You know that feeling after a concert you walk out knowing that you've just seen the best show ever? Well, I feel that way after about every third Bruce show I go to. Whether it actually is the best show ever is impossible to say, but that's not the point. The point is that as long as Bruce can continue to give me that feeling I'm not going to write him off.

Anyway, the last time I got this feeling was this last Saturday when Bruce had just finished his Seeger Sessions show in Copenhagen. And now, I know you're probably thinking, how can a show of folk songs and a bunch of unknown musicians feel like the best show ever? Well, to be honest, I never expected that either. I admit the other show I saw on this tour (Frankfurt in May) left me just a teeny bit cold. I wrote about it on this page and probably put it in a slightly more positive light than I actually felt it was worth. Back then I felt there were just too many songs that didn't mean anything to me, and even Bruce's own songs fell flat in their new weird arrangements. Adding to the less than stellar impression was also the fact that my seat was way back in the arena and that people around me seemed to think they were in the movie theater rather than at a hootenanny.

All of those things had changed for the Copenhagen show. I was in the pit with hundreds of like minded people who were there to have fun. And the songs... well, they suddenly weren't half bad. Especially the choices Bruce had made regarding his own songs had helped fix things. Gone were the horrible "Johnny 99" and "Cadillac Ranch/Mystery Train", and in their place he'd added "Atlantic City" and "Devils & Dust", both in pretty stunning arrangements. OK, he'd also added the inevitable "Bobby Jean", but I was ready to forgive him for that. At least he hadn't turned it into some weird mess like "Johnny 99". It was pretty straight forward. Oh, and we can't forget the additions of the ever-beautiful "Long Time Comin'" and the very welcome resurrection of "Fire".

But of course, the song selections alone can't put a show in the "best show ever" category. What really put it over the top was the passion and the energy Bruce displayed. He knows he needs to win people over. This is not an E Street Band show where victory has been ensured by the first note. There will always be a pretty large amount of the crowd who, when they see 17 people walking on stage with tubas and banjos and whatnot, will think, "what the hell is that?" I think that's one of the reasons he's doing it. He wants to try that feeling again like in 1973 when no one knew who the hell Bruce Springsteen was and he had to convince every single soul in the crowd that he wasn't just any young striving musician. He meant business. The only way he can achieve that today is to alienate a sizable chunk of his fans and then try to win them back by sheer will and insistence and energy. He knows not everyone is going to like to see their rock 'n' roll hero play "Old Dan Tucker", but he also knows that if you work hard enough a fair amount of them are going to start listening and come around little by little.

That's what I saw in Copenhagen. A fired-up Bruce who took the crowd in one by one, song by song, including me. I was ready to be disappointed again, but by the time he did the extended jam during "You Can Look" I had that feeling of floating on the music like everything is right in the world that I had first experienced when he did "She's the One" at the same venue 18 years earlier on the Tunnel of Love Express Tour... my very first show. And the next song, "When the Saints Go Marching In"... I swear to God, play all your Darkness boots from start to finish and you won't find a more beautiful moment. It was otherworldly. It was pure genius. It was what "best shows ever" are made of.

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