Bruce Springsteen, BMO Harris Bradley Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

I wasn’t planning for my fourth time seeing Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band (plus once seeing him solo at an Obama rally) to be at the BMO Harris Bradley Center in Milwaukee. Rather, I was hoping to go to the United Center show. But when anything resembling a decent it sold out immediately, I resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn’t catch the Boss on this tour. I do love his music, and every one of his shows that I have seen, except for that Wrigley Field sound debacle, has been incredible.

However, it was only following his February show at the United Center that I learned that the reason that this tour would be called “The River Tour” was because Bruce would be playing his seminal album The River (1980) in its entirety. I kicked myself for not finding my way into his Chicago show. Fortunately, I was granted a reprieve. My two cousins, Pete and Paul, are even bigger Bruce fans that me. Even though they were both at the Chicago show, they were interested in driving up to Milwaukee to see it again. Count me in. Again all the best seats were taken, but many artists, especially Bruce, release extra tickets here and there as the show gets closer. We all kept an eye on tickets, and in the week or two before the show, some additional general admission floor tickets opened up. We didn’t arrive particularly early for the show, so we were towards the back of the floor, but it was still fine.

The E Street Band currently consists of nine musicians including their leader. Besides Bruce, the most famous members of the band are probably Steve Van Zandt (guitar) and Max Weinberg (drums) due to their work on The Sopranos and Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, respectively. I still mostly think of Van Zandt as Silvio. Though I had heard plenty of Bruce Springsteen, I wasn’t familiar with the other members of the E Street Band until after I had seen The Sopranos. Jake Clemons is now a touring member of the band, having taken over for his late uncle Clarence Clemons, who died in 2011. During one segment of the show, a picture of Uncle Clarence was prominently featured on the arena jumbotron.

Without an opener, Bruce and his colleagues took the stage promptly at 8, leaving the lights on for their opening song, “Meet Me in the City.” Following that one warm up track, the lights came down and Bruce announced that he was going to “take us to The River.”

The River is Bruce Springsteen’s firth album and the only double album of his career to date. Like his previous work, one of the central themes of the album was working-class life, though songs featured on the album included a purposely paradoxical mix range from party jams to intensely emotional ballads. The album also marked Bruce’s first top ten hit song, "Hungry Heart." Bruce worked his way through the album’s other songs including "The Ties That Bind," "Out in the Street" as we kept finding ourselves working our way closer to the stage.

The title track, “The River” has always been one of my favorite of his songs. The song is a fairly precise description of the early working class life of Bruce’s sister and her husband. The song narrates life from the husband’s point of view. It begins when he is a carefree teenager from a blue collar family. When his girlfriend gets pregnant, he gets a job and starts a family much sooner than he anticipated. A tough economy makes work scare, and his new family finds it difficult to make ends meet. The dreams he had for the future slowly die, and the reality of everyday life sets in. He doesn’t begrudge his wife or family, just wants a better life for them. He still tries to go back to ‘The River,’ which is referred as a real place where he spent wonderful days and nights with his wife before they were married. He keeps trying to go down to The River to replenish his soul but finds it dry. His dreams are tough to keep alive. The song is beautiful but heartbreaking, with a haunting harmonica interlude between each verse. As Bruce would explain on stage: the album was an important one. It solidified his music career. Though it spoke of where he came from, it shaped who he would become and what he would be about. From there, the album continued with songs like "Stolen Car" before it finally came to a close with a “Wreck on the Highway."

Even after playing a full double album, the legendary E Street band wasn’t done. They added an extra seven songs to the main set, including a few big hits. I was particularly pleased to get to hear “Lonesome Day” and “The Rising.” I was also glad to hear “Because the Night.” Over the years, I’ve heard many artists play that song, but now I had finally heard it performed by both Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith – the man who wrote it and the woman who made it famous. The lights came on again, as is customary for The Boss’ encores, and he launched into another five songs, reeling in audience request signs along the way.

Setlist:
Meet Me in the City
The Ties That Bind
Sherry Darling
Jackson Cage
Two Hearts
Independence Day
Hungry Heart
Out in the Street
Crush on You
You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)
I Wanna Marry You
The River
Point Blank
Cadillac Ranch
I'm a Rocker
Fade Away
Stolen Car
Ramrod
The Price You Pay
Drive All Night
Wreck on the Highway
Badlands
No Surrender
Lonesome Day
Because the Night [Patti Smith cover]
Jungleland
The Rising
Thunder Road
Encore:
Born to Run
Dancing in the Dark
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Shout [Isley Brothers cover]