For one night only at Old Trafford, The Boss wasn't a gum-chewing Scotsman pondering how to get the best out of Wayne Rooney.

Nevertheless, Bruce Springsteen was quick to confide his own emotional ties to Manchester United. Before the show his soccer-mad 18-year-old son had filled his dad in on the triumphant climax of United's season. What he perhaps failed to grasp was that an Old Trafford full of Springsteen fans didn't necessarily double up as one full of United fans. Hence the mixed reaction when the screens revealed one fan giving him a United shirt with “The Boss” written on the back.

Still, some way though a marathon show, it offered a reminder that Springsteen was fallible. That we needed reminding was beyond doubt. Far from playing down the effect he has on fans within his immediate proximity, Springsteen seems to derive immense amusement from putting himself among them and drinking up the love. He walked down from the stage to meet them with the bow-legged gait of an old farmer striding out to check on his cattle, and returned with a fistful of written requests. After a Lonesome Day high on audience participation, Springsteen apologised for the absence of his wife, Patti Scialfa - “at home making sure the kids don't burn the house down and sell my favourite clothes on eBay”.

Times Archive: Bruce Springsteen - live at Hammersmith Apollo, 1975

His records leave one unprepared for the strength of his stage performance, which compares to Dylan, Presley, Jagger

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Deliberately or otherwise, it all fed into the image of a consummate everyman. That shouldn't detract from the fact that, in his way, Springsteen is a sophisticated showman. With the “Let it rain” refrain from Mary's Place resounding into the persistent Mancunian spray, he ran across the stage, sank to his knees and continued to slide at a velocity that belied his 58 years. Aware that, right at the back, the big screens were people's best chance of getting any sense of his actions, Livin' in the Future was one of several songs that saw him striding from camera to camera, effectively eyeballing 50,000 fans as he sang.

Like almost everything else on last year's Magic album, a compendium of big-hearted rock'n'roll tunes, it already sounded like an old favourite. This, you suspect, is why Springsteen keeps returning to the E Street Band - in particular the dissonant harmonising of Steve Van Zandt and the affirmative honking of the veteran saxophonist Clarence Clemons (though, sadly, not Danny Federico, the keyboard player who finally succumbed to cancer last month). Present amid this synergy of imperfections were all the things that captured the collective imagination when these musicians first came to Britain 33 years ago.

Far from dissipating with the decades, the old hunger was tempered with an increasing, inevitable knowledge that this really doesn't last for ever. By the time the nine musicians on stage encored with a version of Born to Run, that more than mitigated for not knowing that Manchester was home to another football team.

On tour. At the Emirates Stadium, London, tonight and tomorrow (www.ticketzone.co.uk)

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