As a lot of you know, I am a huge Springsteen fan. I had a chance to go in 2001 and didn't. I've regretted it since. So when this time came around, I scraped up the $$$ and got 2 tickets. I went with my father-in-law, who also is a big BOSS fan. He hasn't been to many concerts. Not many tours go through Farm Town, Iowa. So I think the experience was pretty cool for him too.
Show start time was 7:30. We got there at 7:20 and about 1000 or so fans were still trying to get in. Security was pretty tight and not very well organized. We grabbed a T-Shirt and got to our seats by 7:45 or so. They were still working on setting up stage and lights. No explanation was ever given for the delay, but at 8:50 the show finally started. I know they usually play for about 3 hours, so I knew it would be a late night. He started off with a string of some new stuff, I had never heard. They were OK, what I could understand of it. Then broke into Hungry Heart. The set list was pretty diverse. After 30 years, it would be hard to pick 20 songs to do. So he did about 30 or so. Some of the best I thought were "Out in the Streets", "Badlands", "Youngstown", "The Promised Land", "No Surrender" and "Tenth Avenue Freeze-out". He dedicated "Devils & Dust" to the troops. The first Encore, had the best moments though. "Born to Run" was tops for the night, and "Rosalita" was pretty cool. The second encore had "Dancin' in the Dark" and some others, I can't remember. Max even sang a song for the first time EVER!!! Since this was the first tour without Danny Federici, they did "Sandy" in memory of Danny. Very cool.
They were still playing at 12:00 when we left. We both had to be up early the next morning and with a 2 hour drive ahead of us, that wasn't looking good. I really wanted to see "Thunder Road", "Jungleland" and "Born in the USA". But we got our money worth.
Because of the late start, and some of the new songs were just ok, I give this show a 4.5/5 stars.
