Bruce Springsteen Ottawa October 19, 2012

What can I say? The man just delivers the goods like I've never seen. Last night in my hometown it was an EPIC show. After 31 years and 9 shows, I can't wait for # 10!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... 091a443009

Here are a few shots I took with my iPhone 5 last night, and a review from the Ottawa Citizen

Still the Boss
Springsteen renews his legend with rockin’ Scotiabank show
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Concert+Re ... z29qVK7Z4L

Bruce Springsteen unleashed the full force of his rock-concert superpowers on a sold-out crowd of 19,000 people at Scotiabank Place on Friday. Once again, the rock legend and his renowned E-Street Band outdid themselves with a momentous performance that conveyed the triumphant power of rock ‘n’ roll.

Within minutes, he showed us who was boss. While the audience must have been frustrated by the stop-and-go traffic getting to the show, and long lineups to get into the venue, all was forgotten within four songs.

Under bright white lights, the 63-year-old grabbed the crowd’s attention with a riveting version of The Promised Land, cranking his electric guitar and ripping into his harmonica as the band wailed behind him. His E Street band, by the way, was augmented by some extra personnel, including a top-notch horn section and a trio of rich-voiced backup singers.

The lights went down for The Ties That Bind, but you could see the intensity in the faces on the giant video screens: everyone on stage had already worked up a sweat. The fierce No Surrender was rolled out next, ringing with piano notes and vocal harmonies as Little Stevie Van Zandt leaned in to share the microphone with his old friend.

Casting his guitar aside, Springsteen launched into Hungry Heart, although he didn’t actually have to do much singing. The crowd bellowed the song at the top of their lungs as their hero headed to the floor, shaking hands and bumping fists with fans along the way. From a satellite stage in the middle of the general admission section on the floor, Springsteen then let himself drop backwards onto the outstretched hands of fans, and surfed the crowd back to the stage.

After this impressive display of trust in his followers, Springsteen could do no wrong. He went into another stretch of musical intensity, this time touching on We Take Care of Our Own, the title track to the latest album, Wrecking Ball and the lilting Death To My Hometown.

When he came up for air, Springsteen took note of the “old faces” and “new faces”, both in his band and in the crowd. In what was presumably a bit of a tribute to his late saxophone player, Clarence Clemons, he spoke about ghosts as the camera panned to the face of Clemons’ nephew Jake, the band’s new sax player. .

“The older you get the more ghosts and spirits walk alongside,” he said. “When you’re old, those ghosts beome your travelling companions. They remind me when they walk side me, of the preciousness of this day and how sweet life is.”

His words rang with truth. In Springsteen’s world, there’s no such thing as just a concert. Looking fit and ageless, he was in fine form and made the most of the night, packing in a couple of dozen songs, with a midsection of My City’s In Ruins, E-Street Shuffle, Prove it all Night and Darlington County, and a homestretch of The Rising, Badlands and an epic version of Thunder Road.

One mid-show highlight was the upbeat Waiting on a Sunny Day, when the Boss pulled a couple of youngsters out of the crowd and handed one of them the microphone as they bounced with excitement. Another lucky fan, who said she worked at Sobey’s, had her request for Queen of the Supermarket fulfilled with a solo acoustic version of the tune.

Although the bars closed at 10 p.m. and the house lights came on at 11 p.m., Springsteen and the band kept on rocking like their lives depended on it. There were more songs to deliver, and to the sheer delight of the fans, Springsteen came through with Born To Run, Glory Days, Dancing in the Dark and Tenth Avenue Freeze Out. By the end, more than three hours after it began, it was a incredible musical experience that made everyone in attendance happy to be alive.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Last edited by paulsweeney on Sun Oct 21, 2012 2:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

NOTES FROM THE ROAD: OTTAWA, ON

Bruce and the E Street Band returned to the stage after nearly a month, to begin a true North American leg north of the border that will come to a close in December in Mexico. After the outdoor shows this summer, they’re bringing the Wrecking Ball tour back inside, beginning in Ottawa, Ontario’s Scotiabank Place. Despite the time off, there was no sign of rust on this well-oiled machine. From the first bars of “The Promised Land,” Bruce and the band were in mid-tour form. Jake Clemons, especially, was on top of his game from the beginning.

