It doesn’t matter how many shows you’ve seen, how many you’re going to or how many times you break into the top 30 on a Springsteen fan roll call.
If you check the set list of a show that you wanted to see,
but were unable to make, then part of you will be probably left devastated by
what you see.
After making all 10 Australian shows last year, the plan to
see every concert this year was thwarted when The E Street Band’s weekend in
Melbourne clashed with an event that was impossible to miss.
So while I was downing beer after beer at a classy,
entertaining, all-round brilliant wedding in Western Australia’s South West,
Springsteen gave the audience for Melbourne’s first night an incredible show to
leave any fan envious.
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| When you can't make a show, drink until life becomes a show... * |
There was always the possibility of Eddie Vedder joining the
band on stage, but to bring the Pearl Jam lead singer on to help open the show
with AC/DC’s Highway To Hell was a
stroke of genius.
To follow it up with Darkness
On The Edge Of Town, was enough to create the “head-on collision smashin’
in my guts” feeling Springsteen yells about in Badlands.
Of course these would have both
been easier to accept missing out on if Springsteen himself hadn’t told me at a
pre-show press conference in Perth that he probably wouldn’t do any full-album
shows, only to perform Born In The USA
in its entirety for the AAMI Park crowd.
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| 'I'm gonna keep changin' things up' |
Although saying that, Springsteen
had made it clear he planned to “surprise” audiences and “keep changing it up”
when it came to what was played on the night.
With that in mind, it became
easier to accept in my post-wedding hangover that Melbourne night one was
simply a fluke for Springsteen’s fans who made it to the first stadium show on
the Australian tour.
Thinking that however was just the
latest in a series of mistakes over set list assumptions.
As Melbourne’s second night
started the tracks filtered on to social media and there they were – Growin’ Up and Lost In The Flood.
The two songs that always come to mind when planning
what request signs to make.
I had deliberately avoided making any
signs in Perth or Adelaide because I didn’t want to see a song I’d requested
played at a show I couldn’t make.
And of course, the killer blow, a
full Born To Run – my all-time
favourite album – show.
There’s no hiding from it – no
matter how good a time I had, by not being in Melbourne, I missed something
very, very special.
But the reality is that if unless
you go to every Springsteen show for the rest of your – or the Band’s – life,
you’re always going to feel that you’ve missed something special – because you
will miss something special. Whether it’s a full-album show, a piano solo of For You or a duet with another rock
legend.
All you can do is keep track and
enjoy the highlights you do make, buy two tickets to New Zealand to extend your
adventure and keep checking the weather forecast for the next show… right now
there’s storms predicted for Sydney. And with it maybe, some high hopes for a
Darkness On The Edge Of Town…
( * Drink responsibly)
