31 songs and 3? hours. The Magic Tour was officially wrapped up last night at the Harley Davidson 105th Anniversary celebration in Milwaukee with a marathon show that appropriately kicked off with "Gypsy Biker" and closed with "Born to Be Wild". The tour last 11 months and contained exactly 101 shows not counting rehearsal shows. How many different songs were played still remains to be figured out, but I will go out on a limp and guess it was record high and that it was the most unpredictable tour ever. Toward the end, upward half the show was open to audibles. Anything was possible on any given night. From obscure covers that hadn't been played since 1975 to... well... "Crush on You".

Performance-wise this was also a high-point in the history of the E Street Band. Bruce's energy and physical ability defied his age. After opening the tour with the shortest shows since 1977 at only about 2 hours, 15 minutes, 10 months later, a full hour had been added, making these final shows the longest since 1993.

While this of course was all excellent news, the shows did lose a bit of focus. The Magic songs that set the theme of the show in the beginning, were to a large extent dumped in favor of... whatever the crowd requested or Bruce thought of. Thus, thematically strong songs like "Backstreets" or "Roulette" could appear out of nowhere regardless of whether or not they fit. You can say that a lot of songs were played for the hell of it rather than necessity. It was fun, it was loose, but it didn't have the urgency of say the Darkness shows.

That's a minor complaint. When all is said and done, it's a blessing that Bruce and the band can still show such vitality after 35 years. There is absolutely no reason why this would be the last tour. Despite Danny Federici's very tragic death, the band is still very much alive with a lead singer who shows no sign of slowing down. Bring on the next chapter!

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