Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band-Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney Australia Night 1

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February 7, 2017
Qudos Bank Arena
Sydney, NSW Australia

What can I say, we traveled all the way from Vermont to join 18,000 people who packed the Qudos Bank Arena to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. The first of two sold-out nights and WOW. What a great time. We had seats on Stevie's (Little Steven, Stevie Van Zandt) side, about 10 rows up. There was a Springsteen virgin in front of us and she went wild.

We were all treated to just under three hours of a kick ass rock and roll party.

It rained all day as I said in my previous blog so the air temperatures at show time had dropped into the 80s. The pit was filled with folks having a great time. During Hungry Heart, Bruce takes a walk and visits the sides and back of the pit. If the pit people look sturdy and willing Bruce crowd surfs back to the stage and is hauled back up by Jake Clemons-while he continues to play his sax.



Bruce has played here in Olympic Park previously in 2013 and 2014, there were plenty of t-shirts strolling around from those shows. The show opens with "New York City Serenade," Roy starts off the song on piano and Bruce takes you along for the ride accompanied by eight women on violins-Cooper & Koo's, the band joins in and pretty soon everyone is shouting "No she won't take the train!" Hearing thousands of voices chanting gives me goose bumps.


Highlight for me was hearing "Candy's Room" (Jay's fav) and "She's the One" (special to me because I "studied" it in Mr. Ryan's Poetry and Music class back in high school!) back to back.


Also Nils Lofgren's solo during "Because The Night" is always fun. Oh and just because Patti Smith recorded BTN doesn't mean she wrote it, Bruce did and Stevie still regrets that Bruce didn't record it first.

It was great to hear "Darkness on the Edge of Town" and "Thunder Road."



I know people don't want to hear this but I could do without the "Dancing in the Dark" crew of on-stage dancers pulled from the audience. (At least The Boss has stopped doing "Waiting on a Sunny Day" so painful hearing some of those children trying to sing that song.) Now instead of one woman dancing with Bruce, people hold up signs so they can "dance" with every band member. They dance, they take selfies, they leave the stage. Personally, I'd rather see this time spent on one more song, but hey that's me. I'm there for the music not the 5 minutes of fame.

The show closed with "Bobby Jean", a song I quote to Jay often "we like the same music, we like the same bands, we like the same clothes."

We were done at 10:50 and able to catch the train back to the city. No problem. Met some great people on the ride back. What an experience.

Day off Wednesday-Hunter Valley Wine Tasting Tour, then back to BRUUUCE Thursday night for round 2.


More concert photos: Click Here


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