DVD review entries

Live In New York City

Title:

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band- Live in New York City [DVD]

ASIN:

B00008XUU6

Rating:

This was the first Music DVD I ever bought and it's been in my collection about three years or so now, maybe a little longer. At the time I bought it I wasn't a fan in particular, but I liked a few songs. I'd heard Bruce was good in concert and so I thought I'd give it a try. Tonight I watched it again for the first time in about 8 months. When I first watched it years ago I started with a song I knew, Born to run. That was enough to inspire me to watch the rest. I don't often watch concerts all in a row though. Tonight I did and realised that though I have more than 6 versions of The River on CD/DVD around here there's a reason for that every version is different. As usual I'm not gonna do every song, just pick up the highlights.

This DVD is the first live performance of the E-Street Band since 1984, and they are more polished than just about any other band. The full band version of Atlantic City has is easily my preference to the acoustic version on Nebraska (thanks for the CD Laura!) and this performance is so captivating it's incredible. The mandolin work of Stevie VanZandt is so striking and truly drives the song. Gary Tallent really impresses me with the bass too, because it's just so smooth and evenly played, not at all violent just calm and sorrowful as the song is.

Next up on the fab rating is Clarence Clemmon's sorrowful Sax intro to The River which goes on to be a much stronger performance than the later one in the Live in Barcelona concert. It's all about that intro though, sends shivers down your back. Badlands is another good performance, though the most powerful part is the 50,000 strong New York Crowd singing along. It's not one of my favourite songs but you have to admire the impact on the crowd.

Out in the street is a lesser known song from the River album, and it works suprisingly well as a stadium crowd raiser, I think it's the sheer energy behind the performance. Tenth Avenue Freezeout drags a little for me but then I'm not a fan of the song, and it does include the band introductions which always make me laugh. Born to Run is fabulous, Max pounding the drums like mad it's just so energetic and you can hear the crowd are totally involved in the show. The last two tracks the only recorded performances of Land of Hope and Dreams and 41 shots (American Skin) I love both. The best part of 41 shots is the end as Bruce backs away from the mic, fading his vocal out while still keeping the emotion and power of his voice. Amazing performance.

The second disk starts well with Backstreets driven by piano genius Roy Bittan who is only rivalled as a rock pianist by Elton John and Bruce Hornsby. It's such an emotive performance as all the band join in part by part after the instrumental break. Especially the amazingly complex fingerwork Garry has to do on the bass for his intro to get the slide pattern in there. Darkness on the edge of town is fantastic period, it doesn't matter which version. The song rocks. Jungleland is a 10 minute masterpiece of music from Roy's piano into to Clarence's 3 minute sax solo in the middle it's a beautiful song. Just two more mentions for this disk, Light of Day for the sheer energy of the one section where there are 3 lead guitarists on stage. Lastly Thunder Road which is another fab song that is just incredible.

In case you hadn't noticed I really like this DVD, but I realise it won't be everyone's taste. Give it a watch though if you like truly powerful performances.

Christopher Hinds : 30 Oct 2005 23:03 |  Tags: DVD Review |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem