BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND : LONDON CALLING LIVE IN HYDE PARK

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND : LONDON CALLING LIVE IN HYDE PARK

DVD 1

London Calling
Badlands
Night
She's The One
Outlaw Pete
Out In The Street
Workin' On A Dream
Seeds
Johnny 99
Youngstown
Good Lovin'
Bobby Jean
Trapped
No Surrender (with Brian Fallon)
Waitin' On A Sunny Day
Promised Land
Racing In The Street
Radio Nowhere
Lonesome Day

DVD 2

The Rising
Born To Run
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
Hard Times (Come Again No More)
Jungleland
American Land
Glory Days
Dancin' In The Dark
Raise Your Hand
Bonus :
The River
Wrecking Ball

Label : Columbia

Venue : Hard Rock Calling Festival, Hyde Park, London, UK

Recording Date : June 28, 2009

Release Date : June 22, 2010

NTSC : 16:9

Length : 180 minutes

Review : Het is voor het eerst dat een registratie van een buitenconcert van Springsteen op dvd wordt uitgebracht. De video is volledig in HD opgenomen tijdens het Hard Rock Calling Festival in Londen op 28 juni 2009. 'London Calling: Live in Hyde Park' maakt de kijker onderdeel van het publiek en laat daarnaast van dichtbij zien hoe Springsteen de E-Street band dirigeert en de show naar zijn hand zet. De setlist (26 nummers) bevat nummers die afkomstig zijn uit het tijdperk van 'Born To Run' tot aan het recente 'Working On A Dream'. Ook zijn er op de dvd een aantal zeldzame covers te vinden van The Clash' 'London Calling', Jimmy Cliff's 'Trapped', The Young Rascals' 'Good Lovin'en Eddie Floyd's 'Raise Your Hand'. De film is geregisseerd en geproduceerd door Thom Zimny en Chris Hilson, beiden al jarenlang onderdeel van Springsteen's video crew. De audio is gemixt door Bob Clearmountain. Het bonusmateriaal bevat onder meer beelden van 'The River', gespeeld tijdens Glastonbury op 27 juni, en de volledige video van 'Wrecking Ball', gefilmd in het Giants Stadium in New Jersey.

