'High Hopes' Play it again, Boss

Last Sunday Bruce Springsteen walked to the front of the stage and sat on a speaker to give a handful of journalists an intimate interview.

He was not the ramped up, angry rebel I knew from watching him in the Born in USA music video, belting out a protest against the treatment of Vietnam war veterans. At the age of 64, Springsteen's lost none of his sex appeal or the ability to use it to knee-weakening effect, but he wasn't the Elvis-channelling, hip-thrusting pop star of the 1980s in his Dancing in the Dark video.

A few hours before going on stage in Cape Town for the first show in his High Hopes tour, Springsteen was the self-assured professional I knew he would be, but hoped he wouldn't be. My fantasy self had dreamed of locking eyes with him in a moment that would sustain my Bruce-lovin' heart for ever.

In a tight black T-shirt, showing off his meaty biceps and six pack, Springsteen, with a characteristic grin crinkling his eyes, spoke about how the music industry has changed.

''Our rise to fame was controlled. Now once you're anywhere, you're everywhere. So we've embraced this as a way of spreading the gospel of our band. But the live music world has remained somewhat the same. It's still based on the willingness to come out and sweat and lead your band - the nature of it remains old school.

"All the skills I learned in the '50s, '60s and '70s remain relevant if you want to have a long life on the stage."

It is the live show that makes all the difference, not only to Springsteen's music, but also to his aura. The minute he stepped out to welcome fans filling the Bellville Velodrome, I found what I had been looking for earlier when I spoke to him in person. He lives for his fans - you can see it in his face. He performed with heart-pounding energy, putting everything he has into his gravelly vocals, half fainting from exhaustion by the end of a demanding song. He sang lonely ballads - like a one-man version of Thunder Road - as if he was singing to me alone, with only chords on his harmonica in a shallow puddle of stage light.

''We've lasted in part because we've played and played," he said.

''We put on a certain kind of show that keeps people engaged with who we are, what we're obsessed with and what we're concerned about. It keeps us very close with our fans, and this is the part I enjoy immensely."

It's in the show that Springsteen looks into the eyes of girls in the front row and gives them their Bruce-lovin' moment. He steps right into the crowd and takes their hands to give the lucky few a smile. Early in the show he stood on a small platform in the middle of the crowd, and leaned back into disembodied hands. He accepted a proffered beer and downed it before crowd surfing back to the stage.

''It's only scary the first time," he laughed.

Springsteen mentioned Sharpeville and Marikana during the show, and said he was happy to be in the land of Nelson Mandela. He called South Africa a miracle: ''I would never have expected it after my visit to Harare (the 1988 Human Rights Now Concert)."

But his appeal really isn't the politics - or his emotive tributes to Mandela and Clarence Clemons (his recently deceased saxophonist, whom he remembers during the show). It's his non-stop, sweat-drenched performance, getting down and dirty with us, exuding sex appeal and making his fans' dreams come true.

• Springsteen is playing at the FNB Stadium tomorrow. Tickets are available from Computicket