The Ottawa crowd was remarkable: they knew all of the sing-along parts and responded enthusiastically for every song. Scotiabank Place is a loud building, and Bruce fed off the energy.

“No Surrender” — which Bruce played twice at campaign rallies by himself the day before, now backed again by the E Street Band — was one of the standouts. On the very next song, “Hungry Heart,” Bruce jogged around the right side of the pit and crowd-surfed his way back to the stage. A rowdy “E Street Shuffle” was played by request for the doctor who had to unplug Bruce’s ear just before the concert — Bruce said he couldn’t hear anything in the afternoon.

“Prove It All Night,” complete with the ’78-style piano and guitar solo intro, featured Nils providing a smoking solo toward the end on an impressive two-tone wooden guitar. Nils also joined Bruce the next time he went back around the pit, on “Darlington County.”

For such an energetic show, though, the slow-build “Drive All Night” was the highlight by far. Steve and Nils provided great harmonies on the “don’t cry now” part, and Jake added a stunning sax solo.

To begin the encore, another rarity, this time from the 2009′s Working On A Dream: “Queen of the Supermarket.” The E Street Band has only played the song once in concert, but Bruce couldn’t resist the request — from a woman who works at Sobey’s, a Canadian supermarket chain — so for its tour premiere, he dismissed the band for the moment to go it alone on the acoustic guitar.

“Glory Days” brought a life-size cardboard cut-out of 43-year-old Bruce onto the stage. Modern-day Bruce and Steve played off of it for a while, to everyone’s amusement, and ended up dancing around it before Bruce eventually sent it back into the pit from whence it came.

The show-closing “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” drew an even more sustained response to the Clarence tribute than seen in some of the U.S. shows earlier this year; it seemed everyone was fired up on this first night back. It was a relatively short show — with the emphasis on “relatively” — at just over three hours, but a well-constructed and well-paced set that kicked off this new arena leg in fine style.

- Cliff Breining, backstreets.com

Setlist:

The Promised Land
The Ties That Bind
No Surrender
Hungry Heart
We Take Care of Our Own
Wrecking Ball
Death to My Hometown
My City of Ruins
Spirit in the Night
The E Street Shuffle
Jack of All Trades
Prove It All Night
Candy's Room
Darlington County
Shackled and Drawn
Waitin' on a Sunny Day
Drive All Night
The Rising
Badlands
Thunder Road
* * *
Queen of the Supermarket (solo acoustic)
We Are Alive
Born to Run
Glory Days
Dancing in the Dark
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=FL ... re=mh_lolz

Last edited by paulsweeney on Sun Oct 21, 2012 7:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

From Backstreets - http://www.backstreets.com/news.html

10/19, OTTAWA: THE FALL LEG BEGINS NORTH OF THE BORDER

Perhaps it had something to do with the current NHL labor lockout, and a city full of hockey-starved fans looking to blow off some steam. Tonight’s kickoff to the fall leg of the Wrecking Ball tour woke up the usually conservative Ottawa audience to a level previously unseen. This is a government town, typically polite and restrained (as witnessed on the Rising and Magic tours), and sometimes falling a little short of the passion of the Montreal crowds or the party-til-you-drop attitude of Toronto fans. Not tonight. The nation's capital packed Scotiabank Place to the gunwale, and Bruce had them on their feet for the entire show.

Patti once again sitting out, the band kicked off the night with a lights-on rendition of "The Promised Land." Once Jake Clemons' solo kicked in, it was love at first note for the new E Streeter, who established an audience bond that didn’t let up for the whole night.

The house lights were killed for a razor-sharp "Ties that Bind" followed by "No Surrender" featuring a spectacular flourish from Max at the end. "Hungry Heart" had the typical audience participation in the first verse (very loudly — nicely done, Ottawa), and Bruce quickly found his way to the riser between the pit and the rest of GA... then, during Jake's solo, the first crowd-surf of the fall leg, back to the main stage.

