Mojo - The Music Magazine

Danny Eccleston was going to write about some other bands. Then he saw Bruce Springsteen.

MOJO SAW SOME TRULY memorable performances during the rain-free day two of the venerable rock festival. Tinariwen's Saharan trance rock began our day in a guitar-spangled haze. Spinal Tap brought Jarvis Cocker on stage to play extra bass on an earth-moving Big Bottom (yes, we know they're a joke band). Dizzee Rascal proved he has the charisma and a sufficiently wide-ranging palette of rhythms and song ideas to be that rarest of things just now: an interesting all-British pop star. Passion Pit's quirky, Bostonian Andrew-Gold-meets-'80s-synth-pop had the John Peel tent in a mass swoon, and Baaba Maal - who seems to work a whole new aspect of his performance persona every time MOJO sees him, came on like the Senegalese James Brown with a full-on Afro-funk ur-groove.

However, it's been a long time since one artist owned Glastonbury like Springsteen did last night. Radiohead's headline show in 1997, Pulp's in '95, even Jay-Z's last year - all had a seismic quality - but the moment that Springsteen and the E-Street Band hit the Pyramid stage at 10pm, it was with an unequalled, even ferocious intensity.

Any fears of the party-hearty cheesefest that you can get with Bruce en masse were instantly allayed with the Boss's super-intense reading of Joe Strummer's Glastonbury-inspired Coma Girl. It was two things at once: an audience-involving acknowledgment of the culture of the festival (remember Pulp's Sorted For E's And Wizz?) and a simply scorching performance, setting a high bar for what was to follow.

What followed was the gamut of Springsteen's showman tics - jumping into the crowd, collecting their request cards and even playing a couple: Because The Night - but underscored all the while by a grim assault by his bandmates, with songs old and new delivered as if their lives depended on it. Three words for accountant-attired drummer Max Weinberg: Oh; My; God.

The crowd, not all Springsteen converts by all means (as proven when Bruce tried and failed to get them to sing along to Thunder Road) responded in kind. Bruce can rarely play to a crowd as young as this, but he seemed to take it as a challenge, not a turn-off. The inter-generational torch-passing was emphasised by the co-singing guest stint of Gaslight Anthem's Brian Fallon on No Surrender. The latter appeared to be the singularly most extremely delighted man of the weekend, and why not? All those Springsteen namechecks in his interviews finally paid off.

There were lots of songs of our times, sad and angry songs, songs about the shit we're in and how we'll need to stick together if we're to see it out. So there was no compromising what has become the heart of Springsteen's muse, although there were moments - notably an overly-preacherly interlude where Bruce promises to build "a house of hope", presumably right here on Worthy Farm. It was a bit Elmer Gantry, but at least it was a crime of passion, not calculation. Although even Bono might have winced.

And that's a thought... U2's continuing inability to sort themselves out a Glastonbury headline slot seemed even more absurd at 12.30 this morning, as Bruce left a panting crowd with a skin-tingling almost-ravey Dancing In The Dark. Maybe they're too late. Springsteen got there first, and he rocked the place all to bits.

Danny Eccleston

Picture: Mick Hutson

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Set list

Coma Girl
Badlands
Prove It All Night
My Lucky Day
Outlaw Pete
Out In The Street
Working On A Dream
Seeds
Johnny 99
The Ghost Of Tom Joad
Raise Your Hand
Because The Night
No Surrender (W/ The Gaslight Anthem)
Waitin' On A Sunny Day
The Promised Land
The River
Radio Nowhere

Lonesome Day
The Rising
Born To Run

Encore:


Hard Times
Thunder Road
Land Of Hope And Dreams

American Land

Glory Days

Dancing In The Dark