Bruce Springsteen - Hard Rock Calling, Hyde Park London

Justin and I had the pleasure of taking our friend Alex to her first Springsteen show on Saturday. Despite forecast of rain and everyone digging out their wellies and raincoats – for the most part it was a sunny day in Hyde Park.
Hard Rock Calling is one of those all day events – starting at midday and running through to a little after half-ten (more on that later!)
We got there a little after 5 to catch the set by John Fogerty immediately before Springsteen. Bruce himself introduced Fogerty as “the Hank Williams of our generation”. It was great set by Fogerty – plenty of Creedance and solo hits – but the highlight was Springsteen joining for a set closing duet on ‘Rockin All Over The World’.
After a reasonably quick stage changeover – Bruce and came onstage solo and announced he wanted to play the first thing he’s ever played on English soil, and led into a brilliant slow-piano version of “Thunder Road” exactly like the early performance that kicks off the ‘Live 75-85’ boxset.
This led into a great pack of rockier material, including “We Take Care of Our Own” and “Wrecking Ball”. Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine (who seems to becoming a regular extension to the E Street Band in the same way Susie joined duing the reunion tour) added guitar to “Death To My Hometown”.
“Spirit In The Night” was a great inclusion, pretty loose and featuring a great segment with Bruce sitting on the onstage stairs with Clarence’s nephew Jake, reminiscing about his Uncle.
The rarely played ‘Tracks’ standout “Take Them As They Come” was the sole sign request, played on behalf of a Spanish fan who ingeniously listed all the shows on the current tour he had attended and requested the song, with all but the final show in London crossed out as not being played.
It was great to see John Fogerty join again to duet on “The Promised Land”.
I really enjoyed the almost solo acoustic “Empty Sky”, and the highlight of Tom Morello’s appearances was a riveting “Ghost of Tom Joad” – something of a hybrid between the full-E Street Band performance and the Rage Against The Machine cover version.
Of course the biggest surprise of the night was saved for the encore when Springsteen announced he been “waiting 50 years for this” and introduced Sir Paul McCartney. After a quick change of mics to ensure the lefty didn’t clash guitars with Bruce – they kicked into a very tight version of “I Saw Her Standing There” with the E Street band essentially acting as a backing ground from McCartney. This quickly led into an extended “Twist and Shout” which saw Bruce and Paul trading verses.
As well documented in the media, as Bruce and McCartney kept trading guitar solos to wind the song up for conclusion, the sounds noticeably dropped, then went off entirely a few minutes later. Confusion reigned briefly for a few moments as Bruce and Paul played on before someone came from side stage to advise them the sound was off. Springsteen looked at first pissed off, then slightly bemused. McCartney headed straight offstage - I’d like to think to try to put his weight behind getting the sound put on again - however it wasn’t to be and Springsteen cheekily led the crowd (or at least those of us close enough to hear without amplification) through an acappella “Goodnight Irene”.
A lot of finger pointing followed in the next few days over who was to blame – but it seems the culprit was the promoter Live Nation who elected to turn off the sound rather than break curfew much further (Springsteen was approx 10 mins over at this stage). This decision was likely prompted by the significant issues they’d had renegotiated use of the park after complaints from residents last year – the capacity was reduced from 75k to 60k and number of concerts dropped from 13 to 9. It’s fair to say from the look on Springsteens face he’ll be highly unlikely to work with Live Nation in the UK again.
I think the ultimate response to it was Springsteen himself, who kicked off his next show in Dublin a couple of days later with a giant power switch set to off at centre stage. He came onstage, turned the switch back to On and muttered “before we were so rudely interrupted” and continued playing “Twist and Shout”. Nice work.

Full setlist:
Rockin' All Over the World (Bruce guesting with John Fogerty)
* * *
Thunder Road (piano)
Badlands
We Take Care of Our Own
Wrecking Ball
Death to My Hometown (with Tom Morello)
My City of Ruins
Spirit in the Night
The Promised Land (with John Fogerty)
Take 'Em As They Come
Jack of All Trades (with Tom Morello)
Empty Sky
Because the Night
Johnny 99
Darlington County
Working on the Highway
Shackled and Drawn
Waitin' on a Sunny Day
Raise Your Hand
The River
The Ghost of Tom Joad (with Tom Morello)
The Rising (with Tom Morello)
Land of Hope and Dreams (with Tom Morello)
* * *
We Are Alive
Born in the U.S.A.
Born to Run
Glory Days
Dancing in the Dark
I Saw Her Standing There (with Sir Paul McCartney)
Twist and Shout (with Sir Paul McCartney)

Dr Dee – London Coliseum

Kim and I went on a “proper” Saturday night out in London, dressing up fancy and heading to the glorious London Coliseum (home of the English National Opera) to see the final performance of Damon Albarn’s ‘Dr Dee’.
I’ve only been to a handful of live theatre productions (including Albarn’s previous operatic effort 'Monkey' as part of the Manchester Festival) but we both found this show to be absolutely spell-binding.
It started with a live raven flying from the back of the theatre to the stage, then a procession of English archetypes (a punk, businessman, cricketer) slowly marched across stage – literally falling out of time – to transport us back to 1500s and the life of “renaissance man” John Dee – from his search for knowledge, to his eventual downfall as he pushed into the realms of dark magic and trying to document communication with angels.
The production featured Albarn onstage in a raised platform with a small group playing a mix of Elizabethan instruments (lute, recorder, dulcian) and African instruments (kora, and erstwhile Albarn accompanist drummer Tony Allen). They were accompanied by a full orchestra and conductor in the pit below.
Albarn also sang many songs during the production – most notably “Marvelous Dream” during an incredibly staged dance, taking place under Queen Elizabeth I’s gown (see above)
The lead role of Dr Dee was played brilliantly by Paul Hilton (who coincidently Kim and I previously saw on stage in the dark comedy ‘All New People’) who’s singing voice is very reminiscent of Albarn. As Kim pointed out – Damon himself seems to be signing better than he ever has.
All in all a fantastic evening.