Bruce Springsteen seems to like playing in Norway, since he has been here a lot of time through his career. And the Norwegian people definitely loves him. All his concerts the last years have sold out in minutes or hours. This summer he has played one concert in Oslo in June, and then a concert in Trondheim two days ago and one in Oslo tonight, for a total of 100.000 fans. I saw the first three songs of his concert in Oslo tonight.

The first Bruce Springsteen concert in Oslo, in June, was held at a football stadion. Not my favorite venue, either for soccer or concerts. The concert in Trondheim was held beside the Granåsen ski jump stadion for more than 30.000 people. Tonight, the concert was held in the Frognerparken, where the Vigeland sculpture park is located. The venue worked well for the concert, readily accommodating 37.000 fans.

The year after the mass shooting and killing of 77 people of the right wing Anders Behring Breivik in 2011, Bruce Springsteen and Steve van Zandt did a moving version of We Shall Overcome at the memorial concert. That meant a lot to many Norwegian after the shock and wake up call the represented by the despicable acts of the Norwegian right wing terrorist.

Jake Clemons, Bruce Springsteen and Steve van Zandt

Since I only got to see the three first songs Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band played tonight, I can’t say much about the music and te repertoire, except that he promised to play the whole The River album from start to finish, plus a lot of other songs after that. But the band sounded great, and everything was as it always is at a Bruce Springsteen concert: great songs performed by one of te best rock bands in the world and sung by one of the most charismatic and energetic artists in rock.

Here are more photos from the concert. Enjoy!

Nils Lofgren

Patti Scialfa

Jake Clemons

All photos are © Per Ole Hagen and must not be used without written permission.