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A 26-year-old Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band made their UK debut at London&apos;s Hammersmith Odeon in November 1975, performing their new album Born to Run to a sold-out crowd.

When Bruce Springsteen Came to Britain

Bruce on the Loose

I&apos;m currently working my way through Springsteen&apos;s entertaining autobiography &quot;Born to Run&quot; which coincided nicely with this one hour documentary on the man&apos;s &quot;special relationship&quot; with British audiences. The programme features latter-day interviews with Springsteen and his chief compadre in the E Street Band, Miami Steve van Zandt and other associates like past and present managers Mike Appel and Jon Landau together with those of a number of British fans, including a varied group of fellow musicians Sting and Peter Gabriel amongst them, celebrity British fans like Michael Palin and Rob Bryden and the inevitable David Hepworth just to round things off.

We get a potted history of Bruce&apos;s career just for good measure but the main focus is on his live appearances here, starting with his high-profile debut UK performance at London&apos;s iconic Hammersmith Odeon in 1975. His record company had hyped the gig beyond all recognition (&quot;Is London finally ready for Bruce Springsteen&quot;?) and Springsteen himself was disappointed at the time with his own performance, but those that were there remember it a lot better than that.

Springsteen points up as a major inspiration his early and enduring love for the British Invasion groups of the 60&apos;s like the Beatles, Stones and Animals and sees his British gigs as his way of repaying an old childhood debt of appreciation, indeed it&apos;s claimed at one point that he&apos;s actually now more popular in Britain and Europe than in his own country.

Enjoyable as the live clips used undoubtedly were, ditto Bruce&apos;s own commentaries and the various celebrity endorsements, of more human interest to me were the stories dotting the narrative of the different ways he connects with his blue collar / working class fans. Thus, for the first time, we learn of his sizeable private donation to the striking miners in 1984 at the height of their dispute with Thatcher&apos;s government and there are also a couple of lighter episodes demonstrating his propensity for full audience participation, in the process passing on lifelong memories to the beneficiaries. It might have been nice in fact if they could have cut back to Bruce today for a reaction to those.

As these programmes tend to do, it sort of glossed over the last twenty years or so and oddly makes no reference at all to his famous show at Dublin&apos;s Slane Park which he certainly bigs up in his book but nevertheless for fans in particular, this was a highly enjoyable celebration of arguably the best live performer there&apos;s yet been in popular music. Still performing 3 hour plus shows today well into his 70&apos;s, we clearly ain&apos;t seen nothing yet.

I'm currently working my way through Springsteen's entertaining autobiography "Born to Run" which coincided nicely with this one hour documentary on the man's "special relationship" with British audiences. The programme features latter-day interviews with Springsteen and his chief compadre in the E Street Band, Miami Steve van Zandt and other associates like past and present managers Mike Appel and Jon Landau together with those of a number of British fans, including a varied group of fellow musicians Sting and Peter Gabriel amongst them, celebrity British fans like Michael Palin and Rob Bryden and the inevitable David Hepworth just to round things off.

We get a potted history of Bruce's career just for good measure but the main focus is on his live appearances here, starting with his high-profile debut UK performance at London's iconic Hammersmith Odeon in 1975. His record company had hyped the gig beyond all recognition ("Is London finally ready for Bruce Springsteen"?) and Springsteen himself was disappointed at the time with his own performance, but those that were there remember it a lot better than that.

Springsteen points up as a major inspiration his early and enduring love for the British Invasion groups of the 60's like the Beatles, Stones and Animals and sees his British gigs as his way of repaying an old childhood debt of appreciation, indeed it's claimed at one point that he's actually now more popular in Britain and Europe than in his own country.

Enjoyable as the live clips used undoubtedly were, ditto Bruce's own commentaries and the various celebrity endorsements, of more human interest to me were the stories dotting the narrative of the different ways he connects with his blue collar / working class fans. Thus, for the first time, we learn of his sizeable private donation to the striking miners in 1984 at the height of their dispute with Thatcher's government and there are also a couple of lighter episodes demonstrating his propensity for full audience participation, in the process passing on lifelong memories to the beneficiaries. It might have been nice in fact if they could have cut back to Bruce today for a reaction to those.

As these programmes tend to do, it sort of glossed over the last twenty years or so and oddly makes no reference at all to his famous show at Dublin's Slane Park which he certainly bigs up in his book but nevertheless for fans in particular, this was a highly enjoyable celebration of arguably the best live performer there's yet been in popular music. Still performing 3 hour plus shows today well into his 70's, we clearly ain't seen nothing yet.

A 26-year-old Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band made their UK debut at London's Hammersmith Odeon in November 1975, performing their new album Born to Run to a sold-out crowd.

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When Bruce Springsteen Came to Britain

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