So that was Wrecking Ball 2012

I last wrote a Sunday post on 22nd July 2012. Finding time when I was doing the tour blog was just impossible. Although the shows thinned out a bit towards the end of the year I just didn't have the enthusiasm to start writing on a Sunday again.

Anyway as this is the last Sunday in 2012 here I am.

The 2012 Wrecking Ball tour was a bit different for us, as it was the first tour since we had made friends with other fans.

We went to the two UK shows in Sunderland and Manchester and both Paris shows. All the gigs came within two weeks so a bit like Christmas - I spent months looking forward to it and then... it was all over in the blink of an eye.

The weather is the first thing that springs to mind when thinking back to the UK shows. Sunderland was a bit mizzly and it poured down in Manchester. Sunderland was a bit of a disaster all around really - we were late so we didn't get time to spend with friends before the show, we parked miles away from the venue and the show was a bit flat. Apart from the rain Manchester was better and our best friends, who were at their first show, are now fans and will be coming with us in 2013.

My stand out moments were both during Paris night two.  Mike and I have been lucky enough to hear many rarities.  We had Incident at only our third show when we didn't even recognise the song!  We were at MSG in November 2009 when, of course, a few rarities were played both nights. But... I'm Goin' Down the second night in Paris was really an OMG! moment for me. Not one of THE songs from 'Born In The USA'  but my favourite track, and the only song from the album we hadn't heard live.

The second moment was when Mike tapped me on the shoulder to dance with him during Dancing In The Dark.  He doesn't dance so it was a great surprise.

I think Paris night two is considered one of the best shows of the tour. It certainly was for me.

Sunderland 21st June 2012 - show 36

So what can I tell you about Sunderland? Well here's an interesting fact

The town's theatre, "The Empire" was known as the comic's graveyard, due to its hard audience.  New acts were often blooded in Sunderland with the message being,

 'if you can make it in Sunderland, then you stand a chance of making it anywhere'

  

This was our first show of the tour. For reasons I won't bore you with we were very late arriving. We were due to meet friends for a drink before the show. The 'park and walk' was a long hike down a muddy path and by the time we got to the stadium it was late, we were wet and we didn't have time for that drink! If we hadn't been looking forward to a Springsteen gig we would have been thoroughly fed up.

The rain had just about stopped by the time we found our seats but the mist was certainly rolling in.  I know we don't get the best of weather here in the UK but it WAS NOT a typical mid summer's day in England. Bruce seemed happy with it. He didn't want it to be 75 degrees in England. He wanted English rain. He must know how we like to talk about the weather.  I remember at The Albert Hall on the 'Devils And Dust' tour he remarked how hot and sweaty it was.

Anyway I digress. You may remember from previous posts that we were taking my brother (Ian) and his wife (Irene) with us to Sunderland, although we weren't sitting together. It was their first Bruce gig and it's a bit of responsibility taking newbies.  We've bigged Bruce up so much over the years  - what if they hated it? 

We were sitting high up perhaps about a third of the way down the pitch - a pretty good spot. I had a look at the folks around us to try and assess whether they were 'sitters' or 'standers'. There are never really any clues but I always have a sneaky look around anyway - are they young, old, couples, women, lads etc.? The mix is pretty eclectic. I suppose it's the same in the pit. 

By our timings the band came on at 7.08pm. Of course everyone stood at that point and Badlands is always a good song to keep people on their feet. Quick look round - yes - all stayed up for We Take Care Of Our Own, and when most people were still on their feet by the end of Wrecking Ball, I was pretty confident that we had standers around us.  A few lightweights sat down but generally our section of the stand rocked it all the way through.

When both Danny and Clarence died I was upset, of course, but not as much as many fans. I was surprised, then, when Bruce asked who was in the house during My City Of Ruins I found a lump in my throat and more than a tear in my eye.  I was expecting the Clarence tribute, of course.  It turned out to be a minute or so of quiet reflection building up to a crescendo of applause - quite uplifting in a way.

I'm no good at writing reviews so I'm not going into the show in any detail.  It wasn't a great set list for us but we still enjoyed it. The stadium was by no means full and It seemed that Bruce was having to encourage the crowd throughout. The show only lasted just over three hours. I say 'only' but you know what I mean. We assume Bruce didn't break any curfew. Mike felt he just stayed on stage long enough to get the three hours in, so the audience didn't feel short changed.  I don't know - it was just a little flat somehow but we expect so much don't we?

Apart from the music two male fans got up on stage to dance with the birthday boy Nils.

A female fan, sitting on someone's shoulders, whipped off her top to reveal a stars and stripes bikini:-
Early in the set  as Bruce runs seamlessly into another song with barely a beat’s respite, the cameras feeding the big screens pick up a blonde girl perched on her companion’s shoulders near the front of the audience. As she sees herself on the screen she quickly crosses her arms and drops her hands to the hem off her tee shirt at her waist, ready to pull her top off. The camera cuts away quickly to Springsteen singing. He seems confused for a moment by the sudden disappointed outcry from his enraptured audience, then gets his eye on the distraction, laughing as the camera cuts back to the blonde who now only has a skimpy stars and stripes bikini top (no doubt in his honour) protecting her from the elements. He chuckles, missing the next line of the lyric, saying instead ‘You know there are some things you just can’t compete with!’ He continues to grin as he slips back into the melody.

The big shock? -  no child during Sunny Day.