By the end of the one-two punch of "We Take Care of Our Own" and "Wrecking Ball," the sound crew finally found the sweet spot and cleared up the muddiness that was there for the first four numbers, and the "Wrecking Ball" directive to "Let me hear your voices call" was responded to by the crowd with a "Yeahhhhhh!!!!" that practically tore the roof off. The equally enthusiastic response to "Death to My Hometown" (an inadvertent anthem to a potentially lost hockey season?), proved that Bruce is one of those few artists that is more than able to get his audience to embrace new material.

The gospel-inflected "My City of Ruins" introduced the audience to the horns, the "choir," the band, and his current theme of the ghosts that walk with us, telling the audience that "the older you get, the more ghosts and more spirits walk aside ... those ghosts become your traveling companions." It'is a uniquely poetic and uplifting approach of honoring those that are no longer with us. Clarence and Danny's spots on stage right were appropriately lit for the "roll call."

The ghosts and spirit theme continued with a blistering "Spirit in the Night" and gave the crowd its first taste of the wonderful chemistry that has been developing between young Jake and Bruce throughout the tour, particularly the sit down grizzled-uncle lecture of "This was all before you were born...," which gets funnier every time.

The next one was an audible. Bruce had apparently been suffering a clogged ear (perhaps from all that flying around the Midwest on the Obama stump on Thursday) and was "very happy" now because of the doctor who "fixed me up." "E Street Shuffle," showing off the power of the E Street horns, was the doctor’s request.

"Jack of All Trades" led us to Roy's gorgeous piano accompanied by Bruce’s first guitar solo of the night, that classic '78-style intro setting up a somewhat subdued "Prove it All Night," finally exploding with the solo now adopted by Nils Lofgren. A thrilling "Candy's Room" was followed by another Bruce audience foray during "Darlington County," where he apparently slipped a lucky girl some cash (how much?).

"Shackled and Drawn" featured some inspired gospel from the always lovely Cindy Mizelle, and"Waitin' on a Sunny Day" provided one of those great spontaneous Bruce moments; Bruce was late on the acoustic guitar toss because apparently the strap got stuck on something, so he stopped the band and counted them back in to time the toss appropriately — the band, as always, not missing a beat. And, hey, Toronto, you got one cute kid singing on this song... Ottawa got two!

The rarely played "Drive All Night," an audible, provided the show’s highlight. The band worked up a crescendo that gave the effect of an awakening bee-hive. Then, wrapping up the main set, the hat track of "The Rising," "‘Badlands," and "Thunder Road" with its moving tribute to Clarence's sax riff by the entire horn section that never ceases to make the goose bumps rise.

The request section didn’t turn up at this show, but Bruce did grab one card for the first encore song. "Nobody ever requests this!” he shouted, revealing to the crowd "Queen of the Supermarket." Still laughing, he leaned over to the woman who had provided the request, who revealed that she was "Caroline from Sobeys" (Sobeys is a venerable supermarket chain in Canada). He dismissed E Streeters from the stage because "the band doesn't know it" and spent about a minute reminding himself of the changes on the acoustic — then he nailed it, even throwing in the ad libbed line "She's waiting at Sobeys...." It would be interesting to see if Sobeys gets a sales bump in Ottawa this weekend.

Continuing on the ghosts and spirits theme, the new favorite "We Are Alive" followed, with an animated Jake banging on the drum, using his sticks to help Bruce "call the voices," backed by his horn compatriots bringing the mariachi. Then — house lights on! — "Born to Run." Finally could hear the organ, it's usually pretty subdued in the mix. Jake engages the audience at the back.

"Glory Days" provided another great moment: someone in the pit had brought a life-size (well, actually a bit taller) cutout of Bruce, Lucky Town era, that found its way on to the stage. Little Steven propped it up ceneter stage, where he and Bruce danced around as if in a tribal ceremony. Bruce held the mic up to Cardboard Bruce ("Sing it for me, Bossman!"), but, sadly, got no response. Cardboard Bruce stayed up for "Dancing in the Dark" but got booted from the stage for the final song, "Tenth Avenue Freeze-out" (Cardboard Bruce found his way back to his owner/trainer). By the time Bruce shooed the last E Streeter off the stage, the show clocked in at three hours, nine minutes — a (relatively) shorter show, and fairly basic setlist, but a tight and energetic first night back.

