JAN MOIR ON THE BOSS’S BARNSTORMER

SPECIAL REPORT ON SPRINGSTEEN’S MURRAYFIELD GIG

BRUCE Springsteen and his e Street Band blew into edinburgh last night, thundering through a barnstorming threehour set for their devoted fans like there was no tomorrow. And in a way, there isn’t. Amid the usual exuberant rock anthems and the joy and soul of a Springsteen show there lurks a new darkness on the edge of town.

These days, themes of death and mortality float through many of his newer songs like wisps of smoke from a dampening fire.

In one affecting moment, the 73-year-old performs a solo acoustic version of Last Man Standing, a song from his hit 2020 album, Letter To You.

On stage at Murrayfield, he tells the hushed 52,000 in the audience the story behind it; how the death of the last other surviving member of his first band, formed in 1965 in his New Jersey hometown, affected him and brought a new clarity of mind and purpose. ‘At 15, it’s all tomorrows. At 73, it’s a lot of goodbyes,’ he said. ‘That’s why you have to seize the day and make the most of every moment.’

You can’t say he isn’t trying. This world tour began in Tampa, Florida, in February and will end in San Francisco in December after 40 dates. The european leg has already taken in multiple nights in cities – including Dublin, Barcelona and rome – with dates in Birmingham and London to come in a few weeks.

How is it all going? On the second night in Paris, I noted that for the first time ever, Bruce had swopped his usual black leather stage boots for a pair of trainers.

The Boss in trainers! That’s like elvis deflating his quiff or Lady Gaga taking to the stage in box pleats and a nice cardi. They were slip-on ones at that, with a white trim and the kind of hovercraft soles that can give a man grandpappy air, even if that man happens to be the rock ‘n’ roll king of the world.

Bruce wore the trainers as he padded around the lip of the La Defense Arena stage, not quite in Joe Biden territory, yet not exactly in the Harry Styles sphere either. He wore them in Ferrara in Italy, where critics said he shouldn’t have played at all, on account of the recent floods in emilia romagna that killed 15 people.

YET what would cancelling the concert have achieved? Springsteen is always one for letting the band play on because rock and roll can be a respite and a solace in times of trouble. He played the night when ronald reagan was elected president, he played the night after John Lennon was shot, events of almost equal tragedy in the Springsteenian mind.

‘It’s a hard world that makes you live with a lot of things that are unliveable. And it’s hard to come out here and play tonight, but there’s nothing else to do,’ was his attitude.

He was wearing the trainers in Amsterdam last week where he tripped and fell onstage at the Johan cruijff Arena. Poor Bruce was only four numbers in and performing another of his achy, breaky mortality numbers, a song called Ghosts.

‘I’m alive and I’m out here on my own,’ he sang, just before tumbling over a step and going down like a sack of spuds.

For a moment he lay there on his back, with the knowing grimace of a man who understands that thanks to the thousands and thousands of smartphones that now film his every move and post the images online, millions of people will bear witness to the slip-up in his slip-ons.

As he weaves through golden oldies (Because The Night) and newer covers (Nightshift) he looks in total command of the night brigade, although these days he has monitors onstage to remind him of his lyrics and rehearsed anecdotage.

And speaking of dotage, there was an undeniably senior moment in Dublin where, forgetting his guitar was slung around his back in his trademark pose, he zipped up his leather jacket at the front.

This led to a moment of Houdini-esque bafflement – ‘oh!’ – when he tried to swing his guitar around to play it again. ‘This is something you should only do in a bathroom by yourself or something,’ he said, adding: ‘I do that all the time.’

Yet there are other moments when the years fade and Bruce seems aged but ageless. Who could ever tire of Kitty’s Back or Badlands, although these days the sexual charge of songs such as Prove It All Night and Fire has dissolved into the whimsical rather than the physical.

The band, of course, are sensational – the legendary e Street Band stalwarts augmented by the e Street Horns, extra percussion and some choice vocalists; everyone rehearsed and drilled within an inch of their lives.

Some fans have been complaining that the sets on the tour are not as freewheeling and spontaneous as before, but how can they be? every stage act is a story and every story needs a structure, especially now.

While Bruce’s charcoal-grilled voice still sounds as if he has a morning gargle with grit, it seems to have lost none of its power and glory. How astonishing that he is here among us, still doing it. Some say Bruce is past his prime, but no one who was there last night would agree. A rip through Thunder road still moves my soul like it did when I first heard the song nearly 40 years ago.

The narrative drive and those widescreen lyrics, with its message to get out of your small town and seize your own destiny; to take a chance on life, instead of wasting time ‘waiting for a saviour to rise from these streets’, still resonates. Is that corny? I don’t care, it’s true.

Throughout the set there is little in the way of embellishment or chat, no fancy confetti clouds or glitter cannons. And throughout the night he barely stops, not even for a glass of water. From his base camp to his everest, it’s a sweaty, no-frills climb up the cliff face of rock ’n’ roll.

THE encore brings tributes to band members who have died (clarence clemons and Danny Federici) and the show concludes on a moment of poignancy rather than euphoria.

On every show to date, the evening ends with Bruce standing alone, his slight figure etched under the spotlight, playing harmonica and guitar.

The final song is I’ll See You In My Dreams, in which he sings to his long dead friends but also, I think, to the loved ones he will leave when it is his time to go.

‘When all our summers have come to an end, we’ll meet and live and laugh again, because death is not the end,’ is his final ghostly message.

In the gloaming of this long Scottish evening, where the sun doesn’t set until nearly 10pm, the amazing Bruce Springsteen and his phenomenal deathly hallows are totally life-affirming in the end.