Springsteen sings hard and strong until well after midnight

December 1980; reviewed By Dale Anderson

Bruce Springsteen wouldn’t quit Thursday night in Memorial Auditorium. He started with “Born to Run,” the kind of rollicking anthem most performers save for the encore, and when the encores came finally – it was well after midnight – he was still going strong.

Then, after a breakneck “Devil With a Blue Dress” medley, just as his E Street Band was ready to retire to the dressing rooms for once and for all, Springsteen suddenly waved them back for another go-around, a Motown-type romantic rouser called “Just Raise Your Hand and I’ll Understand.” He decided to go for it, he said backstage afterwards, because he saw that the crowd still had a little more left in them.

It was a high-spirited sell-out bunch. Though their yells occasionally sounded like booing, what they really were saying was “Bru-u-u-ce!” One young woman waved a street sign for Bruce Street. Another one flashed an even bigger highway marker from suburban Clarence for saxophonist Clarence Clemons.

Ultimately, the throng was probably more exhausted than their hero. It was a long evening – two 90-minute sets with a considerable intermission in between. Both times The Boss had come out rocking, lifted the place to its feet, cooled them back into their seats with thoughtful balladry and finished in a flourish.

Springsteen and the band, having had the previous day off, were in an experimental mood. They threw in a few songs they don’t do very often, like the strong “I Fought the Law” in the first set and “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” to begin the encores. The versions of “Fire” and “Because the Night” made other renditions sound tame. The only flaws were the sound, which was muddy, and that draggy place late in the second set, where several slow numbers culminated in the dark and reflective “Wreck on the Highway.”

Springsteen’s hoarse urgency carried the other quieter moments, the single spotlight shrinking the arena. One felt the anguished passion in “Racing in the Street” and followed its themes as they flowed into the title song from the new album, “The River.”

Springsteen dressed the part of a working class hero. A small, skinny figure with close-cropped hair, black pants, boots and a blue T-shirt, he looked like a construction man without a hard hat, like Valerie Harper’s husband in the “Rhoda” TV series. The rest of the E Street Band dressed like blues brothers without the sunglasses – black suits, white shirts, black ties.

The show delved more deeply into singalongs and talks to the audience than his past performances. Again and again, he turned the microphone outward to catch the crowd singing. They obliged by doing the whole first verse of his new hit single, “Hungry Heart,” without a bit of help. The start of “Independence Day” included a reminiscence about listening to the Drifters on the transistor radio under his pillow late at night when he was a kid. “It was the only thing in my whole life that made me fell life was worth living,” he said, “and my old man used to think it was all noise. Later, I used to feel so bad that he’d missed it, that he couldn’t hear it.”

Since Springsteen had recently hurt his ankle, there were fewer leaps and splits. Instead, he danced, he mugged and he stalked saxophonist Clemons. He climbed atop speaker monitors and piano cabinets, but he slid down. He didn’t jump. He also didn’t boldly plunge into the crowd. He found it sufficient to go only as far as the pit in front of the stage, where he slapped hands and revved up the front rows.

For a couple who passed up the world’s largest song-request card, he put the band through a long intro to “I Want to Marry You” while the guy popped the question to his girlfriend at the edge of the stage. Yes, it was one of those great nights. No wonder The Boss didn’t want it to end.