Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band

Saturday night was yet another concert, this one occurred locally as Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band played just a smidge over 10 minutes from home at the Greensboro Coliseum. The ticket may say 7:30pm, but Bruce didn't hit the stage until about 8:15. But it was worth the wait: a full three hours of nonstop rocking and rolling. Three hours. No breaks. Holy crap Bruce has more energy than legally allowed. And doing it seemingly under the weather with some sort of cold. More than once he was caught on the video monitors snotting his nose clean onto the stage. Yuck. But you'd never tell he may have been sick from the the performance.

Here's the career-spanning setlist. A little bit for everybody:

May 2, 2009
Greensboro, North Carolina
Greensboro Coliseum

Badlands
Radio Nowhere
Outlaw Pete
No Surrender
Working On A Dream
Seeds
Johnny 99
The Ghost of Tom Joad
Raise Your Hand
Seventh Son
Hang On Sloopy
Growin' Up
I'm On Fire
Waiting On A Sunny Day
The Promised Land
Human Touch
Kingdom Of Days
Lonesome Day
The Rising
Born To Run
Cadillac Ranch

Hard Times
Thunder Road
10th Avenue Freeze-Out
Land Of Hope And Dreams
American Land
Glory Days

Hang on Sloopy? Really? Too cool. And there was a smattering of Buckeyes in the crowd forming O-H-I-O with their arms during it. It warmed my heart. Another oldie included, Johnny 99. Almost 30 years old but the lyrics could still eerily relate nowadays:



From the opening Badlands, to the closing Cadillac Ranch, to the final song Glory Days, it was a concert not soon forgotten. It's been a while since the power of a musical number has brought me to tears, but I tell you what, the awe-inspiring Born to Run did just that. The energy builds, the house lights come up slowly, fists pump high, and pretty soon the crowd is awash with light in the loudest singalong I've been apart of. Incredible. Seriously. Singing my head off with 20,000 of my closest friends and the tears just started rolling. Wow.