Review: Bruce Springsteen gives Austin its once-in-a-decade moment of thunder
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The man to my left asked me if I was local or if I had traveled from out of town to Moody Center on Thursday night.
“Local,” I said.
“Ah. Have many times have you been?” he asked.
“To the Moody?” I replied.
“No, to this tour,” he said.
“Oh! I’ve never seen Bruce before,” I said.
The man smiled. “You’re in for a religious experience,” he said.
I had suspected as much when I descended the escalator and saw that the Stubb’s Bar-B-Q stall had spelled out “THE BOSS” in sausages on its flat top grill.
Bruce Springsteen brought his latest tour to Austin’s new-ish arena on Feb. 16, and while the Boss was evoking well-earned fervor from a six-string, I was playing third string. Former music writer Peter Blackstock would have covered the show, but he left the paper in December. Current music writer Deborah Sengupta Stith was set to review but had to bow out at the last minute.
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So, me and my New Jersey-sized blindspot — Springsteen’s progressive politics were a childhood boogeyman growing up, but I love Lucy Dacus’ cover of “Dancing in the Dark,” I thought the movie “Blinded by the Light” was delightful, and I did go through an "I'm On Fire" phase last year — sat in among the Bruce Tramps. And not that 33 is that young, but rarely have I felt younger, especially after last week’s Death Cab for Cutie show seemed hell-bent on reminding me of the passage of time.
Leading up to the show, it felt like the second coming was upon us. The 73-year-old rock star has achieved mononymic status (unless you’re a bigger fan of Batman). And if you can believe it, “Born To Run” has been part of the pop culture firmament for nearly 50 years. This was set to be Springsteen’s first Austin concert since South by Southwest 2012.
As with most major artists, the Ticketmaster monopoly had created ticket mishegas, as the company’s “dynamic pricing” model put admission beyond the reach of many Springsteen lifers. (Springsteen brushed off criticism of the high prices but promised to release recordings of the shows for $14.99.)
When the night came, as with the most famous religious experience in Western society, a prophet appeared to herald the chosen one. And I mean Western society: Texas music titan George Strait emerged onstage to introduce Springsteen and “a band that needs no introduction.”
The low bellows of “Bruuuce” across the arena gave those shiny new acoustics a warmup for the E Street Band.
As he usually does on this tour, the Boss kicked off the setlist with “No Surrender,” a 1985 “Born in the U.S.A.” track that rages against the dying of the light. Little Steven Van Zandt joined Springsteen face to face on the mic for the first of many times, the two old friends serenading each other with a string of la las.
"'Cause we made a promise we swore we'd always remember/ No retreat, baby, no surrender,” Springsteen sang. It made me wonder how many of those assembled in this temple of wealth, holders of tickets far beyond the working class that their idol once represented, had indeed surrendered. A fleeting thought, as Springsteen ended the fool-proof opener with kick-in-the-head strums and rounded up his crew with a finger circled above his head.
As the band played “Ghosts,” Springsteen told the crowd that saxophonist Jake Clemons (nephew of original E Street sax player Clarence Clemons) was back at the Four Seasons hotel with COVID-19, “eating cheeseburgers and watching pornographic films,” he joked. Eddie Manion took the sexy sax solos at Moody.
The concert, just shy of three hours, packed in the hits and the deeper cuts. For newbies, a bit of a challenging experience; for the faithful, it seemed euphoric. I stood adjacent to three superfans on all sides, who rarely left their feet and recited every word, taking time to analyze slight setlist adjustments with each other.
The source of such devotion made his case with every number. “I Prove It All Night,” with horns that worked their way to your skull like a power drill, evinced Springsteen’s musical prowess, giving the legend a meaty guitar showcase. We watched those famous fingers make quick work of their instrument’s lovingly scratched-up body. The whole E Street Band, of course, put on a show that's like watching Navy SEALs do their job. Drummer Max Weinberg made a ratatat hurricane on “Candy’s Room,” and Nils Lofgren unleashed heaven and hell with his pick on “Because the Night.”
