Toronto, December 5, 2002

I touched the guitar.

Last night, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played an outstanding show at Air Canada Centr in Toronto. A 5-song opening salvo of The Rising, Lonesome Day, Candy's Room, No Surrender and Night, all knockout performances, basically killed us right at the start. Candy's Room was one of the few older standards that I'd never heard Bruce play, so I was pretty psyched.

I touched THE guitar.

The emphasis of Bruce's set has changed somewhat since we last saw him in Auburn Hills back in August. At that time, The Rising dominated the set, with an array of older songs seemingly picked to coincide thematically with it. Last night, while the set still included 10 of the 11 songs from The Rising that were in that first set ("The Fuse" having been dropped), and still in the same basic order, the pacing and feel were totally different.

I touched the GUITAR.

Several older songs were audibles, and the results could be chaotic and exciting. For Cadillac Ranch (which replaced Darlington County on the setlist), Bruce went through multiple false endings; after one such ending Nils, apparently thinking the song over, got out his banjo to start "Worlds Apart." When Bruce launched back into "Cadillac Ranch," Nils was left there with a "what do I do now??" look on his face, and Bruce just shouted over, "play the banjo!" So we had "Cadillac Ranch" with a banjo.

I PLAYED the guitar.

Loose endings and wild antics continued throughout the night. Bruce took stage-long slides to both sides of the stage, faked out Steve and Max at least once each during song endings, and goofed himself on at least one. It was all a zany splended mess. Not to mention that Bruce's voice and guitar playing were in top form; I've never much cared for the guitar solo as machine gun effect, but during "Worlds Apart" he made a believer out of me.

I TUNED the guitar.

Highlights weren't just in the antics and looseness, though. Nils contributed a stirring acoustic introduction to "Counting on a Miracle," and the extended vocal introduction to "Into the Fire" by Patti (along with Max and Bruce, in particular), was dramatic and effective. And "Born in the U.S.A" - outside the USA presented simply as a "prayer for peace," was downright scary, with a thunderous bass boom coming in not from Garry but from Roy.

BOING.

It is also apparent that Bruce has been working on his piano playing. Last night, he turned in a lovely rendition of "If I Should Fall Behind," with an introduction that was eerily reminiscent of "The Price You Pay" - a song that, alas, remains unplayed.

The guitar.

The encore set has become a strongpoint on this tour - first with the triple release of a high-octane "Dancing in the Dark," an insane roadhouse "Ramrod" in which Bruce proves yet again that he can't dance (but it doesn't matter), and then "Born to Run" in which the folks in section 306 are up just as surely as the lunatics down front.

The guitar is mine.

In the end, lunacy prevailed. With seemingly half the front row having brought santa hats for the band, Bruce, Clarence, Roy and Nils all put on hats (Clarence brought his own) and ripped out the traditional holiday tune, with Bruce going into another crazy dance and faking out the band again, a perfect ending.

I touched the guitar (the saxophone is next).