Bruce Springsteen: London Calling, Live In Hyde Park

Bruce Springsteen
London Calling: Live In Hyde Park
Columbia
[Rating: 5 stars]

“Are you f**king nuts? Get me an elevator! I’m f**king 60!” Bruce Springsteen has a potty mouth now. The new hardest working man in show business utters those lines after running the ramps midway through the E Street Band’s incendiary 2009 show in London’s Hyde Park, truly one for the ages. It’s a daytime concert, outside, in front of a billion people, like those iconic Springsteen shows of the ‘80s. It picks up around the third song, “Night,” and keeps going, and going – through “Outlaw Pete” and beyond. Eventually he turns the set list over to the fans holding signs in the audience, which yields deep cuts like “Bobby Jean” and “Trapped.” Throughout, Springsteen seems legit crazy, a rock and roll machine. It’s like he goes into another world on stage, and doesn’t come off. He’s also a man of impeccable timing, as you’ll see in many instances on this DVD. During “The River” – a bonus cut from Glastonbury – the mist rising of Springsteen’s back is unreal as he performs in front of a plethora of flags for a newborn nation.