Movie Review: Last Vegas

Starring: Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas & Kevin Kline

Director: Jon Turteltaub
In a few words...: A Hangover for pensioners. Four friends journey to Las Vegas for a bucks' weekend and end up learning a few things about themselves, their lives and their friends. 
Rating: 7/10

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!

Not what you would call a thinking man's movie, but Las Vegas is a hell of a lot of fun, and will make you leave the cinema with a smile on your face. The premise - as is the case in these films - is very simple. The four friends, Billy Gherson (Douglas), Paddy Connors (De Niro), Archie Clayton (Freeman) and Sam Harris (Kline) grew up in Brooklyn, and reunite in the Nevada desert when Gherson, who, we discover, has never really grown up, announces he's getting married to his girlfriend, who is only 31 years old.

Paddy, Archie and Harris live in and around New York City, whilst Billy lives in a mansion in Malibu. Dragging along the grumpy Paddy, who hasn't been happy since the death of his wife a year earlier, Archie and Sam reunite with Billy at the airport in Las Vegas, and it's clear that there's bad blood between Paddy and Billy, though we don't find out why straight away. Meanwhile, Sam's wife thinks he is miserable and so allows him, over the weekend in Las Vegas, to sleep with other women.

They head straight to a hotel that the men are familiar with from their youth, only to discover that it is closed for renovations. They do meet Diana Boyle (Mary Steenburgen) a lounge singer who takes an immediate liking to the guys. Billy organises, via his assistant, a suite at the Aria Resort & Casino. It makes the Caesar's Palace suite in The Hangover look pretty crappy in comparison.

Last Vegas is at it's funniest when all the old guys are together, either by the pool - with a cameo from Redfoo for good measure - judging bikini contests, gambling in casinos (and scooping the pool) or partying the night away at a night club. These scenes are what gets the film compared to The Hangover, and you can see why, except in Las Vegas there are more Viagra and grandpa jokes here. Most of them are very funny, especially the ones about the age Billy's bride-to-be. The scenes where the group's private concierge convinces a trouble maker at the night club that they're all mafia bosses is hilarious. The entire film is well written. There's crudeness galore, but it's quite well done.

Surprisingly, though, there is a sentimental undercurrent, a bond of friendship that is tested by Billy and Paddy as Billy's approaching nuptials make him consider his life, the people in it and, most importantly of all, whether he really wants to get married to a woman half his age. He's confused and conflicted, especially where Diana is concerned. There's a great scene between them on the ride on top of Stratosphere called X-Scream. If it looks frightening, it is - I've been front row. It's insane.

Events come to a head before and during a giant party, one so big that even rapper 50 Cent (whose cameo is shorter than Redfoo's and funnier) complains it's too loud. Archie has a moment of reckoning with his over-bearing son, and Sam, grappling with his wife's offer, finally realises what he wants.

The next day - the morning of Billy's wedding - their lives change. Suffice to say, the friends' lives change over the weekend, and there is a decidedly happy ending for all the characters who've become rather endearing over the course of nearly two hours. 

It also sets up nicely for a sequel. 

Box office takings have been pretty good, so maybe we haven't seen the last of Paddy, Billy, Archie and Sam. That said, producers should keep in mind the less-successful Hangover sequels before committing to another Last Vegas film.

Review: Richie Sambora & Orianthi (Sydney, 26 February 2014)

Richie Sambora & Orianthi

Enmore Theatre

Sydney, NSW

26 February 2014

Check out my review of Richie's latest solo album, Aftermath of the Lowdown!

Apparently, if you’re a world-renowned musician from the great state of New Jersey, the thing to do is tour Australia in February and deliver a series of mind-blowing shows loved by critics and fans alike. Bruce Springsteen and his E-Street Band have done that successfully from coast to coast, and, last night in Sydney, it was the turn of legendary guitarist – one of the greatest axe men to emerge in rock music in the last thirty years – Richie Sambora, of Bon Jovi fame.

Yeah, sure, Richie’s the guy responsible for those great solos on more Bon Jovi songs than you can pole a stick at but he’s also a brilliant solo artist with three diverse and excellent solo albums. So many people I know who’re Bon Jovi fans have little to no idea that the right-hand man, the guy who’s co-written all of the band’s biggest hits, also plays solo and is damned good at it!

