The Boss ends a day that had seen sets from Noel Gallagher, The Vaccines and Spector

e Springsteen closed the Isle Of Wight Festival last night (June 24) with a three-hour set ending in a cover of ‘Twist And Shout’, the song made famous by The Beatles.
 Opening with ‘Badlands’, the 62-year-old rocker joked with the crowd about the coverage of the weekend’s weather. “It looked bad on TV,” he told the crowd. “I didn’t bring my wellies, I think I left them at Glastonbury.”
Springsteen was in playful mood, taking a straw hat from a woman in the crowd and trying it on, noting “looks good”. Several times he descended from the stage in order to touch the hands of the crowd in the front rows, while during ‘Dancing In The Dark’ he pulled a girl from the crowd in homage to its classic Courtney Cox-starring video, while also trying on her white cat hat for size.
The set featured several songs from his angry, politically-minded new album ‘Wrecking Ball’ alongside classic hits. “There are hard times at home in the US and there are hard times here too,” he noted before ‘Jack Of All Trades’.
Ending with a final run of classics including ‘Born In The USA’, ‘Born To Run’ and ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out’, Springsteen then said “I’m gonna leave you with a folk song,” before play the Phil Medley and Bert Russell-penned rock’n'roll standard, as also covered by The Who on their ‘Live At The Isle Of Wight Festival 1970′ album.
“I thought that was a great ending to a great set,” said Clare Deakin from Nottingham. “There’s not many people that could play for so long and not be boring, but he’s got the songs, hasn’t he?”
“The highlight for me was when probably when he played ‘Out In The Street’” said Dave Couzens, 42, from Bridgend. “But there were so many. I could have listened to six hours, probably. The songs from the new album sounded great too, I thought.”
“He’s just got so much energy, hasn’t he?” said Helen Mackinnon, 32, from London. “And he still looks so good. Yes, I was jealous of the girl with the hat! My favourite is Atlantic City, I was made up that he played it.”
Bruce Springsteen played:
‘Badlands’ ‘No Surrender’ ‘We Take Care Of Our Own’ ‘Wrecking Ball’ ‘Death To My Hometown’ ‘My City Of Ruins’ ‘Spirit In The Night’ ‘Lonesome Day’ ‘Jack Of All Trades’ ‘Atlantic City’ ‘Because The Night’ ‘Working On The Highway’ ‘Shackled And Drawn’ ‘Waiting On A Sunny Day’ ‘The River’ ‘The Rising’ ‘Out In The Street’ ‘Land Of Hope And Dreams’ ‘We Are Alive’ ‘Born In The USA’ ‘Born To Run’ ‘Glory Days’ ‘Dancing In The Dark’ ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out’ ‘Twist And Shout’
Earlier in the day, Zulu Winter played an early afternoon set in the Big Top Stage featuring shimmering, bright electro-pop tracks from their recently released album ‘Language’ including ‘We Should Be Swimming’, ‘Bitter Moon’ and ‘Let’s Move Back To Front’.
Next up on the same stage were Spector, whose frontman Fred Macpherson greeted the crowd “Hello, Isle Of Man!” before kicking off with ‘Celestine’. Tracks from the band’s forthcoming debut ‘Enjoy It While It Lasts’ such as ‘Friday Night’ and ‘What You Wanted’ inspired clap-a-longs, while Fred attempted to get the confirmed Spector fans in the crowd to convert the still-unsure before closing with ‘Never Fade Away’.
The Vaccines opened with upcoming single ‘No Hope’, following up with ‘Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra)’. “We are The Vaccines thank you for flying with us this afternoon,” said a long-haired Justin Young, recent one-off single ‘Tiger Blood’. They played two other new song, the scrappy, upbeat ‘Teenage Icon’ and the heavy, punky ‘Ghost Town’, Justin joking of the latter “I don’t even know how it goes. You can’t sing along but you can always dance.”
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds warmed up for The Boss on the event’s Main Stag, opening with Oasis track ‘(It’s Good) To Be Free’ and solo track ‘Everybody’s On The Run’. “Are you having a good timet?” he asked the crowd. “Fuck off, that’s not what it says on the news.” Noel also played ‘(I Wanna Live In A Dream In My) Record Machine’, ‘Talk Tonight’ and ‘Half The World Away’. Closing with ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’, he dedicated it to any Italians in the crowd in honour of the England match just starting.