The european leg of the Working on a Dream tour ended in Santiago de Compostela last Sunday with a show that will be difficult to forget.
To begin with, arriving thru a small road to the auditorium on top of the hill was a real adventure that took a long time. According to the press, the organization oversold various thousands of tickets, therefore resulting in a real overbooking, with around a thousand people who couldn’t physically enter the venue and had to stay outside. Meanwhile, inside there were around 40,000 fans crushed and packing the house. The people outside tore down some fences trying to get in, and by just a pure miracle there wasn’t a riot where people could get hurt. A lot of people ended up seeing the show from the grass outside the venue, and 50 of them went to the police station to file a report.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4tOGTTr1VM]
A bit after 10pm the best version of Bruce Springsteen came onstage to offer a vibrant performance, similar to the one in Bilbao just one week ago. Nils Lofgren played the very popular ‘A Rianxeira’ on the accordion, and the E Street Band quickly kicked off the show with a rousing ‘Badlands’. Bruce was complety ‘on’ tonight, and the tension and excitement grew and grew song after song.
«Adam Raised a Cain» was the first highlight of the night. An audible that took the show to another dimension. Bruce sang and played with fury, and the song smoked. It was a tremendous electric storm that continued with a fabulous «Murder Incorporated», where the guitar trio shone, followed by «Johnny 99» and a really great performance of another classic: «Darkness on the Edge of Town».
(photo: the sing for Burning Love, that travelled from Roma to Santiago. Photo by René Van Diemen. Roma)
Thanks to a big sign held by a group of italian fans Bruce debuted a tremendous version of Elvis Presley’s «Burning Love». A superb performance that was followed without stop by an exciting «Born to Be Wild» that segued into «My Love Will Not Let You Down». Max went crazy on this one, and his final drum fills received a huge roar from the audience.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TqQDTWJsO4]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLM_2X57-Ao]
This was Bruce Springsteen at his best. The excitement and energy level never went down and another sign request brought a beautiful «This Life», inmediately followed by an inmense «Backstreets» that filled the auditorium with emotion. Bruce sang with passion and epic and everyone in the green hill was in awe.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOPRe1rlZ18]
With such level of adrenaline going on both on stage and in the audience, there was a long 8-song encore that started with a rare acoustic version of «No Surrender», followed by «Land of Hope and Dreams» and «American Land», plus the crowd favourites «Glory Days» and «Dancing in the Dark», a rousing «Rockin’ All Over the World», and the classic «Twist and Shout». The audience couldn’t stop singing, dancing and jumping all over, and there was no way this could end. A totally unexpected and powerful «Born in the U.S.A.» sent everyone hope with the feeling that we had attended a very special show.
Newspaper articles about the chaotic entrance to the show:
El País – Decenas de denuncias por el concierto de Springsteen en Santiago
La Voz de Galicia – Protestas por las colas en el concierto
El Correo Gallego – Caos y protestas en el concierto de Bruce Springsteen en Santiago