The photo montage during "Tenth Avenue" once again brought up the spirits-that-walk-with-us theme, but also served as a reminder that Bruce and the E Street Band, despite having a few parts changed here and there, are built to last. This isn't just a band, it's family.

Thanks Paul! Top notch posts, as usual!

Springsteen rocks the Bank - The Ottawa Sun

http://www.ottawasun.com/2012/10/17/spr ... s-the-bank

There’s a particularly poignant lyric in the title track to Bruce Springsteen’s latest opus, Wrecking Ball, that was related early in an epic three-hour set at Scotiabank Place Friday.

“Through the mud and the beer, and the blood and the cheers, I’ve seen champions come and go,” Springsteen laments through a tale of surviving hard times in the “steel and swamps” of New Jersey.

While many of those champions of Springsteen’s vintage still hit the road to dust off the back catalogue and line their pockets, while greying fans relive their glory days, it’s clear Springsteen is still right in the midst of his.

This was certainly no greatest hits tour, as Bruce and his E-Street Band — a five-piece horn section and mini-choir augmenting the venerable lineup of Max Weinberg, Stevie Van Zandt, Nils Lofgren, Patti Scialfa, Garry Tallent and Roy Bittan — flies without a net, with an ever-changing setlist that spans all sides of Springsteen, since he first welcomed us to Asbury Park, N.J. 40 years ago to when he dropped his Wrecking Ball on us at age 63.

Opening with 1978’s The Promised Land, that’s exactly where Springsteen sought to elevate his enamoured cross-generational audience, with a gospel-tinged opening that drew upon the golden age soul stirrers who provided his earliest influences.

Before each applause could subside, songs kicked off with a rapid-fire “1,2,3,4” that ushered in The Ties That Bind, No Surrender and the singalong Hungry Heart — with Springsteen dishing out high-fives in the middle of the crowd before crowd-surfing his way back to centre stage.

In an increasingly sweat-soaked collar shirt, vest and blue jeans, Springsteen gave fans a quick tour through his latest album, with opening cut We Take Care of Our Own, Wrecking Ball and Death to My Hometown.

Introducing The Rising’s haunting My City of Ruins, Springsteen launched into the first of his trademark soliloquies that defined him as one of rock’s greatest storytellers, and the most intimate of arena rockers.

“The older you get, the more ghosts and spirits walk along beside you,” he said, pensive and pacing the stage. “As you get older, those ghosts just become your travelling companions. They remind you of the preciousness of this day, and how sweet life is.”

Springsteen had the entire crowd in his grasp, channeling those old soul pioneers Sam Cooke and Wilson Pickett as he brought the crowd down from a roar to an eerie hush.

“I feel those ghosts standing beside us. How do I know? Because I can hear it in your voices,” he said as the crowd erupted on cue, with Springsteen raising his arms from his pulpit and ripping into the fitting Spirit of the Night.

It was back to vintage Springsteen as the band dusted off the old classic The E-Street Shuffle, and proceeded to demonstrate just how to bust that particular move by shuffling in line across the stage, with Jake Clemons, “The Little Big Man” and nephew of dearly departed Clarence Clemons, admirably filling his uncle’s vacated spotlight.

There was Bruce the troubadour, resurrecting the ghosts of Woody Guthrie and Old Tom Joad on Shackled and Drawn; there was the classic rocker ripping into his Telecaster on Candy’s Room and Badlands; there was the megahit songsmith of the crowd-pleasing Darlington County; Bruce the balladeer with the haunting and lovely Drive All Night; the working man’s rabble-rouser of Thunder Road; and in the concert’s most touching moment, a pair of young lads were pulled out of the front row and invited onstage to bounce in step with The Boss, who handed his mic over to the eldest — at maybe 10 years old — to belt out a chorus of the uplifting Waitin’ on a Sunny Day.

By the time the band reached the climactic closing quartet of Born to Run, Glory Days, Dancing in the Dark and a heartfelt tribute to Clemons on 10th Avenue Freeze-Out, the show now reaching into its third hour, it was an equally impressive feat of strength for the sold-out crowd of 19,000 to keep pumping their fists in rhythm as it was for the ageless frontman to squeeze every last bit of urgency from his grizzled voice.

