Sunday, August 03, 2003

By Ed Masley, Post-Gazette Pop Music Critic

There's something inherently right about the thought of Bruce Springsteen in center field leading the E Street Band through a spirited set of American rock 'n' roll in a made-to-feel-old-fashioned ballpark.

But "The Rising"?

	Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band Where: PNC Park, North Shore. When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Tickets: $55 to $75; 1-877-848-4099.

Doesn't really go with a hot dog at PNC Park.

And apparently, even Springsteen senses that.

Reports from the opening show of a record-breaking 10-night stand at Giants Stadium in New Jersey would suggest that the clouds of Sept. 11 have passed.

He's even playing "Rosalita."

And grinning.

And pogoing, even.

Newsday critic Glenn Gamboa raved that "it was the revved-up, rocked-out version of 'Dancing in the Dark' that showed how this summer's stadium tour will differ from last year's introduction to 'The Rising.' "

This tour, which includes Pittsburgh by way of Wednesday's stop at PNC Park, is a change, Gamboa noted, from the "Rising" tour, "where the point was about the struggle in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. This time out, it's more about moving on, meaning the bleakest songs from 'The Rising' -- 'Nothing Man' and 'Paradise' -- were nowhere to be found, while other wrenching songs, such as the gorgeous 'You're Missing,' have become stadium-sized anthems, gathering momentum in concert instead of fading away as they do on the record. 'Mary's Place' has become the show's centerpiece, the point where Springsteen introduces the E Street Band and where he also hammers home the party-starting line 'I drop the needle and pray,' showing that he can still crank up a good-time anthem at will."

Other good-time anthems on the set list at Giants Stadium ranged from "Thunder Road," "The Promised Land" and "Born to Run" to "Waitin' on a Sunny Day" (a rare ray of hope on "The Rising") and the pub-rock classic "7 Nights to Rock."

Dan Aquilante of the New York Post cited "Badlands" and "Out in the Street" as the "one-two punch that clinched the concert's greatness," while the Bergen County Record wrote of Springsteen belting out "anthems of glory, songs of spirits rising from the ashes of Sept. 11, and classics reaching back to simpler days when life was as breezy as a stroll down the boardwalk."

It wasn't all breezy, of course. For one, you'd like to hope that no one ever has to look back on 2003 as "simpler days." And this is Springsteen here, not Pink. He'll get the party started, sure, but it's a thinking person's party.

An acoustic "Empty Sky" -- from "The Rising" -- wouldn't make a very easy segue out of "7 Nights to Rock," and one reviewer from Asbury Park did note that that one and "You're Missing" "continue to be real bummers."

Supporters of President Bush and other anti-Dixie-Chicks activists may find more in Springsteen's set than those two songs to get bummed out about.

According to Newsday: "Springsteen did take time out to address the current political question about whether the Bush administration misled the American public about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to gather support for the war. Springsteen said both Democrat and Republican administrations have stretched the truth at times. 'It's always wrong, never more so than when there are real lives at stake,' he said. 'It's not a Republican or Democrat question, it's not a liberal or conservative question -- it's an American question. It is our responsibility and it is our right to question. That's the American way.' "

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