In fact, you could go so far as to say that Richie is criminally underrated as a solo artist. Except for the capacity crowd who packed Sydney’s legendary Enmore Theatre last night. Everyone there knew what Richie was capable of both as a songwriter and a guitarist. That’s why they went. They knew that there’s much more to Richie Sambora than Bon Jovi.

An added bonus was the guest appearance by Australian-born guitarist Orianthi, who rose to fame thanks to the rehearsal footage from the planned Michael Jackson tour – she was lead guitarist – before the King of Pop died. It’s great to see Australians supporting Australian musicians, and Orianthi is, without doubt, the real deal. Seeing her and Sambora on stage together, trading licks all night long on a variety of different tracks, was nothing short of incredible. 

For lovers of pure guitar wizardry, this was one hell of a show. Back and forth, time after time, every song turned into an extended jam session. ‘Epic’ doesn’t even begin to describe it. You couldn’t help but be amazed by their mastery. The rest of the band was as tight as you would expect, talented pros to a man. They excelled behind Sambora and Orianthi.

The night’s set list was both varied and impressive. Obviously, tracks from Richie’s latest solo album, The Aftermath of the Lowdown, featured prominently, but there were songs from his Bon Jovi days, a taste of the brilliance that was his debut album Stranger in this Town – the title track is probably my favourite solo Sambora song – though I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to hear anything from Undiscovered Soul. Next tour, maybe? 

At one point, Sambora and Orianthi were jamming to the classic Jimi Hendrix Experience guitar-fest ‘Voodoo Child (Slight Return)’ which was about as close to guitar heaven as you can get and, obviously, has plenty of chances for both to show off their ridiculous skills. Rarely has Hendrix been done better than it was at the Enmore Theatre on Wednesday night.

Of course, the big Bon Jovi hits featured prominently because, well…Richie probably wouldn’t make it to the car park alive if he didn’t play a handful, and besides, those songs are part his. Those that stood out more than others in the altogether memorable set? ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’, ‘Livin’ On A Prayer’, It’s My Life’ and an epic rendition of the ballad ‘I’ll Be There For You’ with a snippet of Simon & Garfunkel’s legendary ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’. 

Obviously, they went down very well with the crowd, amongst which there were dozens of Bon Jovi t-shirts, including some great vintage ones from the band’s very early days. Epic songs, all of them, and Richie’s voice is top notch for his age, though he admitted there are some songs, like the oft-requested ‘Rosie’ that he just can’t carry anymore. Nice that he admits it. Many don't. And, you know what? He really makes those Jon Bon Jovi-sung tracks his own, and his solo tracks don’t sound that much different from their studio versions.  

Mid-set, Sambora graciously turned the microphone over to Orianthi for the song ‘You Don’t Wanna Know’ and, by it’s conclusion, the crowd discovered that, aside from being a master guitarist, she also has an incredible voice. No wonder she’s in such high demand around the world as a lead guitarist. Her vocal performance has encouraged me to seek out some more of her solo stuff on iTunes.

The biggest surprise of the night was reserved for the encore. It wasn’t the sudden appearance of entertainment guy Richard Wilkins and his attempt to play drums, but the guy who followed him out, none other than INXS’s Jon Farriss. The youngest of the three Farriss brothers took command of the drum kit and, echoing Springsteen a night earlier, Sambora, Orianthi and the band launched into a great cover of the INXS classic ‘Don’t Change’.

It’s been a real purple patch for INXS these past few weeks, thanks to the acclaimed miniseries that has sent their music back to the top of the ARIA Charts, and Farriss reminded anyone who was there of his drumming prowess. It was master class, made even more impressive because he was playing on a kit that wasn’t his own. INXS no longer performing as a band, has robbed us of one seeing of the best drummers in the business on a regular basis.

How good was the night going? Good enough that Richie and co appeared on stage for a second encore – after a lot of people thought he’d called it a night – and the question was, How do you top all that had gone before?

Easy. You roll out a mesmerising cover of ‘Purple Rain’ – yeah, the Prince song. Man, did it sound good. What a way to end the night. Nearly two and a half hours later, we’d heard a bit of everything in a gig that, at about $62 a ticket, was incredibly affordable. Talk about value for money! You’d never see a Bon Jovi gig in such an intimate venue as this, and we had the added bonus of seeing Orianthi do her thing, too. You know, that almost makes it better than a Bon Jovi gig.

