This Glastonbury weekend has been more important to me in so many ways. The biggest and most exciting of these was the fact that one of my musical heroes was finally taking to that famous Pyramid shaped stage. This hero was, of course, Bruce Springsteen. The man they hailed as the future of rock and roll in the 1970’s was finally coming to Glastonbury and he was definitely not going to disappoint the thousands upon thousands that wanted to see the great man himself.
Last night, the 27th June 2009, I sat and watched Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band play the best set Glastonbury has ever seen. I’m almost certain that no one can top this show for some considerable time.
Not being at the festival has never been a huge issue for me. Glastonbury is famous for the rain, the mud, the madness but I can never afford to travel down to Somerset to see it for myself. I prefer to sit at home, from the comfort of my bed, and watch the action unfold. This year, my heart had a slight pang when they announced that Bruce was playing: I’ve always wanted to see him play a show and I’ve always been too poor or too far away to do it. Glastonbury would’ve been the perfect first Springsteen show and I really would’ve paid the £180 just to see him.
I’ve been looking forward to this set being on the TV since they announced that Bruce was headlining the Saturday night. My Dad and I had “one Springsteen song a day until Glastonbury” from the end of May. We’ve been pretty pumped to see the great man on the stage of the greatest festival the world has ever seen. This is something that Brits are very proud of. We DO festivals and we’re in possession of the best one. To get America’s greatest living rock star on the bill is a pretty huge deal in this country, even if you’re not a fan.
It was all of this that meant the build up to this set was immense. Every person interviewed on BBC 6music this week had said that it was Springsteen’s set that they were looking forward to most. New Jersey was coming to the muddy glory of Somerset and the whole country is anticipating one of the greatest all-round rock shows ever to set foot onto the Pyramid Stage.
They were not wrong to anticipate such a thing. Springsteen’s shows are famous for being raucous, fast, hard-hitting, epic rock and roll shows. PROPER rock and roll shows, with knee sliding, chants, massive sing-alongs and, above all, passion. I can confirm that Springtsteen and his E Streeters brought all of this and more. The speech during ‘Working On A Dream’ from the new studio album of the same name, spoke of “taking the despair out there and building a house of joy.” They achieved their aim, in more ways than one.
The set saw a perfect mix of new and old, rapture and contemplation had places in the set. Springsteen clearly thinks about this set very hard before he decides on the final thing. Last night, the set saw some great favourites get aired, as well as a few that rarely get played. All of which was surrounded by awe from one of the biggest crowds the Pyramid Stage has ever seen (if not the biggest, this is yet to be confirmed: it’s got to be pretty close to the top). People started gathering early in the day for this set and barely moved throughout the day, making sure they could see The Boss (or “The Employer” as Spinal Tap called him earlier in the day) rock the festival to its muddy foundations.
It was at this point that I realised how big this set was going to be. Springsteen promises a good time, but this was GLASTONBURY, his first ever, and that calls for something special. The Boss took to the stage in a haze of anticipation and blew minds before the end of the first song. During ‘Badlands’, I am fairly certain that if Bruce had asked the crowd to marry him, every single God damn one of them would’ve said “YES!” The adoration was apparent in the eyes of each of those audience members as Springsteen ran about the pit between stage and crowd. He jumped onto to boxes specially placed at the front of the crowd, got in with the crowd and broke down that audience/performer barrier like it was made of paper. It wasn’t quite hysteria behind those crowd-control barriers, but it was definitely love, awe and worship.
Then, Springsteen threw out that golden oldie, ‘The River’. I had never expected this song to be in the set, ever. The band played it as if it was their last ever version of the song, the was passion in their eyes. Bruce sang it like his life depended on it, but not over the top in any way. Understated, controlled, raw, honest. I was speechless as the last bars played. I had never seen anything like this. The whole crowd was silent as Bruce played the last harmonica part. No one else could silence thousands of people in a field like that. NO ONE.
The biggest moments, for me at least, were those where my favourite Springsteen songs came out to play. The crowd bounced and sang at the top of their voices, arms aloft. Bruce ran about the stage, the pit, the steps in between, like a mad man possessed by some rock and roll feeling. These moments were during songs like ‘Born To Run’ (celestial in feeling, guitars raged and I have to admit I had a tear in my eye when he sang “the highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive”), ‘Thunder Road’ which sounded better here than it could anywhere else. The crowd really got into the singing and the arms went for miles back. Songs like the aforementioned ‘Badlands’ just required bouncing throughout. It was great to see so many people joined together by one man and his band. It was simply incredible to watch these guys work and get so much appreciation.
The biggest reaction of the night was probably that famous hit ‘Dancing In The Dark’, which saw a mass sing-along, dance-along and all-round party in the field. The crowd has smiled three feet long across their faces and every single one of them seemed to be having the time of their lives. On stage, Springsteen went all out. It was the peak of the set. The flags waved in time. There were flares in the crowd. This was not just a festival set, it was THE festival set.
I am convinced that no one will touch this set for years to come. It will become something of legend, a show that millions of people will claim to have been at. My hero conquered Glastonbury last night and he did it in such a fashion that only a man with as much passion for music, love and rock and roll could out-do him. Right now, I don’t see anyone like that in music. Springsteen’s love of his fans, his respect for them shines. The fact that he ENJOYS every single minute on stage is something rarely seen these days, which, I have said before, is some sort of weird phenomenon, one that needs to be redressed.
It was once said that rock ‘n’ roll could be transcendent in the right hands: I am certain that Bruce Springsteen’s hands are these hands. Glastonbury will take some time to recover from such a rockin’. And we thought that Neil Young would be hard to top. Let us never doubt The Boss again.
I doff my cap to the man, the myth, the legend: the past, present and future of rock and roll: Bruce Springsteen. The man who rocked Glastonbury, England and thousands upon thousands of people in 2 hours and 40 minutes, breaking curfew in the process. It’s going to take some beating…
See highlights of the set, the setlist and photos from the BBC here.
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