Live Review

Hard Rock Calling – Day 2 – Hyde Park, London

• 16th Jul 2012

On Friday night I was given a promise that I would leave Hyde Park with my hands hurting, feet hurting, ears hurting and sexual organs stimulated and by god, was Bruce Springsteen right? Despite the plug being pulled on two of the biggest legends of our time, I practically floated out of the park. What. A. Performance.

At 7.30pm (half an hour later the scheduled) The Boss strolled on to the Hard Rock Calling stage, harmonica in hand, and whipped the waiting crowd into a frenzy with an incredible rendition of Thunder Road.

Springsteen kept up the pace and bounded round the stage with an energy far younger than his 62 years for three hours until Westminster council decided that they’d had enough. It certainly wasn’t just the Springsteen show though. The E Street band plays a huge part in proceedings and he likes to make a point of that throughout the entire spectacle. As well as The E Street Band, Springsteen invited a few guests to join him on stage. Tom Morello played five or six songs with The Boss and totally blew me away. What an incredibly talented guitarist that man is, when he really went for it during The Rising (I think) it was amazing.

His guest spots didn’t stop with the RATM axe man though and for the last two songs of the night he invited Hard Rock Calling veteran, Paul McCartney, to the stage. Now whether McCartney can’t play any Springsteen songs or Springsteen just wanted to pay homage to McCartney I don’t know but following a run of Born In The USA, Born To Run, Glory Days and Dancing In The Dark their joint performance of I Saw Her Standing There and Twist and Shout were brilliant. Although, I’ve never heard a live fade out before and that’s exactly what the council gave them.

From such a massive high of these two legends sharing a stage, and a mic, to the low of the council deciding they’d had enough – mid song, the crowd was left a little confused, but looking back on the night as whole it was an incredible show.
The Boss certainly knows how to fulfil a promise and as much as I hurt afterwards from the clapping, dancing and singing, I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat!