Leave it to Portland:
An awesome venue, an energized crowd, but the roomiest, most spacious pit I’ve ever seen. It was awesome to have so much elbow/dancing room, but there were ridiculously few people for such a large space. It was dicey whether we could mass enough concentrated crowd for Bruce’s crowdsurf–but surf he did, and my friend Tjeerd and I were in prime position for it. (You can see the back of our heads front and center at 3:40 below, just before Bruce falls right on us.)
At the previous show in L.A., I was front and center in the pit. This time I was in the very back of it, but even that vantage point has close encounter potential–see my video below for the amazing close-up performance of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.” (You’ll also hear just how good the sound was that night.)
As for the show itself: it was one of the shortest of the tour, only 33 songs (two less than usual for that leg) and only 3 hours and 18 minutes, with no surprises or unusual wildcards. Bruce’s voice seemed pinched at times–I suspect his throat was sore after 4 shows the week prior. But his performance didn’t suffer, and if the show fell short on time, it made up for it in intensity.
If this was my last show for that leg of the tour, I might have been a little disappointed at the relative predictability, but I had one more coming up in my adopted hometown of Seattle two nights later–and that show would prove to be one of the best of that leg.
