Sat. Aug. 18

 Downside? It’s rock in a football stadium. Upside? It’s Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band – and you’ll be watching a lot of video Bruce. So it goes. Bruce and co. play Gillette Stadium in Foxborough tonight. I caught the first Fenway Park show and here’s my report.

   “Sometimes I feel so weak, I just want to explode,” Bruce Springsteen sang in “The Promised Land,” his first song at sold-out Fenway Park Tuesday. But that weakness turned to strength by the song’s climax. The E Street Band drove home its powerful resolve and the singer staked his claim to a belief in that promised land.

   It’s just one song, but it’s Springsteen in a nutshell, and it signaled entry into the Church of Bruce for the ecstatic crowd. Springsteen is, of course, a secular deity who believes in the cleansing spirit of rock ‘n’ roll, with his stories, full of tension, travails and struggle leading to redemption.

 

    At 62, the lean and muscular Springsteen is rock ‘n’ roll’s best argument against Attention Deficit Disorder, the modern-day condition that’s afflicted nearly everyone with a smart phone. Well-rested after a European tour, Springsteen and his 14-piece E Street Band kicked off the second and final leg of a US tour by playing three hours and 25 minutes. The first of two Fenway shows – to be followed by a Gillette Stadium concert Saturday – it was a superbly paced, 29-song set that ebbed and flowed perfectly. It was raucous and tender, romantic and bruised, steeped in catharsis. If Springsteen is a contradiction - the liberal, working-class singer-songwriter and multi-millionaire Boss of rock - so be it. It’s one he, and we, can live with.

    Tuesday’s show was ultimate rock theater. It maintained the illusion (or perhaps even the reality) of spontaneity. The five-piece horn section filled the late saxophonist Clarence Clemons’ shoes, and his young nephew, Jake Clemons, took over several key leads. Near the end, Springsteen brought “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” to a dead stop after he sang about “the big man” joining the band. A video montage of Clemons played on the stage screen. Springsteen, at that point out in the crowd, turned to silently watch the video.

     Springsteen is like Neil Young in that he’s got a massive catalog – and any concert is bound to disappoint at some level because he’ll miss key tunes (no “Jungleland,” “Candy’s Room” or “Point Blank” this night)– but he hasn’t stopped creating quality new music. Sure, there’s nostalgia, but the songs from his latest disc, “Wrecking Ball,’ the title track, “We Take Care of Our Own,” “Shackled and Drawn,” “Jack of All Trades,” “Death to My Hometown” and “We Are Alive” held their own, fully resonating. Many had somber undertones, a subtext of rage against the economic machine that’s ground down so many. The Celtic-tinged last song was chilling. Springsteen introduced it as a beyond-the-grave song, saying, “The voices of the dead always speak to the living if you listen hard enough.” It started acoustically, and then kicked in with the full band, Springsteen singing of how the dead’s “souls and spirits rise.” 

     The characters from the old songs (“Out in the Street,” “Spirit in the Night,” “Rosalita,” “Thunder Road,” “Born to Run”) didn’t seem like clichés, and there was nothing obligatory about the renditions. They felt as fresh, full-on and celebratory as they did, well, back in the mid-‘70s.

   Springsteen pulled his version of the James Brown too-tired-to-go-on routine around the three hour mark by lying prone on the stage after “Dancing in the Dark,” only to be “revived” by guitarist Miami Steve Van Zandt who squeezed water from a huge sponge onto his face.

   Finally, some sports bits, anyone? During “Wrecking Ball” Springsteen sang of the Meadowlands where “the Giants play the game” and quickly followed with “Sorry about that.” And then, there were Springsteen’s tributes to the late Red Sox great, Johnny Pesky. He said the right field “Pesky Pole” should be illuminated on this night and later stills of Pesky on screen (and fireworks from behind the Green Monster) during the final song, “Twist and Shout.” That followed the predictable localized selection of “Dirty Water,” a de facto Red Sox anthem these days.

  Springsteen and the E Street band didn’t play “Prove It all Night,” but prove it all night they did. And the next night at Fenway they did play “Prove It All Night.” There’s a core of songs they’ll just about always play and the sets will always be different, so in that way Springsteen keeps on surprising with hits and nuggets alike.

Tickets: $101-$50. Stadium opens at 5.

(This is a version of a review that ran in the Cape Cod Times Thursday.)

Rte. 1, Foxborough, 800-745-3000 www.gillettestadium.com