Meadowland Magic: Bruce Springsteen still in top form

By David Hinkley
New York Daily News
Wednesday, October 10th 2007, 4:00 AM

On what was quite likely the last summery day of 2007, Bruce Springsteen came home to the Meadowlands to sing about girls in their summer clothes passing him by.

Do not feel sorry for Bruce, however. A packed house of 20,000 hometown fans at the Continental Arena made it clear that they will follow him anywhere always, especially if he brings along the E Street Band.

He's now one week into an E Street reunion tour supporting his new CD, "Magic," which he says was conceived as a rock 'n' roll record that would be fun to play on stage.

It does seem to be that, from the show-opening "Radio Nowhere" to the lilting, wistful "Girls in Their Summer Clothes," whose chorus is already a sing-along.

The new songs take about a third of the show, leaving room for more than a dozen tunes from his archives, and he pleased the people mightily last night by pulling out familiar anthems like "Darlington County" and a full-throttle "Badlands" alongside a hard-core-fan fave like "Thundercrack."



As usual, he discovered a semisleeper, this time a driving rendition of the "Nebraska" song "Reason to Believe."

What's still in progress is the hardest part of a tour like this, which is giving it a center and the musical flow Springsteen is always chasing. He wants his shows to say something, to combine the old and new in a way that conveys the eternal hope of youth, the acquired caution and wisdom of experience, the peril of the political times, the durability of faith, the communion of music and, oh, yeah, the pure fun of rock 'n' roll.

All those themes run through "Magic." They also run through songs from "She's the One" to "Devil's Arcade," and this could be a tour where Springsteen is rearranging the puzzle pieces until the end - because there's no single winning combination.

He introduces the new "Living in the Future" with a warning about attacks on the Bill of Rights and other disturbing developments "that aren't just un-American, they're anti-American." He follows it by reaching back three decades for "Promised Land," a counternote of hope.

He also fills the show with a lot of guitar-powered instrumental sections and finishes with the toe-tapping "American Land." If the girls in their summer clothes passed him by on their way home, it's a safe bet that at the very least, they winked.