Category Archives: Bruce Springsteen

A River runs through Boston: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band at TD Garden, February 4, 2016

 

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band at TD Garden, The River Tour, February 4, 2016
Concert Review and Fan Rave
by Robert Gillis, 2/2016

“THE RIVER! The River was my coming of age record. It was the record where I was trying to figure out where I fit in … By the time I got to “The River,” I’d taking notice of the things that bond people together, that bond people to their lives: work, commitments, families.

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Review: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band / Wrecking Ball Tour / Gillette Stadium (My hometown) / Saturday, August 18, 2012


by Robert Gillis 8/2012
Another beautiful night for a Boss show in my hometown!

Our seats were in B2 which is behind the pit and behind “A” but not bad at all. I didn’t care, I just wanted to be there. The stadium looked pretty full.

From the start (8:10) it was obvious this was going to be another great show. I was on my feet the entire time, jumping up and down like a little kid, going bonkers.

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Review: A monster of a show, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at Fenway Park Boston, August 15, 2012

by Robert Gillis
(9/2012)

A little disclaimer: When it comes to Springsteen, I am not exactly unbiased — Not at all. I love the guy and tonight’s show was my 25th or 26th of my life — certainly not up there with fans like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who has seen the Boss 130 times, or even the nice folks I spoke with who have seen him over 70 times — but Bruce Springsteen has been my main musical choice for three decades and I am a hardcore Springsteen tramp.

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Review: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band / Wrecking Ball Tour / Izod Center, Meadowlands, NJ / Wednesday, April 4, 2012

By Robert Gillis, 4/2012

The eponymous track of Bruce Springsteen’s new CD, “Wrecking Ball,” was written a few years back in response to the demolition of the old Giants Stadium right next door here in the Meadowlands. It’s a great song; although the line about, “The Giants played the game” got some good-natured boos here in New England.

It was there at the Old Giants Stadium, in 1985, that my best friend David told me his fiancée (now wife) had invited us to her parents place in New Jersey to see Bruce Springsteen for the first time.

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Review: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band / Wrecking Ball Tour / TD Bank Garden Boston / Monday, March 26, 2012

by Robert Gillis
Published in the Boston City Paper 4/2012

Nosebleed seats (section 330 row 10, place your trays in the upright position) but who cares, — it’s Bruce Springsteen back in Boston and ANY seat is a good one! And as always, the man did not disappoint!

All Springsteen shows are special but this is one we all needed, after the death of Clarence Clemmons, Springsteen’s oldest and closest friend, and the very soul of the group — would the E Street Band go on?

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Review: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the Comcast Center, Great Woods Mansfield August 22 and 23, 2009

by Robert Gillis

August 22, 2009

Tonight’s Springsteen show came as close to a religious experience as, well, the last show. I’m running out of superlatives like “awesome” “in-cred-ible” and “just f**ing rocked,” but tonight’s show at GREAT WOODS was all those things and more.

Seats were amazing; got VERY close and got some amazing pictures.

I was shouting EVERY song, and “Point Blank” was one I’d never seen live.

  • JACKSON CAGE: What a surprise to start the show – great tune.
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Review: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Boston, 4/21/2009 and 4/22/2009

by Robert Gillis
TD Garden – Boston – 4/21/2009

Tonight’s Springsteen show was arguably one of the best I have seen. Hell, they all are. Best to stop rating them.

Bruce looks thinner, in great shape and his voice sounds fantastic. No earrings or other piercing and shorter hair.

LOVED the new “smoke” effect – Bruce has never done much of that and it works. Patti absent tonight. A very lovely tribute to Danny – an under-lit armchair to the side with his accordion displayed.

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Review: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band – August 2, 2008 at Foxboro, MA / Gillette Stadium

Review: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, August 2, 2008
Foxboro, Mass – Gillette Stadium

By Robert Gillis
Published in the Foxboro Reporter 8/2008

Set list: Summertime Blues / Tenth Avenue Freeze-out / Radio Nowhere / Lonesome Day / The Promised Land / Spirit in the Night / Tunnel of Love / Little Latin Lupe Lu / Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street? / Hungry Heart / Who’ll Stop the Rain / Youngstown / Murder Incorporated / She’s the One / Livin’ in the Future / Mary’s Place / The Rising / Last to Die / Long Walk Home / Badlands

Encore: I’m Goin’ Down / Jungleland / Born to Run / Glory Days / Dancing in the Dark / American Land / Rosalita

Five years to the day Bruce Springsteen last played Gillette Stadium here in Foxboro, the Boss returned for a high-octane, high energy train ride that maintained an incredible level of energy, quality sound, and fun for the next two and a half hours.

