BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND : HELSINKI, JUNE 16, 2003

 

Disc One (50:06)

  1. Born in the U.S.A.
  2. The Rising
  3. Lonesome Day
  4. No Surrender
  5. Prove It All Night
  6. Darlington County
  7. Empty Sky
  8. You're Missing
  9. Waitin' On A Sunny Day

Disc Two (65:27)

  1. The Promised Land
  2. Worlds Apart
  3. Badlands
  4. Out In The Street
  5. Mary's Place
  6. My Hometown
  7. Into The Fire
  8. Thunder Road

Disc Three (59:02)

  1. Bobby Jean
  2. Ramrod
  3. Born To Run
  4. Seven Nights To Rock
  5. My City Of Ruins
  6. Land Of Hope And Dreams
  7. Dancing In the Dark
  8. Glory Days

Label : Live.BruceSpringsteen.net

Venue : Olympiastadion, Helsinki, Finland

Recording Date : June 16, 2003

Quality : Soundboard Recording (A+)

Review (Kieran's Thoughts) : After a strong three-month run of releases from the Archive Series, it would have been fair enough if this month’s show was something relatively underwhelming. However that wasn’t the case as we’ve finally been gifted a show from The Rising Tour in the form of Helsinki 2003. It’s been addressed that technical issues have prevented this tour from being represented the last few years, but sometimes the wait can be worth it and that’s evident here with this great show from the second half of the tour. Alongside the album and tour’s reflective context of the September 11th, 2001 attacks, this one also focuses on the Iraq War, with an acoustic “Born in the U.S.A.” opening the show highlighting this. It’s a good performance and I prefer it the version on MSG 2000. One aspect of this show that was important upon its release was providing fans with a better listening experience for The Rising Tour than the Live in Barcelona DVD. I’ve loved the Barcelona show for years and it features many of my favourite live Springsteen songs, but it’s no secret to those who’ve listened to it frequently that it’s not the greatest when it comes to audio quality. In comparing that quality of these two shows, this one is far superior. The mixing of Jon Altschiller allows us to hear all members of The E Street Band’s instruments clearly, as well as the interaction of the crowd, which is always a positive for a live Springsteen show. A very similar strength to the Barcelona show here is the representation of the core Rising Tour setlist, as nine of the album’s fifteen songs are showcased. They all sound really good. “Empty Sky” is lovely, “You’re Missing” is a stunning performance of the song and “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day” is sound with Bruce’s vocals being strong and Stevie’s singing of the chorus thankfully being better than on the Barcelona DVD – though I doubt they could have gotten much worse. In comparison to its only other appearance on an Archive release to date, “Mary’s Place” is stronger than the St Louis 2008 version. Bruce’s vocals are strong at the start, and don’t weaken as the song progresses on this one. It’s worth noting that the band intro here is very similar to those during “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” on the 1999 and 2000 shows and while there’s some fun had between Springsteen and Clemons during this one, it’s a shame that it’s primarily visual and doesn’t translate massively well to an audio release. Advertisement Privacy Settings There’s also really strong aspects of non-Rising tracks on this one, from Clarence’s immense sax on “Darlington County”, to the guitar work on “Badlands” and the awesome extended piano playing from The Professor on “Ramrod”. Soozie Tyrell, on her debut tour, also provides some outstanding violin and when listening to this, it’s a fine indication of why she’s remained in touring band since and why she’s been such an important factor these last few years. The vocals from all members of The Band are spot on in “Out in the Street” – it’s the third month in a row we’ve gotten a really good version of this song – and while “Land of Hope and Dreams” isn’t as epic as the MSG 2000 performance, it’s stronger than the excellent version in the previous release from Chicago in 1999, which makes this version of the song an absolute must-listen. As this is Springsteen and The E Street Band’s first ever show in Helsinki, it perfectly complements their longest ever show that took place in the same country nine years later that is also available on live.brucespringsteen.net. Though these two shows are, well, worlds apart in terms of the tour and show length – this one is only 2hrs, 55mins in comparison to the 4hrs, 6mins of the show on the Wrecking Ball Tour – there’s something that’s quite evident in both shows, particularly in the performances of “My City of Ruins”, and that is the theme of recovery. There’s a contrast to both versions – this one is slower and is focused on healing process of the events that sparked The Rising, whereas the version in 2012 is 12 minutes longer and focuses on Springsteen and The E Street Band’s personal recovery following the passing of bandmates, Danny Federici and Clarence Clemons. With that in mind, it’s truly striking when Federici’s magnificent organ solo transitions into Clemons’ mighty saxophone solo here. It somehow manages to make this performance even more emotional and connects the two versions even more. This is a good show and I like how there’s nothing overly flashy about it. The lack of covers and outtakest the solid standard tour setlist stand out more, and I like that as it puts the spotlight mainly on the album tracks. This show serves its purpose well with a fine listening experience and does its job to satisfy concerns about when a show from this tour would be released. It’s one I’ll be revisiting a lot, but I feel there might be better to come from this tour, presuming there’s further successes with the technical issues.