TOUR OF 2008
http://groovevolt.com/?p=255Posted on 05 January 2009 by Groovevolt.com
While the year draws to a close, the touring schedule never ends. Bands are always on the long, dark road, travelling around the globe in an attempt to connect with their fans. In an age where album sales have crashed, the live experience allows bands to promote themselves and make the majority of their money. There were a number of well-reviewed tours in 2008. Madonna returned to the road and made everyone forget that she is 50 years old. AC/DC returned with a vengeance, cannons exploding, in support of their new album, Black Ice and found itself playing in front of an all-ages audience. Those who grew up on the band in the 80s brought their kids. Kanye West’s Glow in the Dark Tour was a multimedia extravaganza.
And yet, when 2008 is in the books, there is one tour that stood above the rest. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s Magic tour was, undeniably the most exciting tour of the year. Springsteen and the E Street Band have built their reputation on their live shows at least two-and-a-half hours of rock and roll. No light shows. No explosions. Just a plain, open stage, and a group of musicians dedicated to their craft. When the tour kicked off in October 2007, those who watched it on a nightly basis something that Springsteen’s fans do because of the singer’s penchant for not playing the same setlist twice were impressed, but not overwhelmed. The shows were well-reviewed, and the energy was still present, but something was slightly off. The shows, which relied heavily on songs from Magic, ran about two hours, 15-minutes: generous, but a bit short by Springsteen’s high standards. As the tour progressed through the late fall, the rumors began, and were later confirmed that organist Danny Federici, a founding member of the band, was seriously ill with melanoma. (This followed closely the sudden, unexpected passing of Springsteen road companion Terry McGovern.)
After the first leg concluded in November 2007, it was announced that Federici would be taking a leave of absence. His final full show with the band, November 19, 2007, in Boston, Massachusetts, was a heart-breaking affair, but it also foreshadowed the way in which the tour would evolve in 2008. A brief European leg in December found Springsteen playing fewer tracks from Magic and also found him taking the occasional request from fans something that he has done irregularly in the past, and when the second North American leg kicked off in February, it was clear quickly that the Magic tour had turned into an event.
Tour premieres entered the setlist every night. Rarities were doled out to appreciative fans like candy at Halloween. Federici passed on April 17, 2008 and five days later, in Tampa, Florida, Springsteen and the band hit the stage for one of the most emotional shows of their career. The entire show was a tribute to Federici’s memory and those tributes would continue. His passing also seemed to trigger something in Springsteen and the band. Perhaps it was their own mortality writ large. And for the remainder of the tour, the shows took on a completely different tone from the ones that took place during the first North American leg. The shows were looser and longer. Springsteen actually stopped the show each night, about eight songs in, and took requests from the fans in the pit in front of the stage. The fans brought their signs. Springsteen would collect them and then choose a group of songs to play. For an artist who crafted his set lists before every show, his decision to let the fans influence the list so directly was surprising. And yet, it worked. And it worked well because not only did the fans request more and more rarities every night, but also because the E Street Band was able to perform every song thrown at them a remarkable feat for a group that was drawing from a nearly 40-year catalog of songs. And the band was not just drawing from its own catalog. There were a fair number of rock standards going back 50 years.
By the time the tour wrapped in late August, the band had played approximately 160 different songs over the course of their 10 months on the road. Ponder that number for a moment. 160 songs. Most bands play the same 20 songs every of their tour, sometimes in the same order every night. Most bands are onstage for 90 minutes, two hours tops, including encores. Springsteen and the E Street Band were playing nearly three-and-a-half hours a night by the end of the tour. There are several bands as generous with their live shows as Springsteen and the E Street Band: Pearl Jam, Phish, the Grateful Dead are three notables. But since the first didn’t tour in 2008, the latter has been retired (and will unretired in 2009), and the latter is disbanded, there is no other logical choice. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band receive top honors in the category of the year’s top tour.
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