Concert Review (Kieran's Thoughts) : A show that has a special significance to me personally, London Calling was one of the first live Springsteen shows I ever listened to, and was very important in introducing me to certain songs – whether they were of songs played live or the songs themselves – as I prepared to see Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band live in concert for the first time back in June 2012. With the release of three shows from 2009 through the Archive Series, this one has taken something of a backseat in regards to the shows I listen to, nevertheless, it remains a fantastic listen, with certain songs I’ve long considered to be up there with the very best and songs that you’re unable to hear on any other currently available live Springsteen release. The setlist is incredibly strong, especially when you consider the circumstances of Springsteen and The E Street Band playing a festival, which means this crowd wouldn’t have been entirely filled with Springsteen diehards. In contrast to one of the most recent festival shows they played, this isn’t your regular standard show for just the casual fans only familiar with the Born in the U.S.A. album. This show is perfect for any fan. “London Calling” kicks the show off, fitting in the moment and a very good performance. Bruce and Stevie are really fired up as they share vocals. It’s a hard-rocking opening with “Badlands” and “Night” following before the latter’s fellow Born to Run track “She’s the One” brings the rocking down slightly while still keeping the mood upbeat. As far as the opening run of songs go in this one, the next two have always been my favourites. “Outlaw Pete” is one of my absolute favourites from Working on a Dream and I think this show and its outing at Glastonbury the night before are clear indicators of how good this is when played live. Bruce really gets into it by wearing a cowboy hat – and the way that he symbols “little bare baby feet” with his hands has always been fun to watch. The crowd is into this one a lot as well, which has always had me questioning why it never remained in the setlist afterwards given it’s an easy way of involving the audience. The version of “Out in the Street” that follows was the main reason why this song was my favourite Springsteen track for a long time. It’s one of my favourite versions to this day, with the “get me an elevator! I’m sixty!” comments from Bruce to Little Steven towards the end still in the conversation for best random lines ever spoken by Springsteen during a show. Advertisement Privacy Settings After “Working on a Dream” and Bruce’s declaration about building a house of love, hope, joy, happiness and sexual healing on Hyde Park’s “beautiful lawn”, we get an immense trio of “Seeds”, “Johnny 99” and “Youngstown”. This is the third version of “Seeds” I’ve listened to this week after MSG 1988 and the Bridge School Benefit of 1986. He was angry in those two versions – even the much more tame acoustic version in ’86 – due to the song’s context at the time, but he’s even angrier singing it here, which is no surprise given the impact the American economy had taken courtesy of the 2009 recession. It links the song’s place in the setlist very well with “Youngstown” and “Hard Times (Come Again No More)”, which starts the encore later. While there’s still a lot of fury when he sings “Johnny 99”, this really good performance of the electric version is evidently more fun, and that’s highlighted when Bruce and Steve play a bit of guitar, look at the audience for a reaction, and repeat. It’s one of the funniest moments of the show. The Rascals’ “Good Lovin'” is very out-of-place after “Youngstown” and the two songs prior as Bruce starts collecting signs, but that being said, I’d rather hear this than Bruce shouting “YEAH!” to a Max drumbeat while picking. With Springsteen’s grey shirt now being completely black from sweat, the signs lead us into the next three songs, with two of them, perhaps unsurprisingly, being from the Born in the U.S.A. album. Thankfully they’re not “Darlington County” and “Working on the Highway”, and instead we get “Bobby Jean” and “No Surrender”, with “Trapped” played in between them. While “Bobby Jean” and “Trapped” are as good as they usually are, “No Surrender”, played with Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem is the best performance of the three. Bruce had played “The 59 Sound” with them earlier in the day and Fallon does very well in returning the favour, complementing Bruce’s singing with his passion-fuelled youthful vocals. This leads us into another song featuring youthful vocals, but not exactly the kind you want to listen to on a Springsteen show, in “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day”. It’s a good version of the song and while the young ‘Sunny Day kid’ isn’t the best, he doesn’t ruin it. In fact, his participation provides another funny moment as his timid approach to singing the chorus leads to Bruce and members of the audience telling him to “sing up”, only for him shouting the next line to be met with “That’s a little too much there”. Even if you’re not a fan of the kids singing it the song, it’s worth listening to this one for that. “The Promised Land” is excellent as is the norm for the song, and I love the transition out of the song as The E Street Band prepare for “Racing in the Street”. There’s a real desert sunset vibe about it that ties the two songs together perfectly. “Racing” is the highlight of the show and it’s one of the best ever performances of the song. Bruce’s singing is on the brink of exhaustion coming off the three previous songs and it adds a lot to the tone of the song. I wrote at the start of this post that this show is significant to me, and the fact that this version of “Racing” is the first live performance of the song I ever heard was one of the factors that sealed “Racing in the Street” becoming my all-time favourite Springsteen song. It’s masterful, with the Roy Bittan and Charlie Giordano’s piano and organ coda being quintessential. If you’re one of the lucky ones who’s never seen or heard this version before and get to experience it for the first time, if you think I might just be over hyping my favourite song, make sure to check it out and see the look on Nils Lofgren’s face as Roy, Charlie and the rest of The E Street Band work their magic trick. It might tell a better story of how great this is than I ever could. What’s great about this show is that even though the main highlight finishing leaves us with an hour to go, there’s still so much more quality to come. Hearing this “Radio Nowhere” is a reminder that I don’t listen to the song enough, especially given that its place in the set gifts two of my earliest favourite Springsteen songs together. With Bruce’s vocals being better than they are on the two archive releases from 2007 and 2008, I’d say this is the strongest live version of the song currently available. A fine “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” ends the main set and it’s the first song of the night where Bruce starts acting a bit strange in his mannerisms and in what he says. It’s utterly bizarre and amazing to watch. I’ve always been a fan of him saying “Hyde Park is nice! Very nice! Very nice park you get here very nice” in an almost growl-like fashion afterwards as well. It’s good when “Rosie” is played in a joyous, crazy fashion and there’s a nice balance here with the excellent, and a bit more serious, aforementioned “Hard Times (Come Again No More)” starting the encore. This is one of the few songs of the night where The E Street Choir are effectively use and there’s a great moment during Clarence’s sax solo where you can see Bruce and Cindy Mizelle looking at him with sheer awe. Clarence is excellent in this show when you consider how his playing wasn’t at its best on his final tours, he nails every solo required from “Badlands” to “She’s the One” to “Born to Run”, particularly “Jungleland”, which is another sign request and had it not been for “Racing”, this would hands down be the best performance of the show. It’s spectacular. Advertisement Privacy Settings In 2019 this “American Land” sounds different following its addition to Springsteen and The E Street Band’s setlist in early 2017. Two years ago it was a political statement, an immigrant song to remind fans that America is a country built by immigrants and that “the hands who built the country” shouldn’t be kept out. It was a massive shift in tone from versions like this where, similarly to “Rosalita”, Bruce just acted eccentrically. It gives him a chance to give credit to The E Street Band and it works well leading into “Glory Days”, which really sums up how this is a Bruce and Stevie camaraderie show as Bruce calls him “the coolest thing he’s ever seen” and they laugh at the concept of a curfew. “It’s curfew breakin’ Boss Time!!!” (The local council would strike back three years later.) “Glory Days”, as it always should, transitions into “Dancing in the Dark” for a great show finale that the live crowd are really into. Clarence’s solo is flawless there’s a fitting instance where Bruce and Steve hold a banner stating “Greetings from Hyde Park”. It’s quite refreshing to hear a show ended so simply without an ongoing “Twist and Shout”, “Rockin’ all Over The World” or “Shout” that can become quite tiresome. Even “Dancing in the Dark” in recent years has reached lengths that seem a bit much to some fans, but this version is to the point and ends the show on a high point. Though I revisit it very rarely as more shows continue to be released from the archive, this motivated performance from Springsteen and The E Street Band will never be one completely disregarded. With multiple excellent songs performed and a plethora of entertaining moments, I definitely advise watching the DVD out if you’ve never seen it, and even if you have, it’s worth the time for “Racing in the Street” and “Jungleland” alone. Rating: 8.75/10