The only thing missing by midset deadline was Springsteen’s trademark firebrand political fervour, curiously absent especially after dropping in on two separate Obama campaign rallies Thursday in Ohio and Iowa.

On Friday in our nation’s capital, and removed from the political battleground, politics took a backseat while the E-Streeters, with Bruce at the wheel, drove it home.

aedan.helmer@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @OttSunHelmer

Bruce checks out Ottawa’s Queen of the Supermarket
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Bruce+chec ... z29u8OaJ3b

When diehard Bruce Springsteen fan Carolyn Ouellette managed to jump through the hoops to earn a spot in The Pit near the stage at The Boss’s show at Scotiabank Place Friday night, she felt like she’d won the lottery.

Several hours later, Springsteen was crowd-surfing over her head, and she boasts she laid hands on him to help him on his way.

She thought that was pretty special, too.

Then he spotted The Sign: “Please sing Queen of the Supermarket.”

“When we were in line, there were a couple of guys saying ‘Oh, he’ll never play that,’ making a lot of fun,” said the 48-year-old cashier from the Terry Fox Drive Sobeys supermarket.

“We’ll see,” she said.

In fact, the tune, off the 2009 Working on a Dream album, is the subject of heated debate in the intense Springsteenian fan universe, with some web knowitalls calling it Bruce’s Worst. Song. Ever. (It also has one of the very rare ‘F-bombs’ ever recorded by Springsteen.)

Whatever, says Ouellette. The song — detailing the tale of a young man’s crush on a cashier — speaks to her and loads of folks like her.

“It’s great because he writes about blue-collar men, but it’s written about a woman, which is very, very cool.

“Since it came out, I’ve thought he wrote it for me.”

As the show proceeded, she knew that the Boss and his E Street Band had noticed her handiwork.

“Little Stevie (Van Zandt) saw it and he kind of nodded to Bruce.” A little later, Springsteen himself walked over to check it out and pointed at Ouellette and her daughter, attending her first Springsteen show.

That was it until late-ish in the show, when the band had backed off for a small break and Springsteen strolled over to chat.

“Nobody ever asks for this song,” he said to huge applause. “Where do you work.”

When she said “Sobeys” he chuckled and the house applauded.

“The band doesn’t know it, so maybe I’ll try it myself.”

He grabbed an acoustic and, after a few minutes trying to find a comfortable pitch, announced he’d give it a shot.

Ouellette and 18,000-plus friends roared their approval.

The moment encapsulated one of the very things that had drawn her to Springsteen in the first place, and prompted her to attend a “double-digit” number of shows.

“I was nervous when he was talking to me but it became like we were just talking. He’s such a down-to-Earth guy, but he has all that star power. It’s such a great combination.”

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Springsteen fills Scotiabank Place while hockey's away

http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/springsteen-fi ... -1.1002967

While the bosses of the NHL and its players union are keeping hockey fans away from Scotiabank Place, the Boss certainly packed rock and roll fans in on Friday night.
Bruce Springsteen played his first Ottawa show in over five years, bringing in die-hard from far and wide for a marathon set that lasted over three hours.
“We came all the way from Nova Scotia to see Bruce,” said one fan. “He’s the only boss I’ll listen to.”
“(We’ve seen him in) Boston, Cleveland . . . the list goes on and on,” said Gary Wallace of Moncton, seeing Springsteen for the 27th time.
BOB-FM radio host Sandy Sharkey is a self-described super fan, and it shows – her photo with him outside the Ottawa airport Thursday night isn’t even her best Springsteen story.
“I just happened to find out which hotel he was staying at (in Toronto in 1984) and I knew that he liked to swim,” she said.
“He got out of the pool and went into the hot tub . . . and we talked for about an hour. Then after an hour he said ‘I have to do a sound check, do you want to come with me?’
“I said ‘Oh, that’s OK,’ . . . to this day people are like ‘I can’t believe you didn’t go,’ but at least he didn’t think I was a groupie.”
Springsteen isn’t the only big-name entertainer to hit Scotiabank Place while the Senators are locked out – Barbra Streisand plays there Saturday, with The Who, Justin Bieber and Neil Young stopping by in November.

With a report from CTV Ottawa’s Catherine Lathem