Bruce Springsteen turns back the clock—and stops it

Just a “One, two, three, four” and he was off, barely pausing for breath and gathering energy over the three electric hours of his show. On stage in Hyde Park in London on July 6th, Bruce Springsteen tossed guitars to roadies, traded licks with members of his E Street Band, ripped open his shirt and bestowed plectrums and selfies on ecstatic fans. Or he stood still, his Fender dangling at his back, a pose that is a sort of benign American cousin to a gunslinger’s silhouette.

Mr Springsteen is 73. Yet halfway through a ten-month tour of Europe and North America, he is still performing as if his life depended on it—just as it did when, as a teenage frontman in the late 1960s, he eked out a living in the bars of the New Jersey shore. The fight against time, and its remorselessness, are among the main themes of his songs. The ability of music to twist and resist time may be their deepest meaning.