Springsteen plays Jersey

EVERYTHING’S JAKE IN JERSEY: “Hope and renewal. They’re where you find them,” writes the N.Y. Daily News’ David Hinckley in his review of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s show last nbight at the Izod Center, home of the New Jersey Nets. “This tour’s 17-piece band, with Seegerish moments in songs like ‘Death to My Hometown,’ has nudged the new show in enough of a different direction that it sidesteps the comparisons fans had feared to the ‘old’ band, that is, the one with Clarence. That didn’t stop the crowd from almost levitating every time Jake Clemons, Clarence’s nephew, took one of his uncle’s old solos—‘Thunder Road,’ ‘Prove It All Night,’ ‘Out on the Streets,’ name it. He was up to the task, though he could have been playing ‘99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall’ and the response would have been the same. By the time Bruce closed the show with ‘Tenth Avenue Freezeout,’ the one where the Big Man joined the band, the Izod Center was alive with ghosts.” Springsteen returns to Izod Wednesday night, followed by Madison Square Garden on Friday and Monday. (4/4a)