Firstly the Emirates stadium looked to me to be a good venue for stadium gigs and certainly no worse than Wembley.  Getting to it is a breeze as it is literally two minutes walk from Arsenal tube and the police are very efficient at dispersing crowds sending them to the Arsenal first then Finsbury Park and finally Holloway Road.  There is however a drawback to being part of a residential area.-Islington put a curfew of 90 decibels on the concert.  This did have an impact and at times the sound was muffled.  “Point Blank” a quiet song was regarded as brilliant in some reviews I have read but I could hardly hear it especially when some morons decided to talk all the way through it on the grounds they did not know what it was.  I don’t pay £60 to listen to unintelligent moronic chat.  Word to the wise- your intelligence diminishes the more alcohol you consume and there wasn’t much there to start with.  Tip- do not sit down at the Emirates generally the sound was good but you had to move around at times.  The one thing that has improved hugely at stadium gigs are the screens, the quality of these was excellent.

As for the performance-not the best Springsteen I have seen- that has to be the Seegers Band or “Born in the USA”- Wembley 1984-85 but far from his worse either.  He has cut out the duck walks (getting older) which in my opinion is a good thing –once you have seen one you have seen them all.  There is now a section at the front “Gold area” which you enter by queuing early.  Lots of photogenic young girls but not the celebrities who seem to be at the front of every other gig- (Hyde Park take note)- quaffing champagne and paying little attention to the music. 

So to the music.  I think the gig covered virtually all his career in some depth (28 songs in total), including American Land from the Seeger Sessions.  Not surprisingly there were 5 songs from the new album but the Rising clearly was something of a renaissance- “Waiting on Summer Day” and “Mary’s Place” are now staples in his set.  This is the first time I have not seen him do “The River”- a pity, but highlights- Nils Lofgren’s guitar solo on “Because the Night”, Clarence’s sax on “Jungleland” and “Born to Run”.  There were times when it flagged but the whole set was 10 minutes short of three hours.  It was timed to perfection- the set finished with “Badlands” and then five encores- “Jungleland”, “Born to Run”, “Dancing in the Dark” (this time no one pulled out form the audience), “American Land” and one I have forgotten.

Would I see him again in a stadium?  The Stones, Dylan and Bowie can’t cut it in big stadiums any more.  Springsteen still can and is producing valid new material to boot. We all went happily to into the night.  In the words of Richard Littlejohn “Born to Limp”- none of us are getting any younger and three + hours is long time to stand up.