Bruce Springsteen

You can't recount a Springsteen show in real time: it needs to settle, and it keeps growing disproportionately in the days that follow, like some giant blob, until it swallows everything around it, a totalizing event capable of wiping the slate clean of whatever surrounds it, making all daily anxieties seem laughably small.

Hence the decision to let a few days pass before tackling the chronicle of a show that wasn't simply a concert, but the collective celebration of an absolute icon, one of the most vital musical figures of the last century and this one, an event that will certainly be remembered in history and that experts are already calling one of the best of his career.

On Thursday 11 July 2013 I finally atoned for never having seen the Boss live: despite his repeated visits to our peninsula, for one reason or another I had never managed to be there, not least because I've never been a fan of the New Jersey singer-songwriter. Owning only six or seven records and barely a couple of his biographies, I could never be accepted into the ranks of the die-hard faithful - you need a far more substantial pedigree, his fans are extremely demanding on that front.

But as an old saying goes, "the world is made up of two kinds of people: those who love Bruce Springsteen, and those who've never seen him live". And so I approached the appointed hour well aware of the many clichés surrounding his shows, all of which were thoroughly confirmed by the Rome date: the furious energy, the endless length, the total absence of breaks, the way the frontman immerses himself in his audience and lets them shape the show as it unfolds, the musicians' technical mastery, the unpredictability of the setlist, and so on.

Every Springsteen performance is unique and unrepeatable, which is exactly why audiences keep coming back to see him: they know that each time they'll witness a completely different show. Because Bruce invites a few spectators from the front rows up onto the stage, creating little vignettes that differ every night. And above all because Bruce lets the audience choose almost half of the setlist, personally gathering some of the dozens of signs held up by fans, showing them first to the crowd and then to the band, who are always ready to grant the requests without hesitation, drawing on a boundless repertoire often enriched by the most unexpected covers. So there's no point racking your brain trying to predict the setlist based on previous nights' shows: fate reigns supreme here.

What strikes you most is the way the Boss gives himself completely to the audience, as if every night were the last show of his life. From the very first song, "Spirit In The Night": the band kicks in, the Boss sends out preacher-like calls from behind the curtain ("Can You Feel The Spirit?"), and the moment he hits the stage his first instinct is to run toward the front rows, seeking physical contact, touching the hands of the lucky few.

And he'll do it again several times over the course of the show, right up to the apotheosis of "Born To Run", when he lets his people touch the strings of his inseparable Telecaster, in the face of every rockstar, big or small, who insists on building a wall between themselves and their audience. Here the fusion between stage and crowd is total, at times feeling almost like a mystical merging of artist and audience, a rarity that happens in very few other places in the world.

The Rome show, according to the many Springsteen experts in attendance, will be remembered as one of his finest ever, the best he's ever played in Rome, and in Italy second only to the historic Milan show of 1985, his first-ever appearance on our peninsula. This breaks with the long-standing notion that Milan was the designated home of his most memorable shows - it used to be said that the Boss always gives Milan something extra. This time, though, the setlist favoured Rome: while Milan was distinguished by a full run-through of "Born In The Usa", hardly the fans' favourite record, Rome excelled thanks to certain gems scattered throughout the set. According to the original plan (as guitarist Little Steven revealed in a statement given after the show), the E Street Band had set out to perform "The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle" in full at some point, but Bruce decided to change course on the fly, following the crowd's requests - and from "The Wild" four spine-tingling numbers still made it into the set.

Starting with "N.Y.C. Serenade": biographers tell me this 1973 track has never been performed in Europe and only very rarely elsewhere. That seems odd given the song's extraordinary beauty (both music and lyrics), but I'll take their word for it. "N.Y.C. Serenade" is one of the two high points of the show: nearly twelve minutes of our lives that will remain unforgettable forever, elevated at the four-minute mark by the appearance of strings from the Orchestra Roma Sinfonietta, kindly lent for the occasion, with these young orchestral musicians blessed by fortune and individually thanked by the Boss at the end of the song. The other pivotal moment comes in the form of the fifteen hyper-driven minutes of "Kitty's Back" (also drawn from "The Wild"), a burst of energy kicked off by a Clapton-esque guitar solo that spills into a jazzy celebration of horns and piano, with Clarence Clemons's nephew Jake stealing the show - already looking perfectly at ease filling his imposing uncle's shoes.

The first towering peak of the night had already arrived courtesy of the "Summertime Blues"/"Stand On It" pairing, an initial injection of pure energy that sent the whole Ippodromo into a frenzy. The concert races along at a relentless pace, leaning on plenty of classic songs (with "Badlands", "Roulette", "Candy's Room", "Rosalita" and "Bobby Jean" standing out), while also making room for a few cuts from "Wrecking Ball", his most recent record, among which the Irish-tinged "Death To My Hometown" deserves special mention. It takes more than an hour and a half to catch a breath (at a point where the vast majority of bands on earth would already have nothing left to say, while here we're not even halfway through...) with the elegant reprise of "Brilliant Disguise", yet another request that came from the pit, the fenced-off area right in front of the stage reserved for the fans who were first in line at the gates: that's where the chosen ones stand, able to enjoy the show from just a few metres away and hope to touch the monument.

And it's they who colour part of the performance, interacting with the leading man, who (as often happens) invites a child up to sing "Waitin' On A Sunny Day", or a girl to dance with him to "Dancing In The Dark". And this is where the little scene with her boyfriend unfolds: called up onto the stage by the Boss, he presents the young woman with an official engagement ring. It might seem like something staged in advance with Springsteen, but that's not how it works: anyone standing beneath the stage knows they could be picked to go up, and quite a few come prepared with genuine little skits in case they're called on to interact with the grand master of ceremonies. It's this unpredictable, ever-present, unscripted interaction that inevitably makes every show unique.

During the coda of "Dancing In The Dark", played after the devastating one-two of "Born In The Usa"/"Born To Run", Bruce also invites two girls to pick up acoustic guitars, for what becomes a truly festive crescendo, cranked up even further by the subsequent, overwhelming "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" (with the usual tribute to his friend Clemons, though the three big screens also show Danny Federici, another loyal bandmate who is sadly no longer with us), "Twist And Shout" and "Shout", which seems never to end, as if the band wanted to keep restarting it to carry the concert through until dawn's first light.

Three hours and twenty minutes have passed since the set began, yet both the musicians (some well over 60) and the audience keep jumping around like mad, as though some mysterious, unheard-of force had taken hold of the space around them.

But like all the best things, this show too must come to an end, and the E Street Band takes its leave. Springsteen also appears to be saying goodbye, but it's just a seasoned frontman's sleight of hand: he knows he's delivered the perfect night, a memorable event. He was magnificent, and the audience was every bit his equal, so they deserve to be thanked with one final gift: a voice-and-guitar-only version of "Thunder Road", performed in a silence that shows just how much respect this crowd holds for such an extraordinary performer.

We said that tonight's show wasn't a concert, it was the celebration of an absolute icon, a figure who, from the very early '70s, knew how to show what the future of rock'n'roll would be, and who, despite staggering global success, remains at heart a man of the people: someone who, to get from Padua to Milan, decides to take the train at his own expense; someone who steps out of the hotel to take photos of his fans; someone who sits down at Trinità dei Monti to strum a guitar and chat with ordinary people; someone who, despite his age, still shows off an enviable physique and never spares a drop of sweat; someone who deeply respects his audience, letting them go home only once he sees them exhausted and completely satisfied. Few rockstars in the world today are able to put on a show like this, one that needs no special effects, because he himself is the show. Spending 75 euros to see him was, yes, a genuine robbery - but one we committed against him.

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