Bruce Springsteen’s 3-Hour-20-Minute Show at L.A.’s Forum Resets the Bar for Epic Bossiness: Concert Review
variety.comChris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The last time Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played Los Angeles, back in 2016, it was to formally close down the venerable Sports Arena — “The Dump That Jumps,” as he famously dubbed the about-to-be-demolished venue he’d played so often.
His song “Wrecking Ball” had a special resonance, then, in association with that dive that it can’t now: Springsteen’s current home in L.A., the Kia (nee: Fabulous) Forum, which he goes back to the ‘70s with, does jump, but no one’s going to go all Bette Davis and utter “What a dump!” about it in its refurbished state.
Occasionally, there’s an arena that was meant to live forever, against all odds, and the Forum — where Springsteen played Thursday and will again on Sunday night — is a girded, gilded survivor.
But “Wrecking Ball” remains a key moment in his set, not for how sentimental it makes us feel about basketball barns, but for how it makes us feel about us, its true intended subject.
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