Springsteen & the E Street Band: Baltimore, September 13, 2024

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band was originally scheduled to play Camden Yards in Baltimore on September 9th, 2023. The show was postponed for a year due to Bruce's peptic ulcer disease. Friday night, he and the band made up for it. Springsteen has a big show coming up Sunday evening on the beach in Asbury Park as the headliner of the SeaHearNow Music Festival. For this sweltering Friday evening, though, he gave full attention to Baltimore.

The band came on stage almost exactly at the stated show time of 7:30. Given that Bruce's first top ten single "Hungry Heart" mentioned Baltimore in the first line, it was no surprise that Bruce opened with it, followed by another River fan favorite, "Sherry Darling." The audience took the first line of "Hungry Heart," and Bruce was down to the front of the stage and in to the crowd even before beginning his own singing. The two openers also gave opportunities for members of the band to shine, in particular Jake Clemons during an extended solos in both songs, to Little Steven taking the guitar solo and being Bruce's foil for "Sherry Darling," and to The E Street Choir on both songs. The songs set a festive mood that mostly sustained the remainder of the evening.

After another crowd-pleaser, "Darlington County," the song selections took a noticeably darker turn, with a 4-pack of "Reason to Believe," "Atlantic City," "Youngstown" and "Long Walk Home." This 4-pack, which Bruce introduced as such in London earlier this summer, served not just as a reminder that Bruce still constructs and tinkers with his setlists, but as the emotional core of the show. "Reason to Believe," using the "La Grange" arrangement, was as nasty as anything I've seen Bruce perform in recent years. "Long Walk Home," introduced as "a small prayer for our country," made the evening's best use of the choir, and was as close as Bruce came to an explicit political statement from the stage. Each of the past 5 election cycles, Bruce has endorsed the Democratic candidate for president and has either made campaign appearances or supported in various other very public ways. He has not yet done so this time around, but "Long Walk Home" served as a reminder: "see that flag flying over the courthouse, means certain things are set in stone. Who we are, what's we'll do and what we won't."

The remainder of the show proceeded largely in a predictable manner, at least so far as the setlist was concerned. Remarkably -- to me, at least -- the show included just two of Bruce's many top ten hits; in addition to the opener, the other was "Dancing in the Dark" during the encores. Roy Bittan was often a dominant player in the band, particularly on "Racing in the Street" and "Backstreets." Bruce made a point, before "Last Man Standing," as he has at other recent shows, of saying that retirement isn't in his plans -- "we ain't done yet!"