BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
Qudos Bank Arena, February 7
★★★★
Trust. It matters. Of course, it does.
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You would be familiar with this from any team building exercise or management retreat and their mantras. Without it any organisation will fall, will turn on itself or walk away. In its absence customers or viewers or students have no reason to return. Blah blah.
But with Bruce Springsteen it is not just a management shibboleth but something sacred.
It's there in something as brutally simple as trusting the uniform not to kill you in your American skin, but finding 41 shots in you. Something as gloriously silly as falling back into the crowd knowing they will catch you and carry you. And they do.
The sacredness though extends beyond that - though the powerfully chilling performance of American Skin (41 Shots), during which Jake Clemons, the one black man on stage, stood with his arms in the air, his empty hands raised high was a stunning moment of trust betrayed but not abandoned.
The deeper message of a Springsteen show, and this show, on this tour, in the first few weeks of this presidency even more so, is that trust is never more valuable. And never more justified.
Not trust in a travesty of a leader but instead in the few dreams you have in New York Serenade or the sacrifice of others in The Rising; in the hope you have invested in The Promised Land and American Land; in the strength and solidarity of your friends in Ties That Bind and No Surrender.
![Give yourself a few hours of Bruce Springsteen and what isn't possible?](/web/20170209161801im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/7/q/e/1/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu7qad.png/1486629174875.jpg)
Trust too in the man or woman who tells you My Love Won't Let You Down or the fact that you have seen the Darkness At The Edge Of Town but you didn't stay there.
The message of this show from its first note to the last is that you can trust in the good in people.
![A good Springsteen show allows you to believe and trust in yourself and those around you because it has worked before.](/web/20170209161801im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/7/q/e/2/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu7qad.png/1486550508835.jpg)
He doesn't have to project it on to the screen or tweet it at 3am in an angry funk, because it permeates the room. That's the beauty of these three or so hours.
You are not alone in resisting the idea that a refugee is beneath you or an enemy, just as you are not alone in wanting to get to Mary's Place for that party. You can believe that a petty tyrant can be thrown aside just as you can believe that Max Weinberg will pound the living tripe out of those drums in She's The One as if he were 22, not four decades older.
The message of this show from its first note to the last is that you can trust in the good in people.
You will be one with 18000 strangers just as the nine people on stage feel like one organism. Why? Because you trust in the songs, in the show and ultimately in the man. "Have a little faith." We do.
Too much for a rock'n'roll show? We're singing Badlands like it's a French revolutionary song sure, but still we're not storming a barricade. He's throwing rock star shapes not Molotovs. These are familiar routines we know because we have seen them before and joined them.
![The deeper message of a Springsteen show ... is that trust is never more valuable. And never more justified.](/web/20170209161801im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/7/q/b/q/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu7qad.png/1486550508835.jpg)
Well yes, but that is the point. A good Springsteen show allows you to believe and trust in yourself and those around you because it has worked before.
It says good can come on the road leading out of here for the hungry and the hunted. It says anger can be channelled.
It says the desire in I'm On Fire and Because The Night has an energy that does not need to justify itself. It says it can be done.
Give yourself a few hours of this and what isn't possible?
It is why we walk away buoyed, elevated, soaring. We trust and we're shown that trust is deserved and survives. And that it matters.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play Qudos Bank Arena on February 9; Hanging Rock, Macedon, February 11; Brisbane Entertainment Centre, February 14 and 16; Hope Estate, Hunter Valley, February 18.