222. Bruce Springsteen

Wembley Stadium

25 July 2024

There are few sights more stirring than Bruce Springsteen striding onto the stage, Fender slung low, grinning like a man who’s just discovered rock and roll was invented for him personally. And there are few things more inevitable in life than taxes, death, and Bruce playing for longer than your average working week.

So it was that me and two friends joined 90,000 faithful at Wembley Stadium for what promised to be three solid hours of heartland glory from The Boss and his tireless E Street Band.

For me, it was a personal milestone. A few weeks earlier I’d had my new heart device installed, a shiny bit of medical wizardry designed to stop me joining the great encore in the sky, and here I was, feeling defiant enough to face down the sheer stamina test of a Springsteen gig.

The band ambled out as the late summer sun dipped behind the stadium roof, and from the first drum crack of “Lonesome Day”, the sound was colossal. Bruce was in fighting form: 74 years old, still built like a butcher’s dog, with a grin like a man who’s cheated time itself.

“Prove It All Night,” “No Surrender,” “Ghosts,” and “Letter to You” thundered across the crowd with the kind of precision only 50 years of practice can buy. The E Street Band are still a marvel: Little Steven, in full pirate regalia, mugging for the cameras; Max Weinberg, pounding his kit like he’s avenging a personal insult; and Jake Clemons, nephew of the late Clarence, blowing sax lines like his uncle.

Then came “The River,” “Because the Night,” now the fourth time I had heard someone cover that song, five if you count Patti Smith herself, and “Wrecking Ball”, each one landing with the precision of a heavyweight punch. Every lyric, every snarl, every knowing glance to the crowd carried the weight of decades spent proving that sincerity and sweat are still a currency worth something.

Here’s the thing about Bruce Springsteen: he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t end. He just keeps going, like an unstoppable force, and as the first encore kicked in: “Glory Days,” “Dancing in the Dark”, I felt the gentle tug of mortality tapping me on the shoulder. “Don’t push it,” I thought to myself.

So, I did something that felt a little sacrilegious: I slipped out halfway through the (first) encore. As I walked down Wembley Way, the sound of “Twist and Shout” echoing into the humid London night, Bruce, 74 years old, was still jumping, still grinning, still being rock and roll. And me, just a few weeks on from surgery, grinning too, because I’d made it this far.