Walking out into the rainy night after what we’d witnessed on the small Enmore stage, I don’t think there was an unhappy punter. There might be a few, though, if Richie doesn’t come back soon! The obvious affection that Sambora has for his fans makes me think he’ll be back, either with Bon Jovi or on his own. 

Can’t wait!

Opinion: Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Daytona 500 Victory May Be The Beginning of NASCAR’s Mainstream Resurgence

As far as the on-track product goes, the 2014 Daytona 500 could not have been more of a rip-roaring success for NASCAR. There’s always a certain amount of buzz about the Sprint Cup Series’ season-opening race.

The most prestigious race at the sport’s most hallowed ground pretty much guarantees extra media attention. It’s a little like the Indianapolis 500 in that it picks up a lot of casual viewers who probably don’t watch many other NASCAR races all year.

Then, the sport’s most popular driver – by the length of the back stretch at Daytona – Dale Earnhardt Junior, held off the field in a frantic last-lap dash o the finish line, recording his second victory in what’s known as the Great American Race.

It’s not an over exaggeration to say that there could be no more popular winner at Daytona than Earnhardt, whose legendary father, driver of the black #3 Chevrolet, and known as The Intimidator, lost his life on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, blocking for his team’s cars, driven by Dale Jr. and eventual winner Michael Waltrip, as they went like scalded cats for the line.

Oh, did I mention that the signature moment happened during primetime because of a record-breaking weather delay of more than six hours? A few late-race cautions bunched the field up and set the stage for a thrilling service. NASCAR’s Twitter and the companion account run by host broadcasters FOX, were working in overdrive late in the race, pounding out Tweet after Tweet, encouraging people to tune in, promising a memorable finish.

Well, NASCAR got what they wanted, and they got the winner they must always yearn for whenever there’s a race at Daytona – or anywhere, really, because Dale Junior’s fans, dubbed ‘Junior Nation’ so outnumber the fans of the next most popular drivers it isn’t funny.

Take a walk through the stands at any Sprint Cup Series race and you’ll see at least one in every three fans wearing something with Dale Junior’s face, sponsor or car number emblazoned across it. The man is a marketing machine. He always has, even before his father’s tragic death, generated huge fan buzz, and will continue to be for as long as he is even reasonably competitive in NASCAR.

The only problem was that the race’s climax didn’t make the sort of inroads television executives at FOX were surely hoping for. Unlike two years ago, when Brad Keselowski Tweeted from his car during a red flag period brought about by Juan Pablo Montoya ploughing into the jet drier during a weather caution ensuring huge broadcast numbers that even led some to suggest the Daytona 500 should be a primetime event annually, this year’s race was a television disappointment, averaging only 5.6 overnight rating.

That’s down a whopping 44% from last year. To put it into layman’s terms, the race averaged 9.3 million viewers this year; last year’s averaged 16.7 million viewers. Against the race was the spectacular closing ceremony of the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games, which never fails to generate big viewers. It’s tough sledding going up against an event that draws in sports fans and non-sports fans alike.

Certainly, it’s not the result NASCAR would have been hoping for, particularly not on the eve of what you feel is, if not exactly crucial, certainly an important season for the Sprint Cup Series. Why? It’s all about eyeballs. 2014 marks the final year for long-time TV partners ESPN and TNT, and the sport’s powers-that-be in Daytona Beach will be hoping for an uptick in crowds and television numbers this year.

Despite a relatively mediocre showing in terms of eyeballs at the time, Earnhardt Junior’s memorable win is generating headlines in newspapers, on ESPN’s SportsCentre, in magazines and online. He’ll do the media tour this week, starting in New York City with an appearance on Letterman, before racing in Phoenix over the weekend.

With that exposure on various platforms suggests we’re likely going to see a renewed interest in the sport from some fans whose interest might have waned over the last few years, which have mostly been a parade of Jimmie Johnson race wins and Championship titles.  It’s the best publicity the sport could hope for, far more effective than even if another favourite – say, Tony Stewart – had gone to Victory Lane. Even Stewart’s popularity is miniscule in comparison.

Earnhardt Junior really carries the torch of popularity for Hendrick Motorsports. His teammate, Johnson, is nowhere near as beloved as the man who sits behind the wheel of the #88 Chevrolet. Nor is the other big gun in the Hendrick stable – with all due respect to the team’s fourth, and oft-forgotten driver, Kasey Kahne, he isn’t quite there yet in terms of superstar status – Jeff Gordon.

