C’est Bruce...

Montpellier, France, 16/5/97

The Ghost of Tom Joad / Atlantic City / Straight Time / Highway 29 / Darkness On The Edge Of Town / Johnny 99 / Point Blank / For You / Red Headed Woman / Two Hearts / The River / Born in the USA / Dry Lightning / Reason to Believe / Sinaloa Cowboys / The Line / Balboa Park / Across the Border
Encore #1: Bobby Jean / Working on the Highway / This Hard Land / No Surrender
Encore #2: Galveston Bay / The Promised Land

In the waning moments before Springsteen took the stage I already started composing the article in my mind. Though I haven't seen a show for over a year, I thought not that much had changed within the show, so why not write about the quite extraordinary building, with it's six-storey-high walls covered with bathole-like balconies. But I'm afraid that if you're really interested in an in-depth architectural analysis of the Corum's Opera you have to go there yourself, because the following two-and-a-half hours I was busy being amazed, awestruck and moved. All the things you've become used to expecting from a Springsteen-concert. While the first song, TGOTJ, could, minor changes aside, be described as business as usual, everything from there on was everything but that. (O.k., o.k. so he played the border songs which wasn't exactly surprising, but he seemed to relish that one very solemn constant he had throughout all the legs of the tour.) 'Atlantic City', for example, replaced Adam in the number two spot; while 'Darkness', which followed 'Highway 29' and a much more animated 'Straight time', was an angry explosion of a song, nearly bringing your ears to a burst.

Bruce seemed very much at ease, which hasn't always been the case during the earlier stages of the tour, not afraid of goofing around a bit or letting his guards down. Never was that more obvious as during 'Red Headed Woman'. He interrupted the song several times, laughing about a slip up from the night before, where he confused the French words chevaux and cheveux and therefore asking if there were any women with red horses in the audience.

After that, as if to make up for all the dirty stuff, he sent 'Two Hearts' across the ocean to his own red headed woman, as he put it.

The VietVet-part (if you wanna call it that way), consisting of BIUSA and 'Brothers under the Bridges' worked perfectly, especially since Bruce worked a lot on the intro of the former. His bottleneck-work now starts as a western song before it shifts into some kind of Asian Rock and finally ends in a good ol' Delta Blues outing.

But all those great moments had to take 'support-roles' to the evening's real highlights. First there was the comeback of 'The River', lead off by a beautiful harmonica intro and sung with an intensity that seemed to lend an even deeper meanings to the last verse. Then he surprised everyone by playing 'For You', dedicating it to the 'vieux amis' (old friends). But the magic moment of the evening, maybe even of the whole tour, was the totally unexpected and goosebump-raising rendition of 'Point Blank'. The building was so quiet and tense that you could literally hear the shivers running up and down everyone's spine. For all the ones who thought that a Who-show was more worth it: My deepest heart-felt condolences for missing this one...

The evening was capped off by a fittingly great set of encores, including 'No Surrender' with a funny Irish folk intro, the sing-a-long 'Working on a Highway' (Bruce sure has a funny way of dancing) and to end it with a bang - quite literally since Bruce slammed his hand on his guitar as the song's finale - the new and improved 'Promised Land'.

So, as stunning as it might have been, on this very special the architect's art couldn't even contend as an also-ran... the real thing was in town.

by Manuel Pasi