Springsteen at the RDS.

Bruce Springsteen (2023).

Me and Anita, on another trip home. My favourite concert film is Springsteen on Broadway, and I'd always wanted to see the full show.

There's a particular kind of tired that only comes from a dawn flight out of Luton. In 2023 I did it three times for three gigs back home, and this was the first.

Luton at stupid o'clock, Dublin by breakfast, and by lunchtime a proper pint in Kehoe's on South Anne Street. Then out to Ballsbridge.

Springsteen at the RDS is a Dublin institution at this point, and the crowd treats it like one. Twenty-eight songs, three hours, no sign of a man in his seventies slowing down. He did Prove It All Night, Badlands, Born to Run, Glory Days, the full shift. And then he sent the E Street Band off and closed on his own with an acoustic guitar and I'll See You in My Dreams. The whole RDS went quiet. That's the bit I still think about.

The other two trips that year: Pulp at St Anne's Park in June and New Order at the 3Arena in October.

The setlist.

All 28 songs from the night, in the order they played them. Listen: Apple Music · Spotify

Setlist from setlist.fm. More from 2023: my songs of the year.