A four-time Sprint Cup Series champion, Gordon is hated because he dared challenge Earnhardt Sr. and Johnson, who has won the series six times and is easily the era’s most dominant driver, is loathed in most circles because he simply doesn’t have the persona of so many legends of the sport. He’s clean cut, polished and barely says anything bar tired old racing clichés and sponsorship plugs in media interviews. Entirely not like Dale Sr. You get the distinct feeling that The Intimidator would be appalled at the way the sport has become such a corporate machine.

Holding back Junior Nation from launching into the stratosphere has been those pesky wins. Or, more specifically, lack thereof. Earnhardt Jr. hasn’t exactly been what you’d call a frequent race winner since joining Hendrick Motorsports in 2008. In fact, it’s been nearly two years last won, at Michigan International Speedway in the summer of 2012, 55 races ago, and he suffered through an interminable 143-race slide before that.

Crucially, Earnhardt has visited Victory Lane only five times since 2005. From a marketing standpoint, that’s far too long for NASCAR’s most popular driver to be out of Victory Circle. Even 5 races is too big of a gap, really. Now, here he comes, making the biggest of big bangs by driving to the front at Daytona, and winning the sport’s biggest and most important race.

You get the feeling that with Junior goes NASCAR’s fortunes. People tune in and want to watch him win. He has brand recognition through a raft of ads, arguably the most mainstream driver not named Jimmie Johnson. His win on Sunday was perfect, and exactly the sort of narrative that’s going to get people tuning in and, perhaps just as importantly, talking about NASCAR racing on social media. That’s what really counts these days: social media buzz.

With Junior running well, the sport can start scaling back towards the heights of the early 2000’s, where tracks were throwing up grandstands just as quickly as their construction could be organised. It is true that the sport has fallen from there recently – horrible economic conditions affecting the sport’s traditional southern heartland  certainly has not helped – but you might also trace poor attendance  and receding TV numbers to Dale Earnhardt Junior not winning.

Let’s face it, when he drove the #8 Budweiser Chevrolet for Dale Earnhardt Incorporated, Junior was winning Sprint Cup Series races often enough. His first Daytona 500 crown came ten years ago, driving that now-famous Budweiser ‘Born on Date’ car, and the sport was about as high as it had ever been, catapulted even higher after it’s favourite son finally emulated his father in winning the biggest event there was.

There is a chance here and now. Many believe this is Earnhardt Junior’s year. He and his crew chief Steve Letarte – who will leave the pit box for a less stressful job as an NBC Sports analyst in 2015 – seem primed and ready to take a shot at that elusive Sprint Cup Series championship after a fifth place finish last year. Certainly, Sunday evening did little to dissuade many of that.

Under NASCAR’s new ‘Chase for the Championship’ rules, a win gets you in, so Earnhardt figures to be a focal point from now until the weekend before Thanksgiving, when the Sprint Cup Series ends at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and if Junior wins a few more races early this season, watch the promotional machine kick into gear.

If Junior wins it all in 2014, especially if it involves a close battle with Johnson…well, watch out world, because NASCAR racing might well be on the way back.

Sochi 2014: Canada Wins Historic Hockey Gold in Sochi

Given a few years’ of perspective and separation from current events, it’s likely that the Canadian team who won the Gold medal in Sochi 2014 – possibly the last Olympic hockey tournament featuring NHL players, but let’s hope not! – will be remembered with even more fondness than the team who, four years before these Maple Leafs won gold on Russian soil, a gold medal that many thought would belong to the host nation, won their own famous victory on their own home ice, in Vancouver.

In the storied annals of Canadian hockey history, the 2014 national team, led brilliantly by Sidney Crosby and Mike Babcock, will doubtless be hailed as one of the greatest to ever leave their country’s shores. It was a remarkable triumph in a tournament where the Canadians didn’t lose a game – they needed an overtime blast from Los Angeles Kings defenceman Drew Doughty to beat Finland in the final game of the group stage – when many thought that teams from outside North America would be favoured on the bigger ice surface.

Except that someone forgot to tell the Canadians that they weren’t going to do very well on non-NHL ice. Their start to the tournament was admittedly slow, but they did enough in each game to progress, and you got the feeling that this was a big machine slowly warming up and cranking into gear. Even so, there were enough hints that perhaps someone might oust them before the medal round.

