Bruce Springsteen: Live In New York City - 2000

Recorded live in New York City in June and July 2000

By 2000 Springsteen had been gradually getting together with various E St. members and the time was right to get back to what mattered...

This live album is composed of highlights from Bruce Springsteen's long awaited reunion with the legendary E St. Band and the concerts at New York City's Madison Square Garden. For me, like all Springsteen's "official", regular, mainstream market live releases it is slightly underwhelming and unrepresentative of the live Springsteen experience. The best live recordings are to be found via his own site as downloads, where entire concerts can be found from many periods in his lengthy career.

This one, like Live 1975-85 and Plugged are not quite the finished article. That point made, I cannot argue that the material on here is good, and shows just why the E St. Band should never have been denied to the world from 1988 to 2000. It is good to hear vibrant versions of songs like My Love Will Not Let You Down (from the Tracks box set) and Youngstown, with its blistering Nils Lofgren guitar solo. Murder Incorporated is a hard rocking rarity, too. The moment where it segues into the rousing Badlands is wonderful.

Some of the songs are given new makeovers, like Atlantic City's full band version, Mansion On The Hill's Hawaiian guitar backing and a strange country-style mumbling incarnation of The River, which for me doesn't quite come off.

The second half of the release features three monsters in its ranks - a sixteen-minute Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out that includes the lengthy band introductions; the incredibly hard-hitting American Skin (41 Shots) and the emotional, uplifting Land Of Hope And Dreams. Despite being later recorded in the studio for the High Hopes and Wrecking Ball albums respectively, these are the definitive versions of the songs. It is nice to hear an oldie like Lost In The Flood resurrected and Born In The USA played in its original bottle-neck bluesy version. Ramrod is a bellyful of rollicking roadhouse rock fun and there is a point a couple of minutes into Jungleland when the drums, piano, guitar and saxophone go into orbit together and you realise you are listening to the best good-time rock'n'roll live band - ever.

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