2024-06-14 Cívitas Metropolitano, Madrid, Spain

Scheduled: 21:00 Local Start Time 21:08 / End Time 00:04

Info & Setlist | Venue

Night two features the E Street and European premiere of "The Power Of Prayer" in a 30-song setlist that sees eleven changes from the previous show and includes seven songs from Darkness On The Edge Of Town, including "Adam Raised A Cain" with a new outro solo and "Prove It All Night" featuring a Bruce-Steve back-and-forth on the closing guitar section. Final tour performance for "The Ties That Bind".

Jake R

Had a wonderful time at the show tonight. The setlist was as good as I feel like I could have hoped for at this moment—a true rarity/debut, a ton of great classic songs, and almost everything outside the every-nighters was an exciting choice (though I'm pretty over Spirit). Now in terms of the "elephant in the room"—his recovery—I thought everything was really impressive performance-wise. His voice was definitely not perfect but it usually isn't these days (was it ever, ha ha, but you know what I mean); I think we're pretty much at the new normal which is a great sign. A (seemingly) good balance of pushing himself (Something, Downbound, USA) and playing it smart (the Ghosts chorus, he had the crowd sing the USA chorus quite a number of times, etc.) I did feel, at times, that you could see him "thinking about it" in terms of motions and performance—totally understandable obviously but something of a small shift from the Bruce of the past who could fully make it seem like he was doing his (carefully orchestrated) performance out of pure in-the-moment instinct. This was my first show since Newark last year, so I was mostly blown away and delighted by how much better the show was than anything I saw in 2023; really night and day in terms of inspiration, present-ness, and "it factor." But how it compares to 2024 pre-cancellations, I can't say. Some other notes: -crowd was roaring and great…. except in my section (123), where they were totally dead! Only stood for Hungry Heart until Because The Night from which point they mostly stayed up (except… Thunder Road??) I've seen Bruce in England, Ireland, and Northern Ireland but never on the continent before so I was curious to see the famous "European fans." Definitely lots of jumping and "singing along" to instrumental parts as promised, but I was pretty amused to be in a section that was literally not on their feet for Thunder Road! People went CRAZY for Born In The USA though—I really see why he plays it over there. -Something In The Night was a strange but fairly effective opener—Roy sounded awesome on it and though Bruce's vocals weren't totally spot-on it was really cool to see the song given such a spotlight moment with a receptive audience to embrace it. So much Darkness tonight was a blast. -Power of Prayer was a liiittle muddy (soundwise too) but still seemed damn good to me—I think it's a fun song and completely worthy of getting played here and there! Really glad to catch it. Absolutely the highlight for me as somebody who loves nothing more than hearing Bruce do something I've never heard him do. -Racing is just so, so good and sounded fabulous in that spot. Bruce is singing this so well this tour for the first time in ages. Wonderful long outro with some slightly different to my ears improvisations by Roy. (If he had to take a vocal-break song last year, why not this every night instead of Kitty! Haha.) -I've been a pretty big supporter of Nightshift and the arrangement is still developing nicely (a real Ada spotlight before the Curtis section these days) but in the stadium context this far into the tour it just doesn't really work. Time to let it go I think. -Downbound Train was really hot and jammed out at the end, felt like it went on really long (in a good way)—SO great to have a little surprise in that dreadful (sorry) stretch of setlist. -Bruce played a lot of guitar tonight although his work wasn't thaaat impressive IMO (probably just due to the hand issues)—as throughout this year, lots of reliance long bendy notes and a little sloppiness actually keeping up with melodic playing (listen to Candy when the Nugs comes out and you'll see what I mean). But he made it work, including really spotlighting Steve on the Prove It outro duel and during Downbound Train. -There was a little call-and-response improvisation in the middle of Glory Days that I don't remember hearing before—just a little wordless vocal line but kind of neat. -I really like Tenth Avenue in these big stadiums because he doesn't do the lap around the pit—feels more like a "real song" being performed and works better for it IMO. -As at recent shows, big extended "who wants to go home" bit during Twist And Shout. It was a cute one, he ad-libbed "you did write that song…" and cracked Steve up and then he had Max say he didn't want to go home in Spanish (it seemed like he kind of butchered it but I don't speak Spanish so I don't know, LOL!) But (and this is a tiny complaint) I never really like it when he does that bit so late it the show; it feels kind of weird to me to make such a big deal out of "do you think you can outlast the E Street Band" and then have them be done after two more minutes of Twist And Shout reprises! I think it's a cooler bit earlier in the encore (Glory Days, etc). -Some little moments: Nice moment with the harmonica kid during Promised Land; I think it was during Spirit (or maybe Ghosts?) some guy in the front row basically bear hugged Bruce's legs and held him captive for a couple minutes (it was sweet/funny, not creepy). Bruce screwed up a lyric/sort of tripped over his words at one point in Thunder Road, everyone on stage was cracking up. Bruce ended a song during the encore (I think Twist?) with a Townshend-style guitar-swing; seemed spur-of-the-moment as you could see him quickly gesture Steve to move further out of the way so he'd have room!

Brucebase Wiki

Site Navigation