BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND : DETROIT 2023

 

Disc One (53:36)

  1. No Surrender
  2. Ghosts
  3. Prove It All Night
  4. Letter To You
  5. The Promised Land
  6. Out In The Street
  7. Candy's Room
  8. Kitty's Back
  9. Nightshift

Disc Two (64:38)

  1. Darkness On The Edge Of Town
  2. The E Street Shuffle
  3. Johnny 99
  4. Last Man Standing
  5. Backstreets
  6. Because The Night
  7. She's The One
  8. Wrecking Ball
  9. The Rising
  10. Badlands

Disc Three (43:57)

  1. Thunder Road
  2. Born To Run
  3. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
  4. Glory Days
  5. Dancing In The Dark
  6. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
  7. I'll See You In My Dreams

Label : live.brucespringsteen.net

Venue : Little Caesars Arena, Detroit, Michigan, USA

Recording Date : March 29, 2023

Quality : Soundboard Recording (A+)

Concert Review (Kieran's Thoughts) : For the first time since the opening night of the Devils & Dust Tour in April 2005, the city of Detroit hosted a Bruce Springsteen show, as he and the E Street Band brought their 2023 International Tour to the Motor City for their first appearance inside Little Caesars Arena. It was a memorable first show in the arena, too, with a fantastic performance capped off a long anticipated tour debut. The start of the show was anchored by the tour’s typical eight launchpad tracks, and it made for a vivacious opening in Detroit with Springsteen and the E Street Band maintaining the commitment that flowed through not only the last show in Washington, but every show played in the month of March. The attitude that those onstage performed with in the previous nine shows was also on display here, and even though eight songs don’t tell the full story of a show, the spirit of “No Surrender” and “Out in the Street,” the relentlessness of “Candy’s Room” and euphoria of “Kitty’s Back” left me under the impression that March 2023 could go down as one of Bruce and the E Street Band’s finest months – as illness ravaged as it was. When Bruce gloriously shouted “just a little bit louder!” to Detroit in “Kitty,” he may just as well have been talking to Live Downloads listeners in relation to the volume they’re playing this recording on! Even better, those four songs weren’t the stand out song performances of the opening sequence, as “Ghosts” thrived despite Bruce’s worn vocal to exhilarate those in the house as a powerhouse rendition featuring great determination from Little Stevie Van Zandt, Roy Bittan, Charlie Giordano and Jake Clemons – it seems like every city is attempting to adore Jake more than the last, considering how Detroit reacted to his solo on here compared to Washington and Greensboro! Detroit also adored what they experienced in “Prove It All Night” as scorching guitar playing from Bruce and Stevie added to my comments about this song evolving nightly last time in the Washington review, and while it may not be exciting to see this song’s title pop up on the setlist night-after-night, to hear it played night-after-night is an amazing experience, and an extra reminder that what the setlist says is played doesn’t speak for the quality of the show’s performance. That was further accentuated in “Letter To You” and “The Promised Land” – Detroit exploded for the latter – as both songs saw Springsteen and the E Street Band give all they’ve got regardless of the contrasts in tempo, both to each other and the three songs prior. The way Bruce stressed “all my happiness and all my pain!” during the title track of his 2020 LP grabbed me especially, his drive evidence of how these words mean something to him and aren’t just lyrics. They’re his truth. The high energy of the first forty-seven minutes was followed by another contrast in tempo, because “Nightshift” allowed for some fitting reflection in a setlist partly themed around our losses and how we remember those waiting for us on the other side. Unsurprisingly with that said, this was a very inspired reading from Bruce who continued singing with purpose, while being backed by fantastic work from Curtis King Jr. and the rest of the E Street Choir, before the E Street Horns followed up their delectable efforts in “Kitty’s Back” with a striking finale. It’s what followed the Commodores track that stood out most on the night, however, and it was a most fitting follow-up, because while the 2023 tour has seen the soul cover paired with songs such as “Trapped,” “Burnin’ Train” and “Don’t Play That Song,” the next song served as the most apropos yet. After all, it isn’t true nightshift without some Darkness. Yes, making it’s long awaited tour debut was the title track of Springsteen’s 1978 LP, and “Darkness on the Edge of Town” was simply magical. Unplayed live by the E Street Band since the penultimate night of the Summer ’17 tour in Christchurch, NZ, the song saw Bruce employ a similarly potent vocal to “Nightshift” in order to make its lyrics feel all the more genuine, especially after the long six years without it being played – and not to mention in this setlist shaped to represent the best of his career – while the E Street Band played without having lost a step since February 2017. Their music was so incredibly evocative, I couldn’t help but recall the many years of listening to this song as a fan. With