Monday, April 13, 2009

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN And The E STREET BAND in Houston at Toyota Center 4-8-09

I guess this will be a tale of 2 cities. Austin and Houston were both great shows. The key differences were the crowd and the sound.
The crowd was lame, compared to Austin. Many people sitting on their rears all night. How can this be? Makes you wonder. People coming and going during the songs, up and down all night. They aren't real Bruce fans. I think they are season ticket holders for the Toyota Center and wanted to say they were at the big event. What a waste of good seats.
The sound was so much better here at the Toyota Center in Houston. This was my first time in this venue and it is very nice. Impressive sound for an arena.
Our seats were very similar to what we had in Austin, just a little bit closer to the stage. We were 9 rows off the floor, end aisle seats about 30 feet away.
As for the show...Bruce, as usual, was firing on all cylinders! We got a couple of fun rarities: Cadillac Ranch, It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City and Rosalita. All were requests. The Big Man, I'm happy to say, was on his game in Houston and didn't miss a note. Little Steven and Bruce, with their dueling guitar solos on It's Hard To Be A Saint, were having fun and it was great to watch!
In place of Youngstown they did The Ghost of Tom Joad and all I can tell you is the 2 Nils Lofgren guitar solos, especially the one near the end of the song, you have to see to believe them. Nils was a raving, intense lunatic on both but the second one, he did one handed while pointing at the crowd and going nuts. You can see it here and it's well worth the time to view:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rLGjJFHYQg&feature=channel_page

The show continues to evolve. I'm looking forward to seeing how much it changes between now and when it hits Chicago in another month. Still hopeful more new material gets played, especially Life Itself.
This show was 4 songs and 20 minutes shorter than the Austin show.
It's been 5 days and I'm still in Bruce withdrawal mode. Never enough.

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