This week started badly with news of the death of Clarence Clemons, long-time saxophone player in
Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. He was 69.

Clarence was, in many ways, the yin to Springsteen's yang, the big black man who played with the little white boy. Their musical partnership spanned nearly 40 years.
He was never the most technical of sax players, but he understood the dynamics of a solo, where to lay back, when to explode and – like all great soloists – he knew how to create something memorable. The solos on ‘Born To Run' or ‘Jungleland' didn't change much over the years: they were perfect as originally conceived. He played unforgettable breaks on Aretha Franklin's ‘Freeway of Love' and songs for others.

There's also a Kiwi connection. Clarence recorded the Springsteen song ‘Saving Up' for one of his rare solo albums, a version later covered by, and a big hit for, Sonny Day.

I listened to Springsteen a lot in the early days. I discovered him around the time of Born To Run and loved the ballsy literate nature of his songs and the colourful muscular band. Born In The USA started me moving away from him and the string of later ‘80s and ‘90s albums left me cold. Everything seemed overproduced and overblown. I started listening to more acoustic and world music (Africa, Ireland, Iceland, it all seemed exotic at the time) and Springsteen's stuff seemed a relic of corporate rock.

Where Springsteen's ‘Badlands' had once been a vision of America, now all I heard was bombast; Tom Wait's darker more twisted imagination pointed to weirder and more interesting back-roads.

I hated The Rising album, his reflection on the 9/11 attacks. Too big, too pompous. The sound put me off so much I didn't really even hear the songs. And what with George Bush and all I was a bit off America in general.

When Springsteen toured here five years ago I didn't buy a ticket. Had no interest. Years ago I would have crawled across cut glass to see him, but not now. Then my brother gave me a ticket and I spent the whole drive to Auckland listening to The Rising and trying to like it.
No, still hated it.

It was raining intermittently at Western Springs and I bitched about Springsteen for an hour while we waited and got slowly soaked. Eventually my brother told me to shut up, though not in those words and not as politely.
Then Springsteen came on and I was converted.

He opened with a bleak take on ‘Born In The USA', played solo on an acoustic slide guitar. Here was the song in all its depressed glory, a revelation. Then the band joined and they went into a joyously loose ‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain' – not a regular part of the show – just especially for us rain-drenched punters. And so it went. The band was magnificent but, most of all, it was the vibe.
Springsteen has a way on stage that is unique. He just seems to be having so much damn fun. He did his usual guitar run across the front of the stage finishing with a leap onto his knees. The front of the stage was wet. He fell flat on his ass. So he got up, laughed, waved happily at the crowd and did it again. And fell on his ass again. Still laughing he had a third crack and this time nailed it: the perfect rock ‘n' roll move, but done with humour and self-awareness. It felt real and didn't seem in any way cheesy. The audience went wild.

The whole show was like that: fresh, joyful, moving, fun and simultaneously fantastic heavy duty rock ‘n' roll. And that was why Clarence was perfect for Bruce. He was big – six foot five – and scary-looking. But in that huge muscular black frame was a teddy bear, a gentle giant who couldn't help grinning with pleasure and who just wanted to play and to love and to be loved. He was the essence of the whole show because his personality was that of the show – big and intimidating from the outside but warm, friendly and inclusive inside.

No one will replace Clarence Clemons. They broke the mould when they made the Big Man.