“Hello, London! It’s Saturday night!”
That is how Bruce Springsteen chose to begin the last concert of this year’s European leg at Wembley Stadion in London.
What followed for the next three hours was more or less what we’ve been used to see the E Street Band do this whole summer: the first part offering some variation and occasional surprises, whereas the second part was pretty stale. Tonight the opening featured Lonesome Day, Candy’s Room and a scorching Adam Raised A Cain (including fierce guitar work by Bruce himself) followed by Death To My Hometown to help energise the crowd of 77,800 fans.
“What better treat on a Saturday night than to have the entire E Street Band with Patti Scialfa”, Springsteen announced after playing Darlington County and unexpectedly welcomed his wife and E Street Band member to the stage. Patti Scialfa has been largely absent from the current tour. Her last appearance with the band were the April 4 and 7 shows at the Forum in Los Angeles. They stood closely together as they sang Tougher Than the Rest. At the end of the song Patti’s blouse got tangled up in the head of Springsteen’s guitar creating a giggle in the crowd.
I was then happy to hear Darkness On The Edge of Town. It made a good job replacing Reason To Believe in the sequence with Youngstown and Long Walk Home (again introduced as “a prayer for my country”). The trio is commonly seen as comment on the current political situation in the USA. Youngstown offered some sensational guitar improvisation from the great Nils Lofgren.
The final stretch of the show (from Last Man Standing on) and the encore was standard. I was determined to enjoy it to the fullest since I knew it was my last show for a while. You know what is coming, and you also know the songs (the BIG songs) make the perfect party. I like that the encore is performed with the house lit up. It is a masterful way of bridging the gap between the band and the crowd, creating one happy community whether you are a member of the band, a travelling fan or a one time only attendee.
By the way, during the show a mystery was unveiled (only to make us even more confused). Already last year we saw two signs in the crowd that made us laugh. From the back in the pit they read “land” and “jungle”. We knew, of course, that when turned they would ask for Jungleland, but we’ve always wondered what the other side showed. Now we know (not that it made us any wiser): they read “Kiki is” and “back” 🤔🤔. If any one of you knows who Kiki is and what it means that she is back, feel free to enlighten us.
Our Bruce summer 2024 has come to an end. There were lots of great moments and it is hard to compare shows since there are so many factors that contribute to the overall experience, but I have to say we were lucky to have been in Hannover, Stockholm and London. I went to 7 shows in total. Three of our concerts were postponed until next year, so the tour in Europe will continue for sure (most likely more shows will be added). Like Bruce said during his speech preceding Last Man Standing: “We’ve been doing this for 50 years and we’re not quitting either!”
We’ve met old and new friends and I would especially like to give thanks to those of you who took the trouble to come up to me to tell me that you are reading my blog. I appreciate you!
A&A, you are the best!
Oliver, there is no other person I would rather share experiences with 😙.
What happens now you might wonder. Well, we don’t stop travelling for music only because Springsteen is not available. Already the upcoming weekend we will see Adele in Munich. We also have tickets for Coldplay in Vienna and Jason Isbell in Copenhagen. Furthermore we plan on seeing London Grammar in Brussels. If everything go as planned (if the principal let me take some time off) I will join Oliver on a trip to Canada in November to see the two last Springsteen shows of the year as well as seeing Zach Bryan again.
Setlist:
- Lonesome Day
- Candy’s Room
- Adam Raised a Cain
- Death To My Hometown
- The Promised Land
- Hungry Heart
- Darlington County
- Tougher Than the Rest (w. Patti)
- Darkness On The Edge of Town
- Youngstown
- Long Walk Home
- E Street Shuffle
- Nightshift
- Mary’s Place
- The River
- Last Man Standing
- Backstreets
- Because The Night
- She’s the One
- Wrecking Ball
- The Rising
- Badlands
- Thunder Road
- Born In the USA
- Born To Run
- Bobby Jean
- Dancing In The Dark
- Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
- Twist and Shout
- I’ll See You In My Dreams
Stray Bullet 
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