CONCERT REVIEW: Bruce Springsteen, The Boss, 74, is born to run ...

IS Born To Run the greatest rock song ever made?

How does a 74-year-old man find the energy to put on a three-hour, non-stop show and still manage to look cool at the end of the night, indeed look like he could easily manage another three hours if the authorities let him?

And does Bruce Springsteen have a really wicked sense of humour, or what?

All questions that were pounding in my head on Thursday night as the bones of 40,000 of us trudged through the rain home from Páirc Uí Chaoimh after a pulsating night’s entertainment laid on by one of rock’s greatest ever stars.

That last question first...

Lads, it lashed down at the Páirc, the gods were not happy, not happy at all. Either that or the fellas selling ponchos outside had performed a rain dance that secured them record profits.

A heavy shower shortly before Bruce hit the stage at 7.25pm was a portent of what was to come, and after an hour of reasonably dry weather, the heavens began to open. The last hour was one of those Cork nights of light drizzle, heavy drizzle, downpour, punctuated by more bouts of rain.

Miserable stuff altogether, but Bruce and his stage, packed with brilliant exemplars of the musical craft, shone like a beacon.

What did the great man from New Jersey bookend his set with?

Well, he kicked proceedings off with a stompin’ version of the John Fogerty song Who’ll Stop The Rain, and ended the night with a beautiful cover of The Pogues’ Rainy Night In Soho, in tribute to the late Shane MacGowan.

Like I said, Bruce must have a wicked sense of humour!

Not that the audience cared about a few (million) drops of rain. The 40,000 in the Páirc were determined to have a good time, and Bruce duly obliged.

Highlights? Well, when Bruce followed up Thunder Road (geddit?) with Born To Run, the fans in the stadium went into a state of high ecstasy not seen there since... ooh, five days earlier when the Rebels sent Limerick packing.

Those rolling verses, those high-octane choruses, and - man! - those storming lyrics as we sang along - like I said, a serious contender for best rock song ever.

Another highlight - and a huge surprise - was hearing Bruce launch into his famous seasonal number, Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town.

Yes... yes, he really did. I told you the man had a wicked sense of humour!

On the long walk down to the venue from town, I had joked to friends that I would request that very song in tribute to Cork’s famous Holly Bough - and here he was, doing just that.

Not a song that usually features on The Boss’s set-lists, and particularly not in May. As he told the crowd at the end: “Only in Cork!”

Bruce will be 75 in September - crikey, he’s only a couple of years younger than my mammy - but he looks and sounds in fine fettle.

There were some reflective moments between songs, when he shared the story of his early ventures into music, and introduced his E Street Band, which includes his wife, Patti Scialfa.

At one point, as dusk and the rain begin to fall, he told the crowd: “We’re here to wake you up, shake you up and have a good time. And to get your sexual organs tingling.”

But more often not, Bruce isn’t one for speeches, and usually, when one song finishes, he is raring to go for the next.

The first half dozen songs he performed on Thursday wouldn’t have been familiar to many of the older crowd, but he got the whole place on board when he launched into his 1980 hit Hungry Heart.

It’s a singalong classic, made poignant by the fact the iconic sax in it is now played by Jake Clemons, nephew of the E Street band’s original sax player, Clarence Clemons, who died in 2011.

Other highlights included majestic versions of Wrecking Ball and Light Of Day, and of course, Dancing In The Dark, from his stand-out work, Born In The USA, the album that sent the New Jersey man into the rock stratosphere in the 1980s.

My one gripe is that Bruce didn’t perform more of those familiar hits from that 1984 album. He did Bobby Jean and Darlington County, but not Glory Days or I’m On Fire.

As well as that emotional Pogues encore, Bruce also did brilliant covers of Nightshift, by The Commodores, Because The Night, which he co-wrote with Patti Smith, and Twist And Shout, by The Beatles.

But somebody with a back catalogue as impressive as his doesn’t need to stray far from his own material.

Yes, it was a shame about the rain, but it didn’t put a dampener on Bruce or his 40,000 devotees in the Páirc.

******

Just a word on the transport to and from the stadium.

It beggars belief that the city council’s Black Ash park and ride service didn’t stay open on Thursday beyond its normal hours and closed as usual at 8.30pm.

This could have provided a way in for many fans living west of the city, who have no train service to hand like those in and on the way to Mallow and Midleton, where extra rail services were laid on.

Many fans coming from the west ended up parking in Ballincollig and trying to get a bus or taxi in - and some of these were full and sold out well ahead of the gig.

The council could even have allocated the Black Ash as a facility for disabled people to park up and be bussed to the stadium, just allowing in cars with a disabled sticker. It seemed a shame to leave it empty on such an important night for the city.