Even before Bruce Springsteen stepped onstage in front of a sold-out Climate Pledge Arena crowd on Monday, he seemed to be enjoying his first Seattle tour stop since 2016. A day earlier, the sure-handed rock legend was spotted at Pike Place Market catching a salmon from one of the affable fishmongers. (Look ma, no slicker!)
No word on whether Springsteen availed himself of some affordably priced Dungeness crab while he was there, but the arena-packing superstar probably doesn’t need the discount.
In an unfortunate distraction to Springsteen and the E Street Band’s highly anticipated post-lockdown tour, classic rock’s man of the people caught heat for deploying Ticketmaster’s “dynamic” pricing model, which causes the price of a relatively small percentage of tickets to skyrocket based on demand. Like it or not, just about every artist of his caliber is doing the same these days, though seeing four-figure ticket prices attached to Springsteen’s name clashed with his rep as one of the last great working-class heroes.
To his credit, Springsteen owned it in an interview with Rolling Stone after tickets went on sale, justifying the move in part by saying if resellers were going to get that money, why shouldn’t it go to the band? “I know it was unpopular with some fans,” he told the magazine. “But if there’s any complaints on the way out, you can have your money back.”
Yeah, I don’t think the refund line was very long after last night’s no-nonsense, two-hour-and-45-minute blitz.
A handful of songs and about a dozen “Bruuuuuuce!” chants in, the spry 73-year-old — who could still pass as a denim model — was burning through a piano-rocking joybomb “Out in the Street” from a small catwalk, simultaneously holding hands with three fans in the front row. “When I’m out in the street,” he called to a response of about 17,000 “oh-oh-oh-oh-ohs,” “I walk the way I wanna walk!”
No one works a room, regardless of size, quite like the Boss, who in his most feeling-himself moments moved like an East Coast tough guy with the demeanor of America’s most gracious party host. When those front-row fans eventually relinquished control of the rocker’s appendage, Springsteen and his sax-blasting accomplice Jake Clemons (the band’s not-so-secret weapon was featured prominently all night) ascended the back riser to show some love to fans seated behind the stage, who danced harder than anyone under the Boss’ gaze.
Two songs later, Springsteen was playing big band commander on “Kitty’s Back,” which packed a jazzy, Rat-Packy punch that briefly turned the state-of-the-art arena into Seattle’s hottest supper club as the band — stretched out to a 17-piece battalion by this point — went around the horn with sizzling solos. I half expected a waiter to deliver a $65 filet cooked medium well.
The overcooked beef never came, but a butler type did trot out a full-length mirror so the Boss could cheekily check himself out before a bluesy cooldown set up a roaring, horns-blazing crescendo. There’s no surer way to please a crowd than a punchy horn section and the five-piece troupe did just that.
Springsteen and the E Streeters’ current outing is effectively a delayed run supporting 2020’s “Letter to You,” with songs like a rollicking “Burnin’ Train” peppered into a hits-packed set. Somewhat surprisingly, nothing from November’s collection of old-school R&B and soul covers, “Only the Strong Survive” — which could have received a full-fledged soul revue treatment from the big band that included a soulful trio of backing vocalists — made last night’s cut. Still, the singers sounded like a mini church choir on the uplifting mountaintop rocker “The Rising” and Springsteen did his best James Brown for a moment during “Land of Hope and Dreams.”
Perhaps not surprisingly for the septuagenarian heartland rocker (or anyone making music amid a global pandemic), some of Springsteen’s most recent material deals with mortality. Some of the night’s standout moments came on numbers that looked to the past while offering a sense of hope and optimism for the future.
Springsteen and the workmanlike band barreled through the set list like an F-150 (or is it a Jeep these days?) speeding down the turnpike, as if in keeping with the time-is-precious sentiments on “Last Man Standing.” Basically the only time Springsteen paused to address the crowd came while introducing the acoustic number written for his late friend George Theiss, a bandmate in Springsteen’s first teenage group, The Castiles. He recalled standing at Theiss’ deathbed and later realizing he was the last living member of the band. It “makes you realize how important every living moment is,” Springsteen said before launching into the tender tribute that carried over into a heart-walloping “Backstreets.”
It was the most poignant one-two punch of the night, a master class in a legacy artist blending newer material into his set in a way that miraculously made one of his most beloved classics hit a thousand times harder. “Now, I got all your books, your 45s,” Springsteen said amid the hollering slow-builder, moments after thrusting his guitar skyward to salute his fallen friend. “And that old guitar that sat at the end of your bed. … And all the rest I’m carrying right here,” he continued with a hand on his heart.
While Springsteen’s first Seattle romp in years was easily the most anticipated concert of the year thus far, it wasn’t without at least one minor hiccup. There were some pesky feedback issues that were never enough to derail a song, as in the climactic buildup in “The Rising,” but were persistent enough to be a mild nuisance.
It didn’t matter much. By the time the band entered the homestretch with a string of danceable anthems — including a sprightly, soul-rocking “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” where that 17-piece unit really shined — nothing could get the rapt crowd to come back down to earth. A jubilant “Glory Days” no doubt had longtime fans reliving theirs, while giving newcomers their first chance to shake their hips to the heyday jam outside of a karaoke bar.
Saving his top crowd-riling antics for the end, Springsteen made his deepest foray into the audience during a penultimate “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.” From a narrow platform between the standing-room-only pit and the floor seats, Springsteen triggered an energy-ratcheting call and response with the gospel-tinged vocalists onstage — “Say it again!” he belted repeatedly, extending the chorus before strutting back to rejoin his bandmates, pausing only to sign a fan’s arm without missing a note.
He didn’t need to cover one of the ’60s soul singers he’s long admired to channel a bit of the magic.
Set list
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. Trapped (Jimmy Cliff cover)
10. Burnin’ Train
11. Johnny 99
12. The E Street Shuffle
13. Last Man Standing
14. Backstreets
15. Because the Night (first released by the Patti Smith Group)
16. She’s the One
17. Wrecking Ball
18. The Rising
19. Badlands
20. Land of Hope and Dreams
21. Thunder Road
22. Born to Run
23. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
24. Glory Days
25. Dancing in the Dark
26. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
27. I’ll See You in My Dreams
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