Springsteen

Wish I could have been there.

“Is there anybody alive out there?” Springsteen shouted at the outset, and turned the show’s first 45 minutes into a rousing wake-up call. He buzzed through eight songs nonstop, one feeding into the next with a verve that recalled the band’s ferocious heyday, circa 1978. There has been a lot of shucking, jiving and mugging on recent E Street tours, but this time sidekick Steve Van Zandt was all business and Clarence Clemons hung in the shadows in between sax solos. Van Zandt was back in his element as Springsteen’s foil as a guitarist and vocalist, and the show revolved around their fevered interplay.

The duo set the tone by slamming down the chords of “Radio Nowhere,” then traded piercing leads on “Gypsy Biker.” Van Zandt channeled John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen” on a blues-drenched “Reason to Believe,” Springsteen matching him with an appropriately swampy, fuzzed-out tone on harmonica. “Adam Raised a Cain” raised a few goosebumps, Springsteen conjuring a wall of drone with his guitar overtones.

Springsteen