Guniea Pigs

Hot night in the city last night. Seriously, HOT! It was crazy. But I digress, on with the show.
The band took the stage late, around 8:40 (for a 7:30 ticket!). No hoopla taking the stage just lights out and Bruce took the stage followed by the band.
And speaking of the stage they set up the full arena sized stage in Convention Hall. It was huge and that only left about half of the floor available for GA. It was tight in there.

Radio Nowhere is a great opener as we all knew it would be.

The new stuff is very good for the amount of time they have rehearsed. The average fan is going to go for a beer when he plays MAGIC but I thought it was good. Patti shared vocals on that one and let's just say she needs more rehearsals or something!
The one that I was sort of disappointed in was "Girls". It seemed to plod along a tad but I'm sure that will improve over time.
Devil's Arcade is simply stunning. But again the average person is not going to wait around to watch the song build and get the full effect of it.

EDIT: Forgot to say this which I posted on another board this morning - Livin in the Future is an interesting one. Listening to it the last few weeks I have wondered how it would come off live. And the fact that Bruce points out the dark undertones to the song makes it a whole lot less of a party song, which is what is sounds/feels like at first pass. Not really sure what he's looking for from the crowd on this one.


Did I want to hear a Patti song? Hell no. Was it good. Have to say it was. The song itself is basically a conversation between a man and a woman and they played their respective parts well. Bruce's vocals on this song were great, Patti, yeah well. They both played Acoustics for this song.

Thundercrack kills me. When he brought this out at the Holiday shows a few years ago the place went ape shit. Last night, looking around, I'd say 90% of the crowd was lost. Had NO idea what the song was. Can't imagine it playing well to an arena of half wits!

The war horses are the war horses and they play very well. Both the band and the crowd are locked in on those songs. Say what you will about Born to Run but seeing it played in that small room last night just gives me a huge thrill.

Everyone in the band looks pretty good. The stage personas are not quite fleshed out yet but you know they will come over time. C is still looking to Bruce to decide if he should take center stage at certain points and Bruce also directed a violin/sax face off between C and Soozie for one song - can't recall which one. EDIT: I think it was Darlington County.
At the end of the regular set Patti and Soozie where hugging and spinning around the stage like school girls.
Steve is a train wreck! HA Seriously. It seems like he had no clue what he was doing up there last night and not a clue on the lyrics - not even BADLANDS! His head doesn't appear to be in the game just yet :)

Bruce's Mom and Aunt were at the show, sitting a few sections over from me. Funny to see Bruce's Mom do the old "Badlands fist pump" right on cue! I caught her a few times waving to Bruce from her seat. No idea if he could see her but it didn't really matter!

Just before BTR Jesse Malin came in the house. Anyone know if he was performing in the area last night?
Also saw Marsh hanging out at the back of the floor.

They are still working out the kinks for sure but the show has a great deal of potential for fun and balls to the wall rock n roll.

On to Hartford........