Bruce Springsteen, Cardiff 2024: a joyous, uplifting, extraordinary gig

It’s difficult to choose which superlatives to use first. Exhilarating, joyous, uplifting, incredible, awesome, unbelievable - they all fit, and still don’t somehow fully capture the experience and emotion of watching the greatest live performer of our generation.

Bruce Springsteen at 74 is at the peak of his game, hollering every vocal full throttle, and shredding guitar solos as if each one might be his last, and, after 29 songs with little more than a breath to count the band in, he still looks full of energy. 

Just as Murrayfield 2023 didn’t feel like the final farewell, so Cardiff 2024 left us with the sense he was far from done. Three hours on stage, and playing with a relentless intensity, Springsteen looks better than ever and is playing better than ever.

Maybe we all ain’t that young any more, but this gig defied time, and the older we get, the more they mean.

The smiles that lit up the faces of the band on the big screen gave you an insight into how much fun this was. The smiles captured on the faces of the crowd on the same screen showed fans wrapped up in, and lost in, the moment and music.

Springsteen has always had a knack of turning the biggest stadiums into village halls where everyone is brought together. Cardiff became his house, and when he asks who is in tonight, you forget you’re one of 60,000 people in a vast stadium. When he asks who is missing, he makes it even more personal and intimate - you look around and see people remembering those they have lost; family, friends, gig buddies they shared moments with.

And that connection sits at the heart of every single gig. For those down the front there is the chance of a guitar pick or harmonica, or simply a handshake. For the vast majority of us further back, the connection comes via the music and the memories each gig creates.

In 2023 Springsteen’s beautifully crafted static set list was built around a powerful narrative of the passing of time, and of a singer perhaps coming to terms with his own mortality - but it still never felt like a final hurrah.

In 2024, he has returned from a health scare with even more vigour than ever, and the result is a three-hour celebration of the power of music, and the sheer joy of playing live.

In the countdown to the show, the set list was spotted taped below one of the camera stands, and quickly whizzed round people’s phones. I declined a copy - I wanted to be surprised, and I was.

A tour debut opener of an utterly joyous So Young And In Love, an out-take from the mid-70s, set the tone for a remarkable evening - talk about a forgotten gem becoming the perfect first song - and there was much more to come as he pitched in The River, Born In The USA and Better Days for the first time on this tour, and then delivered a stunning, ultra rare live performance of If I was The Priest.

With the stadium roof closed, the sound boomed around the venue. Now a 17-strong set up, the E Street Band , complete with horns and a choir, create a sound that is rich and uplifting as it soars across a set that is perfectly curated.

It builds to a rousing finale with Badlands and Thunder Road before an extended encore with the lights up as everyone lets loose on Bobby Jean, Born To Run, Dancing In The Dark and an insane version of Twist And Shout that drained every single last ounce of energy from everyone in the stadium.

He closed with I’ll See You In My Dreams, and its central pledge that we’ll meet and live and laugh again. 

There’s Belfast, Sunderland and London to come, with the sense that maybe - just maybe - he’ll be back here  again in 2025. A third consecutive UK/Europe tour would be unheard of, but Springsteen doesn't have the look of a man planning on stepping back from the road any time soon.