Prior to Canada’s semi-final matchup with Team USA, I wondered if the Americans might have had a chance, but Carey Price, a true revelation in net for the Canadiens, put an end to that, with a timely assist from Jamie Benn. The lone goal, to the Dallas Stars captain (a redirection from a gorgeous shot-pass from defenceman Jay Bouwmeester) and a solid defensive performance in front of Price relegated the Americans to the playoff for Bronze and Canada was headed back to an Olympic Gold Medal game.

This night will be remembered for just how comprehensive the Canadians were in notching back-to-back Olympic gold. In six games in Sochi, the Maple Leaf brigade didn’t lose. They didn’t even trail in a game. They allowed a measly three goals – only one in three elimination games, , the quarter final against Latvia, before proceeding to blank Team USA in the Semi Final and Sweden in the Gold Medal Game – and succeeded in shutting down two very prolific offensive hockey teams in their last two games.

Aside from an early stretch of play where the Swedes threatened to score, the team in red and white were by far and away the best on the ice. The way the game went reminded me a lot of the semi-final against Team USA. Remember, the Americans had their chances early, too. Then they faded, though not quite as much as the Swedes did. I suppose that easy path to the final came back to haunt Nicklas Kronwall’s men after all.

Almost from the get-go, Sweden was outmatched. Indeed, it was only the occasional brilliance of New York Rangers net minder Henrik Lundqvist that kept the score from ballooning out even more, though the absence of superstars Henrik Zetterberg, Henrik Sedin and Nicklas Backstrom from the ice on Sunday night certainly changed the way things progressed. Certainly, they would have shown more offensively.

The Canadians were able to cover the loss of John Tavares and Steven Stamkos by just plugging in another big-time NHL superstar, but the Swedes, like most of the rest of the international hockey world, aren’t as easily able to do that. I’d hazard a guess and say that the game would have gone differently for Sweden had they been able to put those guys out on the ice. They might still have lost, but I’m willing to bet it would’ve been a much closer game.

Medal Night in Sochi will also be remembered as the night when Sidney Crosby broke his scoring drought. His lone goal of the tournament was a thing of beauty, coming on a breakaway, with a sick move, and an open shot into Henrik Lundqvist’s goal, the Swedish keeper sprawled on the ice, powerless to stop Crosby. It was 2-0 at that point, after Jonathan Toews scored a first period goal, yet the way the Swedish offense was being routinely shut down, it might as well have been 5-0. No way on this earth where the Swedes coming back from this deficit.

In the third period, as though to put an emphatic exclamation mark on a superb performance, Chris Kunitz, the subject of much derision throughout, scored the final goal of the game. It was a nice moment for a guy many thought arrived here simply because he’d shown some chemistry with Crosby back in Pittsburgh. Scoring that goal must’ve been a moment for Kunitz to tell himself that he belonged. And he does. Don’t forget, the guy won a Stanley Cup with Anaheim before being traded to Pittsburgh. He isn’t some two-bit hack.

The 3-0 triumph will also be remembered as the one where Carey Price really came of age. As a goalie in Montreal, where there is so much expected of the Canadiens due to their franchise’s enviable and rich history, Price has had his style picked apart by so many different critics, yet he’s kept plugging away doggedly and persistently, and the reward is Olympic Gold, coming after playing so well in every game he’s started. Hopefully, this will – and should – be the end of all the talk about how Price can’t win the big games. Because, you know, he absolutely can.

Historically, this is a giant moment for Canada. They’ve won three of the five gold medals since the NHL started participating in the Olympics, but until now, both triumphs came on North American soil. They beat Team USA twice, eight years apart, first in Salt Lake City, Utah and then in Vancouver, British Columbia. Perhaps the knock on Canada was that they hadn’t won an Olympic tournament with NHL players on the big international ice. Well, you can tick that one off the list, too.

No matter which way you look at it, the best team won in Sochi, and Team Canada deserves all the accolades surely coming their way over the next few days and weeks. The ability for Mike Babcock and his coaching staff to bring together a team of players used to being top dog at their respective NHL franchises and turn them into a cohesive unit in such a short period of time is nothing short of a miracle. In goal, defensively and up front, Canada were supreme, thanks to the management of Babcock. There should be no doubt that he is the best coach in the NHL.

Congratulations, Canada! Let’s hope that this isn’t the end of NHL participation at the Winter Olympics!

