When the plug was pulled on Bruce Springsteen's set at last year's Hard Rock Calling as he and Paul McCartney duetted past the 10.30pm curfew, it catalysed the festival's departure to pastures new.
Last night, Springsteen and his largest ever E Street Band returned to Hard Rock Calling, but this time at the Olympic Park. The volume was louder and the curfew more generous, although, ironically, Springsteen was sipping post-concert cocoa by 10.15pm. A long, long trek to Stratford station and TFL's evident surprise that 40,000 souls might need transport home were hopefully mere teething troubles.
Now 63, Springsteen remains the master of the marathon, unpredictable outdoor set. Last night, he unfurled the Born In The USA album in its entirety; he waltzed with his 87-year-old mother Adele on Dancing In The Dark (which also featured his younger sister Pam) and he merged the familiarity of a barnstorming Born To Run with the distinctly unfamiliar My Lucky Day, never previously played solo and acoustic.
Part-everyman, part-showman ("I want you to feel it from your sexual organs!" he gushed - but primly - at one point), Springsteen can transcend the corny like no other. Plucking a child from the audience is usually the cheapest of tricks, but Springsteen made it a moment of life-affirming loveliness by placing her on his shoulders, jogging back on stage and handing her his microphone so she could sing Waitin' On A Sunny Day.
Ebbing and flowing, the evening turned into an emotional tidal wave when it was most hymnal. Framed by a breathtaking sunset, the new Wrecking Ball, the 38-years-old Jungleland and The Rising, Springsteen's sifting of the ashes of 9/11, all testified to his capacity to stir, inspire and move on the grandest of scales without sacrificing his fireside, one-to-one intimacy. That's his gift: nobody does it better.
