Sunday 16 December 2018

Bruce Springsteen - Springsteen On Broadway


Rating: 4/5

Review: 
Great music, rather too much chat

Springsteen On Broadway is recorded from his live almost-one-man show of monologue and stripped-back songs. It’s great in many ways; Bruce is a great performer, his long, personal spoken pieces are engaging (if rather obviously scripted in a lot of places) and the music is terrific. For me, the ratio of music to talk is too low, though.

I saw Bruce live just once (Wembley Stadium, 1985, since you ask) and even there some of the introductions dragged on a bit, but the excitement and brilliance of the live performances more than compensated. Not actually being present makes a lot of difference here, and, excellent though the music performances are, it gets a little tedious at times.

This is a show I’d love to have seen and which I’m glad to have heard. I’m not sure it’s one that I’d want to listen to repeatedly, though. Springsteen fans like me will want this in their collections but I’m not sure how often I’ll be playing it.

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