'The Irish Years' - Part 3

It's time to talk about Bruce. Of course the Bruce thing started way before our stay in Ireland, some time in the early 80's. When it was still hip to wear huge earrings and Don Johnson was the hippest person alive. Rolling up your sleeves was essential. Those days. Soon, those days will be back, so start wearing sweat bands again and you'll be a trend setter.

Anyway, Bruce. The Irish Connection is Bruce in Concert. Three times we managed to meet the guy. Well, see him from a distance. Three concerts, three different styles. Not just a little different, I'm talking difference like Cliff Richard is different from Keith Richards. Different. I'll explain, of course.

First there was the RDS concert with the E-Street Band. This was an exhausting experience. People not being able to stand on their feet, the audience begging the band to finally stop playing, people actually mind melting to speed up the time it took for the sun to set. Serious dehydration, muscle aches, I'm talking about the Concert That Would Not End. Okay, so Bruce is what, 73? The dude started to rock the place at 20.20 and simply would not finish. He just went on and on and on and on. At 23.20 he was still playing and he wasn't showing any sign of fatigue. He was 'just warming up'. The audience by that time was dead. Literally. It was the anti-Lourdes. Healthy people entering the cave all afternoon and crippled people, finding their way out of the stadium at midnight on hands and knees after the miracle that's called Bruce happened to them.

Good concert? Absolutely. Long concert? Definitely. Worth it? Totally. The band rocks and delivers. Simple as that. To give you an idea, here's 'Waiting on a Sunny Day'. This is approximately 2 and a half hours into the concert. Please note how the audience is massively trying to get the attention of the First Aid people by raising their hands, furiously waving to get some kind of medical attention. Also note how Bruce occasionally points at people that have just lost control of their knees to help the First Aiders to get to the most urgent cases first:

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Then there was the sheer brilliance of the Devils and Dust concert at the Point Theatre. Bruce solo is simply a unique experience that cannot be matched by anything. The U2 concert in Croke Park was good, very good, but in my opinion, and yes people, you are reading this correctly, the Bruce solo show was definitely better.

I love it when people reinvent their own songs, when arrived artists do not sit on their laurels by repeating the same old show over and over again. And Bruce did exactly that for 2 and a half hours non stop (short show, in the Bruce Extended Time World, but hey... he was on his own...).

So what does that mean, Bruce solo? Not your regular, here are all my hits but now in an acoustic 'me on the guitar' version, no, no, no... Bruce reinvented unknown songs ranging from songs that he was 'never happy with in their studio version', to songs that were only released on his 'unreleased stuff' album. Oh, and along the way, he completely revamped a few well known classics, with Bruce playing sometimes up to 3 or 4 instruments... simultaneously, mind you.

It was a very personal concert, completely about the music, about the artist, about Bruce. It was Bruce, just Bruce and nothing but Bruce. The guy showed his genius in full splendour. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of material available on the web that explains what I mean, so here's just the Devils & Dust video instead:




Oh, just found 'Nothing Man', (I'm cheating, I found this way way in the future):



Then finally there was the first concert in The Point of the Seeger Sessions Tour. Again, totally up my alley, so to speak. Bruce reinventing himself yet another time, in a completely different direction. With band this time, but what a band! If I remember correctly the tiny stage of The Point was taken up by 15 or 16 people. And still Bruce managed to make the songs sound fragile, honest, personal. The style of this concert again is hard to describe, but luckily a DVD will come out sometime in Spring of 2007, so you can all buy it and become Bruce addicts as well.

Since AOL does not allow Europeans to view its videos anymore, again, material is a bit scarce. I'll be updating in the far future:

'Mrs. McGrath'



'The River'



'Erie Canal'



'Eyes on the Prize'