M. Ward – Shepherds Bush Empire, London

One of the great things about the summer festival season is the number of international acts who pop-up doing their own headline shows while in town.
Such is the case with M.Ward – who I absolutely love, but have only seen perform once before when he supported Beth Orton on one of her Australian tours.
That show was solo acoustic – so it was great to see Matt with a four-piece band tonight (strangely, all of whom wore stylish hats).
Always a fan of a good cover-version, the early part of the set included his subdued call-and-response take on Buddy Holly’s “Rave On” amongst newer material including the title track to his recently released sixth album ‘Hold Time’.
A mid-set solo acoustic bracket including his much loved cover of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” and a great version of “Fuel For Fire” from his fourth album ‘Transistor Radio’.
Rebecca Stark, lead singer with support act Lavender Diamond joined for harmony vocals on a great version of “Magic Trick”. A rollicking “Never Had Nobody Like You” – one of my favorite tracks from the new album, was good but sadly missing the lovely Zooey Deschanel on harmony. Closing the main set with a blistering cover of “Roll Over Beethoven” that gave Matt the chance to let out some ripping guitar solos.
The short encore started with the John Fahey instrumental “Bean Vine Blues, No. 2” and also included a great bar-room piano heavy reading of “Big Boat”.

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band – Hyde Park, London

Another summer = another Springsteen tour. How good! This time around limited to just a few major UK dates (a Saturday night headline slot at Glastonbury – which the BBC broadcast a glorious near 2-hour chunk from last night) and a Sunday night in Hyde Park, a short 20 minute stroll from home (so close Kim could hear the encore and named every song when I got back!).
This is the first tour whereby the format hasn’t changed dramatically from the previous tours – so while a number of the set-pieces remained the same (“Badlands”, “She’s The One” and “Out In The Street” early in show; “The Promised Land”, “Radio Nowhere”, and “Born To Run” later).
So the best part for me was where things got mixed up, like a show-opening cover of The Clash’s “London Calling” (I just finished the excellent Joe Strummer biography ‘Redemption Song’ and interestingly much of his latter life played out in nearby Ladbroke Grove – literally a stone’s throw away). The new economic-crisis inspired bracket of “Seeds”, “Johnny 99” and “Youngtown” mid-way during the set. There’s also a great wild-card section where Bruce grabs signs requesting from the crowd, which saw him pluck out their great cover of Jimmy Cliff’s “Trapped”, and a two-shoot from Born in the USA with “Bobby Jean” and “No Surrender” the latter a fantastic duet with a very emotive Brian Fallon from The Gaslight Anthem (New Jersey natives who played earlier in the day – and had Bruce join them onstage for one of their own songs “59 Sound”).
The encore kicked off with a cover of the gospel-heavy “Hard Times Come Again No More” (a Stephen Foster song from the 1800s) and featured a fantastic “Jungleland” with a note-perfect sax solo from Clarence Clemons (who is looking decidedly worse for wear these days).