Bruce and the Band came onto the big screen at Boston to boisterous applause with Bruce giving his son Evan a hug before leading the band onto the Fenway stage. Bruce had all of Fenway singing along to “Out in the Street,” “Because the Night,” “Thunder Road,” “Spirit in the Night,” and especially “Badlands.” He played the local ’60s classic, “Dirty Water,” for the Boston crowd, and stormed the pit multiple times. During “Darlington County,” he was rewarded with a dance from a Boston police officer, whom he begged at the end, “Arrest me, please!” He also plucked a boy in a black Springsteen tee from behind the barrier and carried him (no really, carried him on his back) onto the stage for a few bars of “Waiting on a Sunny Day.” He even let him direct the rest of the stage, “Come on E Street Band!” Bruce waded far into the crowd during “10th Avenue Freeze Out” and jumped up onto the front barriers… but no crowd surfing yet. During one special moment, he also also told us at the start of “My City of Ruins” that “…this song is about living with ghosts.” Red Sox great Johnny Pesky, who died on August 13th at age 92, was remembered in words, in a lighting close up of the right field foul pole, known as Pesky’s Pole, and in a sign Bruce took from one reverent fan that was shaped like a Fenway baseball with Johnny’s name on it.

– Charles Landau