I was a bit less enamored with Bruce Springsteen's Super Bowl halftime performance than the rest of the world, but I'll give the man his props: He understood the situation and delivered a rousing, crowd-pleasing 12-minute set. No time to ease into the show, no room for subtlety — this had to be bang-bang, here we go!.
I would never have guessed that Springsteen and his DeMille-ian cast of musicians known as the E-Street Band would start with "Tenth Avenue Freeze-out," but I was glad they did. The R&B stomper is one of those simple tunes that gets the adrenaline pumping. The house party I attended — baby boomers all, except for their kids — was up, happy and moving.
Holding the mic sans guitar, Springsteen, pushing 60, dusted off one of his stage moves of old when he ran and slid on his knees into the camera. Ultimately, it was a crotch shot, however brief, and when Springsteen then stood and grinned into the camera, he seemed to understand how silly it was. (I'm wondering if there were parents in the Bible Belt who tsk-tsk'ed at the inappropriateness of such a spectacle.)
After the Boss' trademark count-off, the band dove into "Born to Run," another song that always gets the juices flowing. The song's theme of post-adolescent alienation mattered not. Several times Springsteen's vocals darted patently out of tune, but that's OK, it was pandemonium up there.
And then the tide turned.
This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 3, 2009.