It's The Album First

Picture 'borrowed' from a FB friend

Well, for us here in the UK, 2012 is Olympic year. Well it's Olympic year for everyone but you know what I mean. I remember exactly where I was when Juan Antonio Samaranch announced that London had won the right to host The Games.  I was so excited.  Going to the Olympics has always been on my bucket list and I assumed I would be in the stadium watching some athletics-any athletics would do. I just wanted to say' I was there'.

Anyone living in the UK who tried for tickets knows what a disappointment it was.  To be fair my worry had been that no one would want tickets. So many nay sayers came out of the woodwork to say sport is a waste of time, not important and we shouldn't be spending all this money bla bla bla.  How embarrassing if we had half empty stadiums.  As it was, 1.8 million people applied for tickets and 250,000, including me, were unsuccessful. No Olympic tickets then. I was disappointed but not as much as I thought I would be.

Anyway 2012 is now a Springsteen tour year so the lack of Olympics tickets pales into insignificance.

Before that there's the album. Last year there was rumour upon rumour about a new album. The first inkling was way back in June when Ron Anielo listed himself as producer on 'the forthcoming album'. Then there was the bogus press release saying an album - 'Arcade at Night' - was going to be released in November. There were other vague musings - the album was going to be released before Christmas, in the early months of 2012 and now a more precise February 2012. This was all before we even knew there was anything in the pipeline at all!

Now we know there is most definitely an album coming out because Bruce has told us himself.  Mind you even he was a bit vague.

For most fans it seems the tour is far more exciting than a new album.  It's true that a Bruce concert is the most perfect two and a half hours I can imagine spending and there are many songs from the back catalogue that I would like to hear. I've said this before -I'm not one of those fans who believes Bruce hasn't done anything worth talking about since nineteen seventy something so I am looking forward to a new set of songs.

Whilst I can't say I'm a huge fan of Working on a Dream I love Magic so I think he still has good music in him.  Having said that recent history suggests he won't play a lot from the album live.  Was The Rising tour the last time he played a lot of new music?

So folks - we will hopefully get an official announcement about the album release date soon and perhaps a couple of taster tracks beforehand. This will at least fill a small gap before Seville in May.

Hope to see some of you in 2012.