LONDON—I have seen rock ‘n’ roll’s past, and its name is still Bruce Springsteen. I have seen Springsteen half a dozen times over five decades, indoors and outdoors, with and without the E Street Band, from the rafters and from the side of the stage. His albums have bored me for decades. I cannot stand his fake-Okie folk singer routine, with its mock-rambling raconteuring.
My toes curl at his podcasting with Barack Obama. But his show at London’s Wembley Stadium on July 25 was the best Springsteen concert I have ever seI went with low expectations and high ideals. I bought the tickets because I want to give my children an idea of what rock music had once been, and what it still was when I was their age. I have invested thousands of dollars in our homeschool of rock. This bank-breaking curriculum has lately included hail-and-farewell family excursions to see Elton John, Van Morrison, and Paul McCartney. I expected an extended evening of musical Bidenism. Instead, we got rock ‘n’ roll’s RFK Jr.: cultish, throaty, cross-generational, defying time and reality. Springsteen is 74 years old. For years, he struggled with feelings of fakeness and inauthenticity. Now, he seems less like himself than ever, yet clearly happier than ever in his own skin, uncannily taut asen. He has made the most of future past.Springsteen is no longer dressed like a mechanic auditioning for the Village People, however. He wears a tie and waistcoat like an undertaker in a Western, but with Doc Martens, which are easier on the bunions if you’re performing a three-hour performance. This live marathon recapitulates the arc of his career, which in turn recapitulates the history of rock. A brief hour of gripping, furious rock ‘n’ roll leads to a sagging musical midlife of aimless, folk-infused tedium—and then the long goodbye, a final hour of singalong ecstasy, with 80,000 people howling along to tunes 40 or 50 years old.
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