Photos: Maggie Vaughn
For an artist so aware of, perhaps even haunted by, his own mortality, Bruce Springsteen is pretty life affirming.
His penchant for recognizing the finite, sometimes despairing nature of human existence while wringing gusto from it goes back to his first couple of albums, brought into gloriously stark relief on 1975’s star-making Born To Run. Similar themes of existential wrangling and reconciliation grew in gravitas and ambition on his 1980 double album, The River. Perhaps not coincidentally, just as Springsteen’s previous 2009 date at the BMO Harris Bradley Center included a complete run through Born, his Thursday performance there came on the heels of a late 2015 deluxe reissue of The River and an HBO documentary about the album's creation.
He and his eight-member E Street Band opened with a raucous River outtake included on its box set treatment, “Meet Me In The City.” Springsteen then acknowledged his many shows at the venue and its imminent demolition, further suggesting everyone assembled have a hand in tearing the place down with the rest of the evening’s show.
Springsteen’s few between-song breaks while playing the entirety of The River were confessional in nature. He spoke of the album as a public way of dealing with the multiplicity of issues he faced as a young man coming of age. He related how the inspiration for “Independence Day” came from the blessings that may come from the compromises necessary to create a stable family life.
Similarly sobering numbers like “Point Blank,” “Stolen Car” and “Wreck On The Highway” were balanced by more celebratory River songs. It’s difficult not to get caught up in the giddy aspirations and affirmations of “Cadillac Ranch,” “I Wanna Mary You” and “I’m A Rocker.” During the album’s upbeat numbers, Springsteen often gathered around his fellow guitarists, Nils Lofgren and Stevie Van Zandt, and bassist Gary Tallent like a friendly gang, albeit one fortunate enough to be touring the world making music for tens of thousands of people nightly. And Springsteen may be the leader, but the visually striking presence of saxophonist Jake Clemons, nephew of late E Street sax man Clarence Clemons, threatened to upstage his boss for sheer showmanship. He was definitely the band member to play most to the seats behind and above the stage.
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The audience became accessory to that amiable gang mentality when Springsteen worked the front section of the floor seats, shaking hands, posing for selfies and dancing with some ladies. During an extended instrumental break in “Hungry Heart” he surfed over the crowd. That song represents the joy/pain duality of The River and so much of his catalog. However uplifting its arrangement, it’s still about marital abandonment and restlessness.
Contrasting with the inner life struggles of The River, the rest of the evening’s 33 songs focused more on broad expanses, both geographic and metaphysical. “Badlands,” “Jungleland” and “Thunder Road” figured into the journey before landing at “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.” Along that route, Springsteen acknowledged local food charity Hunger Task Force with a spiel rehearsed as a public service announcement. “The Rising” may have arguably been a more appropriate dedication to the organization than “Born To Run,” but the latter began the night’s only diptych of Springsteen top 40 pop hits, followed by his biggest, “Dancing In The Dark.” Just as Courteney Cox did in that song’s video, a fortunate woman toward the front experienced a couple of spins with Springsteen, too.
If one doesn’t count “Because The Night,” which Springsteen penned but The Patti Smith Group made famous, the set’s only remake ended the show. The Isley Brothers’ “Shout” served also to introduce the band responsible for the preceding hours of musical nostalgia and continuing resonance.