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Review: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at East Rutherford New Jersey / Giants Stadium, July 28, 2008

Review: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band East Rutherford New Jersey / Giants Stadium Sunday, July 28, 2008 By Robert Gillis

Sometime in 1984, my best friend David attended a party at his alma mater, Harvard, and heard a version of “Santa Claus is coming to town” and loved the way the singer performed it. “Who is this guy?” he asked. “Bruce Springsteen,” his friend Steve told him. So David headed out the next day and picked up Springsteen’s latest album, called, “Born in the USA,” and fell in love.

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Review: Happy Birthday to me: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band – MAGIC – Boston Garden 11/19/2007

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band – MAGIC
At the TD Bank North Garden, Boston
Monday, November 19, 2007
By Robert Gillis

Bruce Springsteen.

In Boston Garden.

On my birthday.

Can it possibly get any better?

Yes it can, and yes it did!

Setlist: Radio Nowhere / Night / Lonesome Day / Gypsy Biker / Magic / Reason to Believe / Darkness on the Edge of Town / Candy’s Room / She’s the One / Livin’ in the Future / This Hard Land / 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) / The E Street Shuffle / Working on the Highway / Devil’s Arcade / The Rising / Last to Die / Long Walk Home / Badlands

Encore: Girls in Their Summer Clothes / Tenth Avenue Freeze-out / Kitty’s Back / Born to Run / American Land

I love the new TD Bank North Garden (formerly the Fleet Center, formerly the “Why couldn’t they just call it Boston Garden?”).

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Album Review: Bruce Springsteen MAGIC

Review: Bruce Springsteen, MAGIC (released October 2, 2007)

By Robert Gillis

Published in the Boston City Paper

MAGIC is Bruce Springsteen’s new studio recording and his first with the E Street Band in five years. It’s a solid rock/pop offering; Springsteen has left the folksy styles of THE SEEGER SESSIONS and TOM JOAD behind (for now) and from the first notes it’s obvious this album is intended as a sequel to THE RISING — solid rock & roll, a sound throughout that makes you want to get up and dance (or jump up and shake your fist), and like RISING, deeply layered with commentary about current events.

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Review: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN WITH THE SEEGER SESSIONS BAND May 27, 2006

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
WITH THE SEEGER SESSIONS BAND
May 27, 2006 / Boston, MA / Tweeter Center
(Formerly Great Woods, Mansfield)

By Robert Gillis – published in the Boston City Paper June 2006

After a ten-city European tour, Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band returned to the US and started their tour here in Boston (well Mansfield) at the Tweeter Center (which will always be Great Woods to most of us around the area). Despite its 19000+ seats, the venue was intimate.

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Review: Bruce Springsteen Devils and Dust Boston October 28, 2005

Springsteen Concert Review by Robert Gillis

I LOVE Springsteen; he’s my favorite artist. I’ve been a fan since 1984 but love nearly all of his earlier work as well as the new. My dream? I just want to shake his hand and say thank you. He’s been there throughout my life when I’ve needed him most. Thanks, Boss.

Devils & Dust Tour,
October 28, 2005 Boston, MA – T.D. Banknorth Garden

NINTH ROW FLOOR, OH MY GOD, NEVER BEEN THIS CLOSE

Notes: The first of two Boston shows.

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Bruce Springsteen at Fenway Park September 6 and 7, 2003

Bruce Springsteen at Fenway Park September 6 and 7, 2003
by Robert Gillis

Note: Not so much a review as a gushing fanboy reaction to what had to be the most orgasmic set of Springsteen shows, EVER. EVER.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND
FENWAY PARK, BOSTON

IT’S BOSS TIME! WELCOME TO BOSS-TOWN!

September 6 Set list: Take Me Out to the Ballgame/Diddy Wah Diddy/The Rising/Lonesome Day/Be True/The Ties That Bind/Empty Sky/You’re Missing/Waitin’ on a Sunny Day/Janey Don’t You Lose Heart/Because the Night/Badlands/No Surrender/Out in the Street/Mary’s Place/Across the Border/Into the Fire/The Promised Land.

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Review: Bruce Springsteen at Gillette Foxboro 8/1/03 and 8/2/03

After seeing Springsteen in Jersey on July 17 and the Eagles the following night, I continued the Gillis Concert Tour 2003 with both Bruce shows here in Foxboro.

Man, I am wiped! The final two nights of the whirlwind concert tour are now behind me — Bruce Springsteen’s two shows at Gillette Stadium were phenomenal, with Saturday surpassing the Worcester 1988 TOL show as my favorite Springsteen show EVER.

August 1 / Foxboro, MA / Gillette Stadium
Notes: With a mixture of rain and thick fog settling in over New England and Burt Bacharach’s “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” heard as the band takes the stage, night one in Foxboro gets nine songs in the encores, including a nice tribute to the man who founded Sun Records, the late Sam Phillips.

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