the hotel and nothing seemed to happen. Then I noticed that one of the women passing by was Lisa Lowell from the E Street Choir. It appeared as if I was the only one recognising her. “Hi, Lisa!”, I shouted and she gave us a friendly wave. Then Oliver saw Nicki Germain (Garry’s girlfriend). She recognised us from the book signing in Gothenburg so she stopped and gave us a hug. Apart from that there wasn’t much action around the hotel so we left fairly quickly.

Cut forward to when we got to the arena. The sun was still gazing and it was around 30°C, so we needed to hydrate ourselves. After a quick survey we found out that the beer cans in the train station cost 4 Euro and in the stands outside the arena, 7 (!) Euro. Of course we went back to the train station for our purchases.

Just before entering the arena a woman came up to us to say hello. It was Sori, a fellow blogger and Springsteen fan who I’ve never met in real life before – fantastic!

As we entered the arena we found two familiar faces in the back of the pit. It was Eelco and Jetske from the Netherlands. They always hang out in the back of the pit and thry are really nice to talk to. Eelco, incidentally, is the curator and the founder of the website mybosstime.com, where you find all kinds of personalised Bruce Springsteen show statistics. Eelco as well as Oliver are easy to spot in a crowd because of their height. In fact, Eelco is even taller than Oliver.

At the time that the show started a few other friends had gathered around us and we had a great time singing (shouting) and dancing. It was ridiculously hot, but the arena staff did a good job handing out water. Towards the end of the set it felt like the pit was significantly fuller. At once we were pressed backwards against the railing. The man in front of me was standing so close that I could barely clap my hands.

The setlist was identical to the one in Hamburg and by now, as our tour is coming to an end (only three shows to go), we’re really longing for some change. I know that it makes me sound spoiled, but so what? This was my 19th show this tour and I wasn’t expecting the setlist to be shorter and even more static than it already was. I wonder why that is. Are they getting tired or are they building it up for the last show in Monza? 🤞

The crowd in the last two shows has been fantastic. You can really tell that it’s a mixture of old and new fans. Some know all the songs by heart (and by now in which order they will appear in the concert 😖) and for some it’s totally new. A woman in front of me even used Shazam to find out the name of the opening song. 😅

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📸: @pita_oli, @mrEelco, @AnnaLind1 Next show: Hockenheim

Setlist:

1. No Surrender
2. Ghosts
3. Prove It All Night
4. Letter To You
5. The Promised Land
6. Out In The Street
7. Darlington County
8. Working On The Highway
9. Kitty’s Back
10. Nightshift
11. Mary’s Place
12. The River
13. Last Man Standing
14. Backstreets
15. Because The Night
16. She’s The One
17. Wrecking Ball
18. The Rising
19. Badlands
20. Thunder Road
21. Born To Run
22. Bobby Jean
23. Glory Days
24. Dancing In The Dark
25. Tenth Avenue Freeze Out
26. I’ll See You In My Dreams