Ian and Irene loved it and had a great time - phew!  They were surprised that everyone knew all the lyrics to every song.  Irene asked me if Bruce is religious - the second time someone has asked me in the last couple of weeks. The religious imagery does seem to be popping up more often these days, and I suppose, if you are not familiar with the songs when Bruce asks in his best preachers voice 'Can you feel the spirit?' it could be taken as a religious question.

A review from local newspaper  The Journal has a couple of nice lines:-

For three hours, one man, one guitar ruled. The result: a job well done for the working man’s man who’s still as passionate as ever.

He might have been born in the USA but for that grim Thursday evening The Boss was all ours.

Here is Safraz Manzoor's article for The Telegraph and The Independent's review. There seems to be a bit of a difference of opinion about the length of the show.

So here is the set list with our own timings.

	Montpellier 19/06/2012  Time 8.30 to 11.36	Sunderland 21/06/2012 Time 7.08 to 10.13
1	We Take Care Of Our Own (35)	Badlands (30)
2	Wrecking Ball (35)	We Take Care Of Own (36)
3	Badlands (29)	Wrecking Ball (36)
4	Death To My Hometown (35)	Death To My Home Town (36)
5	My City Of Ruins (35)	My City Of Ruins (36)
6	Spirit In The Night (13)	Spirit In The Night (14)
7	Growin’ Up (1)	Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street (6)
8	Jack Of All Trades (33)	Jack Of All Trades (34)
9	Candy’s Room (7)	Youngstown (9)
10	Prove It All Night (11)	Murder Incorporated (7)
11	She’s The One (14)	Johnny 99 (10)
12	Working On The Highway (11)	Working On The Highway (12)
13	Shackled And Drawn (23)	Shackled And Drawn (24)
14	Waitin’ On A Sunny Day (35)	Waitin’ On A Sunny Day (36)
15	634 5789 (26)	The Promised Land (26)
16	The Way You Do The Things You Do (26)	Point Blank (3)
17	Point Blank (2)	The River (14)
18	The River (13)	The Rising (35)
19	The Rising (34)	Out In The Street (16)
20	Out In The Street (15)	Land Of Hope And Dreams (23)
21	Land Of Hope And Dreams (22)	We Are Alive (33)
22	Fire (1)	Thunder Road (22)
23	Rocky Ground (30)	Born To Run (36)
24	Born In The USA (14)	Hungry Heart (11)
25	Born To Run (35)	Seven Nights To rock (8)
26	Bobby Jean (8)	Glory Days (6)
27	Seven Nights To Rock (7)	Dancing In The Dark (36)
28	Dancing In The Dark (35)	Tenth Avenue Freeze Out (36)
29	Tenth Avenue Freeze Out (35)
30
31
32
33

Three's A Crowd

It's less than a month to our first gig.  We have had glorious weather here in the UK for nearly a week now, and as our summers haven't lasted for much longer than seven days in the last few years, I'm not hopeful of good weather for June 21st. Anyway it got me thinking about how hot it was at Old Trafford Cricket Ground on The Rising tour.  It's almost 9 years ago now - 29th May 2003.

We weren't seasoned concert goers in those days and a bit clueless about ticket sales. We missed out on tickets when they went on sale but managed to get a couple last minute. We sat so far back we could have saved our money and stood outside! It was the first time I was really excited to hear a particular song - Loose Ends - I recognised it after a couple of notes and admit I felt rather smug, like a proper fan.  Don't think any one around us had any idea what it was. Coincidentally Loose Ends was played on Bruce Brunch today.

Old Trafford Cricket Ground holds 50,000 for a concert and I assume it was full.  I mention this only because at the beginning of the European leg of the tour there was a bit of an obsession on Greasy Lake about ticket sales - or lack of them.

Why do people mind so much do you think? Are they disappointed because they think Bruce can't command a bigger audience these days or perhaps just worried about the lack of atmosphere in a partly filled stadium? Are they embarrassed on Bruce's behalf because he is playing to stadiums only three quarter full or for themselves because being a Bruce fan holds less kudos than it once did?

Should we be pleased that tickets are easier to come by at least at some venues? Perhaps there are masochistic tendencies at play here. Maybe we like the stressful, nerve wracking, panic stricken frenzy when the tickets go on sale. Maybe we miss the adrenalin rush and the euphoria of getting tickets against all the odds.

Anyway since the first few shows we have had the two Barcelona gigs and Frankfurt, both holding 50,000 to 60,000 people, and sell out shows. Tonight's show in Cologne is a sell out too and can hold a similar audience.

Closer to home neither Sunderland nor Manchester are sold out.  Incidentally Coldplay's Manchester gig sold out in five minutes.

I think Bruce might be caught between a rock and a hard place here. In The UK the O2 Arena in London holds 20,000. Manchester Arena - the largest in the UK- holds 21,000. Our first Bruce concert was at Sheffield Arena. It holds only 13,500.

You see what I'm getting at here. Our man may not be able to fill stadiums all around Europe but he's still too big for arenas.  Do we really want him to scale it down and run the risk of not getting a ticket?

Anyway enough of that.




Our Sunderland gig will be our first show for nearly two and a half years. Our last was MSG in November 2009.  The other week I couldn't resist an offer from Snapfish to make up a photo book for half price and I chose to take some photos from that weekend.  It makes me happy every time I look at it.