Review: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band at Allphones Arena, Sydney (19 February 2014)

This one felt like it was going to be a cursed gig. We barely managed to survive all sorts of craziness on Wednesday afternoon. It was one of those situation where it seemed that anything that could go wrong did go wrong!

Sydney received it’s first big dump of rain in a few weeks, coming down heavily enough to cause flash flooding in some places, which wreaked havoc on the roads. If that wasn’t enough, a train hit a person near Croydon, right at the busiest time of the peak, on the busiest rail line in the city. Then, to make matters even worse, there was a signal failure on the Olympic Park Sprint line, which halted the only train service out to Allphones Arena for long enough that fans got nervous enough about missing the opening of the set that they braved the pouring rain and walked.

Getting into Allphones Arena and taking our seats was a major relief. True to tour form, though the ticket said 7.30pm, Springsteen and the E Street Band were nowhere to be seen, and there were hundreds of people still filing into the cavernous building. Surely, someone would have told the Boss and let him know that people were going to be coming in later than usual. Even as the first song fired up, there were fans still struggling down from the station, their commute completely collapsing under the weight of the Sydney Trains issues around Croydon.

When the Boss did come on, he immediately fired up the E Street Band – sounding as powerful as ever under the closed roof – for an off-the-hook cover of ‘Friday On My Mind’, a classic Australian song. Everyone was on their feet immediately, because everyone knows the chorus to that one, right? There were times during that first song where it seemed Springsteen waited for us to carry him along. Sure, why not? He couldn’t have chosen a more popular song with which to start the set.

I was at the show with two people who’d never seen Springsteen before, and only had a limited knowledge of his music – think ‘Dancing in the Dark’, ‘Born to Run’ and ‘Born in the USA’ – and watching them as the set rolled through a great ‘Out in the Street’, a hilarious anecdote about the toilet in his hotel room that led into an epic ‘Something in the Night’, and the powerful one-two punch of ‘High Hopes’ and ‘Just Like Fire Would’ was incredible. 

The way their eyes lit up, the way they cheered and screamed through Tom Morello’s solos, when Bruce went crowd surfing, when he skolled someone’s beer…I knew there were two more converts in the house. It says something about a performer that people who don’t know most of the songs being played expertly before them can still be so impressed that, after three hours, they both told me that it was the best concert they’d ever seen. 

For my part, I didn’t think it was quite as good as the full “Born in the USA” album show on Saturday night in Melbourne, but hearing the epic “Darkness on the Edge of Town” from start to finish was great. It’s a real album of hope out of the grimness of the American heartland, fired up by ‘Badlands’ carried along by ‘Racing in the Street’ and anchored by the title track that had sounded so good with Eddie Vedder on Saturday night in Melbourne.

Sadly, there was a missing member of the E Street Band tonight. I noticed it immediately, and soon Bruce confirmed that Jake Clemons had flown home to America because his father had passed away on Monday. Stepping into a very difficult breach was Eddie ‘Kingfish’ Manion, who did a solid job on all of Jake’s solos, and was given an encouraging and appreciative round of applause each time. I don’t envy that guy his job, but he did it well.

It was great to hear ‘Land of Hope and Dreams’ at the end of the main set. It’s a completely different sort of song to the one it followed: the Morello/Springsteen epic ‘Ghost of Tom Joad’, being almost gospel in it’s makeup. Springsteen really gives it his all, and there’s barely a break – the lights are down for only a few seconds – before the four guitarists stand together centre stage.

You hear the opening riff, and suddenly it becomes something that you know well. At first, I thought I might’ve been hearing things, but no, it is the INXS classic “Don’t Change”, and although it isn’t quite like watching the late, great Michael Hutchence up there, Springsteen knocks it out of the park, again benefiting from an enthusiastic 18,000-strong choir. As far as Australian covers on this tour go, I think Sydney got the best of the bunch. I wonder if the Boss caught any of the INXS miniseries?

After ‘Born to Run’, ‘Dancing in the Dark’, ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze Out’ and ‘Shout’, Springsteen watched the E Street Band leave the stage before coming back with an acoustic guitar. He plucked a sign from the crowd: it was someone’s twenty-third birthday, and that lucky person was going to get their wish tonight. The Boss sung ‘Surprise, Surprise’, then made thousands of other people happy by way of a brilliantly mournful ‘Dream Baby Dream’ complete with a wailing organ track. Three hours, just like that. Disappeared in an instant. These gigs always go by so quickly. Too quickly!

