The between-song banter is frequently entertaining (remarking that the Flintsones would be banned today: "The Neanderthal setting, and that whole homoerotic subtext to the Fred/Barney relationship…" before recounting his meeting with Roy Orbison), often informal and charismatic ("I'm divorced. That kind of does it - I'm screwed, right?"), but occasionally bordering on world-weary life lessons, punctuated with a nervous laugh.
Brilliant moments were aplenty, however; a piano re-working of "Real World," an electrified "Part Man, Part Monkey," and a captivating "Promised Land" that included a brilliantly tapped out percussion on the base of the guitar. Such was the silence that Springsteen commanded during the songs, that halfway through "The Hitter," he found himself competing with the sound of the thundering rain soaking the top of the Point Depot, resounding like a strange, ghostly applause still lingering on. After he begun the encore by laughing his head off though "Ramrod," a section of the crowd left their seats and began to file up through the aisles like converts drawn towards the preacher, but more like lemmings following one entranced nut who decided to advantage of the lax security.
However, these memorable instances were to act as pillars to bridge the two and a half hour set over the weaker moments, which unsurprisingly, came from the new material. In particular, the dreary "Jesus Was An Only Son," although interrupted by Springsteen's own musings on child rearing, still couldn't help but bore, and the overly-long "Matamoros Banks" was met with no less than three false-applauses — a clear hint from the audience to wrap things up. Here, and in several other places, Springsteen was guilty of "hoo-hooing" the end of a number of songs in the exact same way: like a giddy, drunk owl deciding to soldier on in the face of isolation. One might also find it strange that the throwaway simplicity of "All I'm Thinking About Is You," one of the better cuts from Devils & Dust, was not deemed worthy of inclusion in the run of the things.
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