the future unwritten, all songs are hitting differently on this tour, so a tour debut of an essential will mean so much more than usual. Oh, and if fans had any concerns about Bruce hitting certain high notes now that he’s six years older, his immense cry of “tooowwwnnnn!!!” at the finish of this one is enough to ease any qualms! The potency and evocativeness that flowed through “Darkness” was also present in the next two songs, “The E Street Shuffle” and “Johnny 99,” which capitalised on the the audience’s joy and truly re-established a celebratory atmosphere. It didn’t take long to re-establish it either, because the E Street Horns’ joyous riffs and Bruce’s blend of a buoyant vocal and funky guitar licks had Detroit dancing long before Max Weinberg and Anthony Almonte floored them with their duel of percussion, or the Horns once again stood out in the re-arranged Nebraska track with those stupendous efforts I spoke very highly of in my Washington review. In the same way Bruce has “bad fever!” for more cowbell, I have bad fever for more of those riffs! The ecstasy of the night’s tour debut and the following two songs was then complemented by the despair of “Last Man Standing” and “Backstreets,” the show’s emotional triumphs. The heart of the tour and its theme of loss and recovery, the nightly tribute to George Theiss and The Castiles – Bruce’s “Freehold brothers in arms” – left the Detroit audience floored once again, but this time it was more so on account of the crushing context that the songs fostered rather than the power of the music. Mind you, the quality of this “Backstreets” performance didn’t hurt in that regard, as in-between the profound interlude in which Bruce spoke directly to the spirit of his fallen friend and promised to keep his spirit with him until his end, he and the E Street Band played a mesmerising version of this epic. Wonderful work from Roy, Max and Garry Tallent gleamed beside a searing Bruce solo and equally impassioned vocal declarations, and while both of these songs have settled where it concerns nightly nuances, that’s only because there was little else Bruce and the Band could do to make them better. After the emotion came the exhilaration of the main set’s ending five-pack. It’s a sequence that came with its own emotion in the form of “Wrecking Ball” and another pronounced version of “The Rising,” but even these two songs brought a defiance and rallying atmosphere that Detroit couldn’t help but be inspired by. These songs were typically sandwiched in-between compelling versions of “Because the Night” and “She’s the One,” in which the backing vocals of the E Street Choir shone bright beside Nils Lofgren’s colourful solo and the E Street Band’s outright exhibition, and a set ending “Badlands” that didn’t just serve as an outright triumph to two hours of music on this night, but to fifty+ years of live performances. That triumph seeped into the encore, led by determined readings of what may be Bruce’s greatest songs of triumph in “Thunder Road” and “Born to Run,” and the final six songs played with the E Street Band, “Glory Days” especially, felt like true victory laps. What was particularly noticeable here was for how tight Springsteen and the E Street Band are playing, there’s a looseness flowing through this ultimate sequence that makes these joyous songs all the more so – Bruce’s fluid call of “I need a love reaction baby!” during “Dancing in the Dark” exemplified that for me – and even though there was no show stopper to leave Detroit’s bodies aching and them exiting Little Caesars Arena stunned, these songs as well as “Rosalita” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” served the purpose of a “Shout” or “Detroit Medley” exceptionally well. In place of that show stopping finale was one final contrast in tone, “I’ll See You in My Dreams.” Eighteen years is a long time to see an artist – twenty is even longer to see him with his band – and in that time there will have been lots of locals this city dreaming of seeing Bruce Springsteen in the flesh again. “This is ain’t no dream” was how Bruce and Stevie ensured the moment it finally happened was real earlier on, and if there’s to be another long wait or no next time at all, in this beautifully sung finale Bruce assured Detroit that he’ll be dreaming of them, too. Even if he didn’t stress it, though, it’s likely he would be, because this was a show to remember. The final show of March was a fitting one, because it capped off a month of outstanding performance quality – I can’t recall many better months in the modern era – in similar fashion. Highlighted by the tour debut of “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” this first appearance in Detroit since 2005 for Bruce and 2003 for the E Street Band was worth the long wait even if you remove “Darkness” from the equation. Featuring performances of “Prove It All Night, “Letter To You,” “Backstreets,” “Badlands” and “Dancing in the Dark” that are evolving on a nightly basis as Bruce and the Band continue to play them and resonate more and more with their lyrics, on paper this may only look like a show “with one tour debut,” but upon listening it’s clear there’s much more to it than that. Next on the 2023 tour, we move into April with Madison Square Garden the site of show twenty-two!