The showmanship, though! Decades in, Springsteen makes most frontmen look lazy. He busted out the harmonica for an excellent rendition of “The Promised Land,” which seemed to cause a Pavlovian response (a spontaneous “oooh”) in the crowd. On “Out in the Street,” he swung his body around the mic stand with the prowess of a veteran at the Yellow Rose. The extended jazz jam that was “Kitty’s Back” provided a breather in the breakneck pace of the show, but Springsteen still looked like an orchestra conductor teaching aerobics.
Every minute of every hour, the Boss clocked in, eyes shut and lips rolled back to let out that gravelly howl. A gut-punch performance of “The Rising,” set dramatically by spotlights piercing through fields of shadow, made me wonder: Have I ever seen a jugular vein glow in chiaroscuro like that?
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Part of the joy of seeing an icon in the flesh is the lore. Before a stirring “If I Was the Priest,” Springsteen mentioned he wrote the song when he was 22. And a gorgeous solo acoustic “Last Man Standing,” which he wrote about being the last surviving member of his first band, was preceded by a little history, and a little poetry.
In 1965, when Springsteen was 15, he’d been playing guitar for six months. A guy his sister was dating invited Springsteen to audition for a band, he recalled. They named themselves after a shampoo: The Castiles (not Propecia, as he joked).
They lasted for three years, he said, which wasn’t too shabby for teenagers. Springsteen wrote the 2020 song “Last Man Standing” after the 2018 death of Castiles comrade George Theiss left him alone.
“It’s about a job I chose before I ever called it work,” he said of the song. “At 15, it was all tomorrows and hellos.”
You take the bitter with the sweet, and this show was no different. As the night progressed and delirium set in, the E Street Band cracked the remaining ice and let the hits rush out. “Because the Night,” which Springsteen co-wrote with Patti Smith, who made it famous, was my personal highlight. It was just a herald, though: “Wrecking Ball” came soon after, followed by a glorious “Badlands” — which saw Springsteen park on the lip of the stage, jutting out into arms outstretched like reeds — and “Thunder Road.”
That was all well and good, but I, a fledgling tramp, was not prepared for the encore.
After a bow, a shout out to Central Texas Food Bank, a return and a Texas-perfect “Cadillac Ranch,” the lights came up on the house with “Born to Run," as if the sheer electricity in the room forced the circuit’s hand.
Springsteen, Van Zandt and Lofgren hammed it up for “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” which slid into "Glory Days" and “Dancing in the Dark.” In particular, Springsteen and Van Zandt barely seemed to be working. They mugged; they strutted; they sweated.
The Boss made the band intros. “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” was anything but frozen — the thaw had long since come. Springsteen plucked a pink cowboy hat from the front row and did a little shimmy. A tribute to the late Clarence Clemons played on the big screens.
By the time the rest of the players left the stage and gave Springsteen berth for a final solo acoustic moment, heart-piercing closer “I’ll See You In My Dreams,” I counted myself a convert to the cult, just like whoever made those sausages.
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Setlist for Bruce Springsteen on Feb 16, 2023, at Moody Center in Austin
"No Surrender"
"Ghosts"
"Prove It All Night"
"Letter to You"
"The Promised Land"
"Out in the Street"
"Candy's Room"
"Kitty's Back"
"Nightshift"
"If I Was the Priest"
"The E Street Shuffle"
"Johnny 99"
"Last Man Standing"
"Backstreets"
"Because the Night"
"She's the One"
"Wrecking Ball"
"The Rising"
"Badlands"
"Thunder Road"
Encore:
"Cadillac Ranch"
"Born to Run"
"Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)"
"Glory Days"
"Dancing in the Dark"
"Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"
"I'll See You in My Dreams"
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Bruce Springsteen tour stop in Austin was a moment of thunder
