During the encore of his 32-song, three-hour show in Helsinki Friday night, Bruce Springsteen asked the audience of 42 thousand, “Do you think you can outlast the E Street band?”
I, for one, couldn’t, even if Springsteen is 74 and I am a mere 60.
I wasn’t treated to one of my favorite Springsteen songs, “No Surrender,” which he had played on other recent tour dates, but seeing Springsteen for the first time in the 45 years I’ve been a fan left me more than satisfied.
I would have had my money’s worth if I had paid twice the price of admission.
Springsteen has been performing for over fifty years. His first two albums, “Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.” and “The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle,” came out in 1973.
My concert mate remarked, “There’s no one under 40 here!” Granted, there were a few folks, but to be fair, there was a fair amount of grey.
But I’m here to review the music, not the crowd. (Except for one exuberant audience singer. More on that later.)
Many people have said that Springsteen gives his all at every show, and I was impressed by his ability to sustain the energy over the evening. He has said in interviews that it comes from having tons of experience.
And it’s not that he keeps the energy constantly high. His shows have a near-perfect arc, starting strong, interspersed with moments of poignancy, and finishing with a punch.
A typical Springsteen encore these days contains more powerhouses than complete sets by other bands.
Imagine ”Born in the USA,” ”Born to Run,” “Dancing in the Dark,” and a cover of “Twist and Shout” all after the set proper has technically ended.
We have connected over Springsteen, particularly the song “If I Fall Behind,” which I became familiar with about the time we got married. Its lyrics are sometimes included in marriage announcements, but Springsteen did not play “If I Fall Behind” either.
The main takeaway from a live Springsteen show is that it’s full of heart and emotion, not just great songs. Being in his presence, even with 40 thousand other people, it’s clear Springsteen is a thoughtful man who cares about his band and the audience.
Strong representation came from his 2020 “Letter to You” album. The Finnish translation was superimposed on the screen when he played the title song.
One big moment for me came when the unmistakable strains of “Hungry Heart” blared through the stadium, but instead of starting to sing the verse, Springsteen turned the mic on the crowd. American me, surrounded by somewhat more reserved Finns in the stands, who was 16 in 1980 when this song came out and loved it, recalling even when John Lennon said it was the best song of the year before he was gunned down that December in NYC, helped sing the entire first verse at the top of my lungs.
Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack.
I went out for a ride, and I never went back.
Like a river that don’t know where it’s flowing
I took a wrong turn, and I just kept going.
Even after all these years, I knew the whole song by heart and could shout loud enough to carry the song for all of section F7. (If you were singing in that section, I’m sorry, but at least I could not hear you.)
Also notable was Springsteen’s commentary before ”The Last Man Standing” (also from “Letter to You”) in which he mulled on mortality, saying something about our death being the last gift we give to others and that being sad when we lose people is the price we pay for loving them.
The song was inspired by the 2018 passing of Springsteen’s old bandmate George Theiss from The Castille, Springsteen’s band with which he cut his teeth in high school in the ’60s. Theiss’s passing and his reflections on mortality also inspired the song “Ghosts” from the same album.
His words: “The grief that we feel when our loved ones leave us, it’s just the price that we pay for having loved well.”
There are too many musical highlights to mention, with each Springsteen band member getting their moment, from Stephen Van Zandt to Jake Clemons to Max Weinberg to all the singers.
Nils Lofgren’s inspired guitar solo on “Because the Night,” which Springsteen co-wrote with Patti Smith, would have blown the roof off the stadium had there been one.
This felt like a farewell tour, at least for Finland. Who knows when Springsteen will come back to Helsinki? It had been 12 years since he was last here when he set a record (even for him) for a 38-song, four-hour show. He’s now 74, so if he wanted another twelve years, he’d be older than Joe Biden, and as we know, if we’ve been watching the news, that’s pretty old.
I return to Springsteen’s question from the encore.
Can we outlast the E Street Band? We can only hope.