Bruce Springsteen's epic set

“Is there anybody alive out there?” Bruce Springsteen asked his crowd shortly after taking the stage at Bonnaroo last night. The answer, of course, was a thunderous “yes,” though the Boss still had his work cut out for him. Sure, there were Springsteen superfans in every direction, but he was facing the kind of clean-slate crowd that he’s rarely seen since his club days.  These weren’t the folks that regularly drop $150 to see him at the Meadowlands. These were young, scrounging college kids, and people that had been suffering through the natural elements for the last three days to spend three hours with the E Street Band.

So, yes, there were people very much alive out there, and Bruce quickly got to check their pulse as he bounded into the crowd at least a dozen times during his epic set – standing on the barricades and getting fully embraced by his subjects. It was one of the most aerobic shows the What Stage has ever seen, and it came from a guy that turns 60 later this year.  Sure, a few of his hokey stage choices gave off a bit of an embarrassing dad vibe (really, donning the cowboy hat during “Outlaw Pete” went above and beyond the call of duty) but he got to prove that he’s still fast on his feet during the request portion of the show. He took to the catwalk to pick up the signs that fans had scrawled song titles on, and he soon learned that some members of his crowd had a uniquely surreal sense of humor – or no concept of time.

Yep, the first song on the request list was their famous cover of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” and despite his protests of it being too hot to perform such a thing, launched into it like they’d been playing it all tour long. That tune actually earned a bigger sing-along than “Thunder Road” (which was requested by an “’09 graduate”) – moments where he pointed the microphone to the audience to sing received a far less unanimous response than he’s used to. That was a hurdle he soared over during “Born to Run,” propelled by prodigious 18-year-old drummer Jay Weinberg, who filled in for his dad on a stretch of songs during the set.

In the wake of “Born’s” rumble, Springsteen told the audience that Bonnaroo was the second festival the band had ever played, and expressed how great it was to see so many “young faces” in the crowd. His audience, in turn, was clearly thrilled to see an older, familiar one.