BRUUUUUCE!

It's getting to that time: March is nearly here and Bruce is on his way.

Bruce Springsteen is coming to New Zealand in March.

He's got a few more shows to play in Australia first but in just over one short week the massive operation which is Bruce Springsteen On Tour will arrive in New Zealand.

I've got tickets, and am beginning to get excited. I'm guessing there might be a few still kicking round for Sunday night's show but on Saturday it looks like Mount Smart will be packed to the top of the terraces.

That's my guess anyway, because yesterday I spent a couple of hours looking for somewhere to stay in Auckland.

Yes, it's a bit late I know; I was being lazy. But it never occurred to me that every single bed - not including a couple of spots in eight-person backpacker dormitories – would be booked up. Perhaps there are half a dozen other popular events happening in the City Of Sails on March 1 but the closest place I could find to stay was in Pukekohe (there were also rooms in Orewa).

A taste of Bruce
So there's clearly a little anticipation building about the Bruce gigs. With that in mind, here's some Bruce-stuff to fill the gap.

The Boss has actually been on the road since the beginning of January, taking a fairly leisurely route around South Africa and Australia – where he is spending the entire month of February – before getting here. He kicked off things in Cape Town on January 26 with a rousing version of Special AKA's eighties anthem 'Free Nelson Mandela”, with – as far as I'm aware – the biggest band he's ever taken out on the road, rivalling in size the outfit he assembled for his 'Seeger Sessions” tour which included everything from horns to fiddles to accordions, mandolins and banjos.

This tour the band is basically the legendary E-Street Band, although both the Big Man, Clarence Clemons and organ player Danny Federici have passed away since they were last here more than a decade ago. To replace Clarence a five-piece horn section has been drafted in. Fair enough, he was that big. Add in the four backing singers, extra keyboards, and percussion and you get eighteen (not counting Bruce).

Last tour, 2013 in Australia - lucky, lucky Australia! - they had a seventeen piece band and ace guitarist Tom Morello was brought in to replace Steve Van Zandt who was off filming TV detective show Lillyhammer. This tour Stevie's back but Morello is still on board, just as well since his trademark guitar style is all over Springsteen's latest album High Hopes. (Just in case that's not enough guitarists, the amazing Nils Lofgren is also in
the band...)

Online following
You can follow the tour online if you want. There are extraordinary things happening. In Adelaide last week he played two shows, 59 songs in all, with only nine songs performed on both nights. In Perth he surprisingly opened the third night with AC/DC's 'Highway To Hell”. In Melbourne he played one of his longest shows ever, clocking in at three hours 40 minutes on stage. Part of the Melbourne shows were 'full albums”. At the first one he played the entire Born In The USA, the next night the whole of Born To Run.

To check this out have a look at one of the on-line Springsteen forums, the most popular being Stone Pony and Greasy Lake (the latter seems busier). Each has masses of information and even people who live-blog the set-lists.

Live following
Or you could listen to the shows. For the first time with Springsteen (Pearl Jam have done it previously) each show is being recorded and mixed and is available for download within two-four days of the concert. They cost $US9.95 for mp3s or $US14.95 for lossless FLAC files. After a shaky start with the first Cape Town show the quality has been getting better and better, pretty much as close to proper album sound as you could hope for.

You can find them at the official Springsteen store, but make sure you have a good data cap for downloading since they are strangely addictive: with every show being so different you just want to collect them all! watusi@thesun.co.nz