Been back for a little while from Hard Rock Calling, watching Springsteen and a few other bands.
Jack Savoretti and a couple of others on one of the smaller stages were pretty good. John Fogerty was pretty good but the highlight of his set was when Springsteen came on at the end and sang Rocking All Over the World with Fogerty.
Then it was Springsteen's turn. As usual, bloody excellent. If you've never seen him live you really need to before he stops performing. The E-street band are superb musicians and with Steve Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren both in the band they are even better. Clarence Clemons nephew has taken over from the big man on sax and was damned good as well.
Bruce definitely doesn't play because he needs the money or help in selling records. He plays because he loves it, as do the likes of Van Zandt. 3 hrs and 10 minutes on stage and he only stopped because the miserable toads turned the speakers off to stop him carrying on, which was a bloody disgrace considering he was just finishing his second song with Paul McCartney, who had been brought on as a special guest (which was pretty damned awesome in itself), what a version of Twist and Shout that was. That menat no encore and no tribute to Clarence Clemons. Totally disrespectful to Springsteen and McCartney to do what they did in the manner they did it.
Apparently there was a 10:30 curfew on a Saturday night because it upsets the residents in the area. Well I hope that the organisers take Hard Rock Calling elsewhere and tell Kensington Borough where to poke it. The festival brings in enough revenue for them.
I think Sir Paul should have a word with Queeny and tell her that the Royal Borough of Kensington should have the Royal taken away from it. There were a lot of people made happy by the music, made very unhappy at the end by the organisers.
