Glastonbury 2009

TheTamshee: would like to be at the big music event of the year to see the The Boss in action but is this really necessary, I'am not sure the kids in the wheel barrow are really enjoying the experience of being at the biggest music event of the year. If this is a yearly pilgrimage for these young mites, they will surely be deaf before they are teenagers.

Springsteen delivers at Super Bowl

Bruce Springsteen looked into the camera Sunday night and told the people watching at home to "put the chicken fingers down and turn the television all the way up!"
Then he proceeded to give the Super Bowl crowd and the millions watching on TV three high-energy Boss standards, with the title song from his new album wedged in among them for good measure.
The 59-year-old Springsteen and his E Street Band opened with "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," then without pause ripped through "Born To Run" and "Working on a Dream," before winding up the set with "Glory Days."
Springsteen, dressed all in black, came out Sunday night with the considerable challenge of packing the bombastic energy of one of his rollicking, three-hour concerts into an abbreviated Super Bowl halftime set.
That turned out to be no problem. He had fireworks, an expansive stage, about 1,000 people on the field and help from a Raymond James Stadium crowd equipped with small flashlights.
A five-piece horn section helped saxophonist Clarence Clemons blast out "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," and a gospel choir came on stage to back Springsteen, his wife and bandmate, Patti Scialfa, and guitarist Steven Van Zandt during "Working on a Dream," the title song from his 24th album.
Springsteen is riding a new wave of exposure and popularity, playing for President Barack Obama in Washington before the inauguration, releasing his 24th album this week and winning a Golden Globe award for his song from the Mickey Rourke movie "The Wrestler."
In 1988, Chubby Checker was the first popular musician to perform at halftime, and

Michael Jackson raised the bar in 1993. His sister Janet provided the show's most infamous moment with 2004's "wardrobe malfunction."

The Boss, Working On A Dream

Bruce Springsteen, seventies hero and my all time rock legend has followed up his "Magic" album, a record underscored by fear, disgust and shame at the direction of his country under Bush, with his 24th album "Working On A Dream" But now, as he plays to inaugurate a (New President) the weight seems to have been lifted. The most political thing about Working On A Dream is that it is not political at all. The Boss is in love, and doesn't care who knows it. On Queen of the Supermarket, Bruce Springsteen drives a shopping cart rather than a Cadillac, swooning over a check out girl with the wry tenderness of a Midwestern Morrissey.
The E Street Band fill the supermarket aisles with a lush update of Roy Orbison-style operatic rock 'n roll. At times the sentiments come close to Tin Pan Alley cheesiness. In Kingdom of Days he rhymes "I love you", "I do", and "blue", while also drawing attention to the moon and sun. Yet Springsteen is too substantial a songwriter to fall into cliché. The dark heart of love is glimpsed in the desperate epic Life Itself, while even the simplest songs contain hard won wisdom. On rare occasions when he strays from amour it is to celebrate hearty male friendship. The album's opener, Outlaw Pete is a sprawling folk saga, comic and touching, with a wild arrangement that hearkens back to the kind of music Springsteen made in the early 70s, before he really started to define himself. The epic qualities of the E Street Band's sound ( albiet without the Phantom Dan ) is easily pastiched (indeed, others have built entire careers on it, from Bon Jovi to the Hold Steady) but Springsteen is moving forward by looking backwards. He has clearly been listening to 5th Dimension era Byrds, The Beach Boys, West Coast Psychedelia and even pre-rock big band ballads. The arrangements are as likely to include swoonsome strings and choral singing as Clarence Clemons' trademark ripe sax. This, I suspect, is Springsteen's idea of a pop album. But don't accuse the Boss of going soft. If anyone can make romance sound like manly business, Bruce can, bring on the party