Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band

Live in New York City

A great concert performance does not necessarily make for a vital live album — especially arena shows, where an act generally reaches boldly outward to wow the audience with energy and spectacle. This is Bruce Springsteen's stock-in-trade, to whip up a celebration for 20,000 people. Recorded last June at Madison Square Garden, Live in New York City is a worthy keepsake for Springsteen fans, especially those who attended his most recent tour. As a stand-alone collection of music, however, it comes up short.

Subtlety and nuance are the chief casualties here, as Springsteen and his eight-piece band emit a wall of sound appropriate for an arena setting. The most pensive songs fare the worst — "Mansion on the Hill," "If I Should Fall Behind" — because the intimacy required to make them connect via CD is all but impossible to achieve. A noted exception is "Born in the U.S.A.," which Springsteen recasts as a ruminative solo piece with a delta blues flavor. The song's troubled social message, largely missed when first presented as a fist-pumping anthem, is rendered pointedly clear.

Springsteen and his creative team seemed to do their level best to lift Live in New York City above the realm of cliche. The song list is not your pat litany of roof-raising hits; in fact, crowd-pleasers like "Badlands" "Jungleland" and "Prove it All Night" are judiciously placed, giving them extra weight. Any number of in-concert bullseyes — "Born to Run," "Rosalita," "Hungry Heart," "Glory Days," "Cover Me" — were passed over. In their place are the pumped-up R&B of "Ramrod;" the infectious "My Love Will Not Let You Down," which kicks off the set in rousing fashion; an urgent "Atlantic City; and "The River," a real Bic-flicker. Previously unreleased tunes include the cloying group-hug "Land of Hope and Dreams" and the hymn-like "American Skin (41 Shots)," which sparked controversy by referencing the reckless NYPD slaying of an African immigrant.

Springsteen is in top vocal form throughout, mining his wounded moan but mostly making like a cross between revival-tent preacher and soul shouter (pushed to over-the-top extremes when he introduces the band during "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"). The E-Streeters clearly delivered the goods to the crowd, but the net recorded effect is more mushy than muscular. The songs are often burdened by show-stopper guitar solos that can give this type of concert a goose, but come off as bloated and, at times, sloppy when captured on tape.

With Live in NYC, Springsteen and company ambitiously tried to re-create the concert experience — which really can't be done — and to concoct a recording that could stand on its own, which they didn't quite do. (Columbia)

—Eric Snider