Once again, the Boss raised the bar. One more show to go, Saturday night in the Hunter Valley and I have a feeling he’ll raise it once more there, too.

Review: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band at Hope Estate Winery (22 February 2014)

One last chance for me to witness the tour de force that is Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, and it came in the middle of the Hunter Valley, at Hope Estate Winery, which has seemingly become the go-to performance venue for big-name acts over the years. When I got up there, I could see why. It’s a beautiful spot, with a nice sloping lawn and room for many thousands, and on a pretty warm and clear summer night, there was a clear sense of anticipation.

Something exciting was going to happen. And so it did, as soon as the E Street Band appeared. We know them all like friends now, and we wave to them when they take the stage: Max, Nils, Soozie, Garry, the Professor, Jake, Tommy and Stevie, who is without doubt a fan favourite, and a welcome addition after being MIA filming his TV show Lillehammer during the 2013 Wrecking Ball Tour.

Then came the star of the show, Bruce, who looked pretty relaxed for a Saturday night, and apparently ready to rumble, opting to take the stage without the usual waistcoat and tie. Instead, it’s a rock ‘n’ roll black t-shirt, guitar in hand, and doubtless impressed by the incredible surrounding of Hope Estate – I certainly was – and the sea of nearly eighteen thousand people (which honestly looked and sounded like a lot more than that) waiting for his arrival, and now cheering it.

Three shows in, I’d heard just about everything I wanted, with the twin notable exceptions of ‘Pay Me My Money Down’ and ‘American Land’, and Saturday night’s set list proved to be something of a greatest hits affair. At least, my interpretation of what a Springsteen greatest hits might be – wildly different, I’m sure, to the guy next to me at the gig. It was great to hear ‘Murder Incorporated’ and ‘The River’, two awesome songs that I’d never heard live before. ‘Shacked and Drawn’ is always great, but perhaps my favourite part of the main set was the double-shot from the Born in the USA album, ‘Working on the Highway’ and ‘Darlington County’.

That’s not to say that I didn’t yell out enthusiastically throughout ‘No Surrender’, which is probably my favourite Springsteen song (or at least equal with ‘Jungleland’ and the song that is apparently The Boss’s homage to Steve Van Zandt, ‘Bobby Jean’, both of which appeared early, as did a searing version of ‘Badlands’. It’s my favourite song from the Darkness on the Edge of Town album and a great live track.

For a while there, it was like a week ago in Melbourne, when Born in the USA was played in full. Perhaps a chance at the rarely-seen title track? I wasn’t going to bet against it, but the anti-American anthem didn’t get a run. That’s okay with me; as popular as th song is, there’s much better stuff in Springsteen’s catalogue. And I was still holding out for ‘American Land’ or ‘Pay Me My Money Down’.

Whilst Springsteen didn’t get around the crowd as much as he did at Allphones Arena on Wednesday night, he proved to still be a man of the people, visiting the crowd a few times throughout the nearly-three hour set. He borrowed someone’s cowboy hat – and dubbed it his “Magic Hat” – during ‘Working on the Highway’/’Darlington County’ – and uncorked one of the many hundreds of bottles of Hope Estate wine mid-song, and proceeded to give those in the vicinity an alcoholic bath they won’t soon forget. 

I won’t soon forget watching Bruce stick his face right in the camera, nor his hilarious anecdote about his elderly mother, her iPhone and the FaceTime conversations that they have every morning. For a guy who was pretty talkative, at least by his own standards, in the two previous shows, he barely said a word Saturday night until the encore. On this night, it was all about the music.

As the show crept towards it’s end, with the twin anthems ‘Born to Run’ and ‘Dancing in the Dark’ before ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze Out’, a raucous ‘Shout’ and the full E Street Band treatment of one of my favourites, ‘Thunder Road’, I felt myself getting sad. Four shows (including two absolute belters in Melbourne) had gone by so quickly, though there are plenty of things I’m never going to forget from what was easily the best week of concerts in my life.

When you think about how old the Boss is – sixty-fucking-five, as he told us in Sydney on Wednesday night – there’s a good chance that we won’t see the E Street Band and it’s legendary front man on Australian shores again. If that’s the case, at least he went out with a giant BANG!