When the London Calling DVD was announced a couple of months ago, it was met with a collective sigh from many fans. It wasn’t the release we wanted. We wanted the Darkness box. It wasn’t the show we wanted. We wanted one of the Italian shows or one of the Madison Square Garden shows. By many accounts, the Hyde Park show had stood in the shadow of the exertion of Glastonbury the previous night. Bruce was tired, his voice was shot, he was going through the motions.

While the first two statements may bear some merit – Bruce does seem to struggle with his voice during particularly the few slow songs - I have personally yet to see a Bruce show where he is going through the motions, and the Hyde Park show was definitely no exception. He is present in the moment and working as hard as he can to reach even the back row of the humongous crowd. And if Bruce is tired, it only adds to the goofiness with him demanding an elevator instead of the unusually high stairs leading back to the stage from the pit.

Speaking of the stage, if one must criticize the choice of show for an official release, you could point at the fact that the stage being used wasn’t Bruce’s own, but one that was supplied by the Hard Rock Festival. If the last two tours have been characterized by something – apart from sign requests – it would be the extremely close interaction with the crowd. It seemed like Bruce would spend half the show in physical contact with the audience, leaning on their stretched-out hands, high-fiving, letting them play his guitar. Heck, during the late part of the tour he would actually be crowd-surfing. Most of this was made possible by Bruce’s normal stage design that had a ramp leading straight from the center of the stage into the pit. And while we certainly do get some crowd interaction during the Hyde Park show, there is nowhere near as much of it as during just about any other show of the tour. And that’s a shame, because one of the things that truly sets Bruce apart from just about any other performer of his status is how much he allows the crowd to be part of the show. Even insists on it. That part is not documented as well as it could have been if a different show had been chosen.

Even with lack of crowd interaction, the crowd still plays an important part on this DVD by its mere size. When the camera pans over the ocean of people gathered in the park, your jaw drops several inches, and you start to understand why releasing a daylight show wasn’t the worst idea Bruce’s team ever had. The crowd may not be as super energetic as on Live in Barcelona, but you don’t really miss that.

Perhaps the most uplifting thing about this release is the sound. Connect your DVD player to your stereo and turn up the volume and you’ll know what I mean. This continues the positive trend of the last few live releases, starting with the Hammersmith show and continuing with Live in Dublin. The sound is simply stunning. Powerful, yet crystal clear. Maintaining the live feel while at the same time revealing details you never heard when you were there. Bob Clearmountain deserves a lot of credit for that.

Comparing with, for instance, Live in New York City, Live in Hyde Park also wins when it comes to the editing. Live in Hyde Park is a much more pleasant watch. The balance between closeups, stage shots and panning over the audience seems better. We don’t get too many of those really, really close closeups that Live in New York City was a victim of. At the same time, the DVD has time to give each band member a fair amount of exposure. Even Garry Tallent often fills up the whole screen, and you actually pay more attention to him, and most of the other band members, on this DVD than you ever would being there in person, when your eyes are fixed on Bruce 99% of the time.

No doubt this focus on the band is very deliberate. In return, one can wonder if it was also deliberate to show Patti Scialfa standing in the wings of the stage looking at the show instead of taking part in it. It sure baffled this viewer. It’s one thing that she can’t perform when she’s home taking care of the kids, but why would she not be on stage when she was actually in London? This is not to start any unfounded rumors of Bruce and Patti´s relationship (Patti looks like she’s enjoying watching her husband quite a bit), but it’s just another example of what can make a DVD more than just a bad souvenir of a live show. You pick up tons of details that you otherwise never would, and it will probably require several more viewings to get it all.

Watching Live in Hyde Park in one sitting and with the sound turned up may not be quite like being at the show in person, but it’s really not a bad substitute. As the sun slowly sets on the gigantic crowd and Bruce cranks up the intensity another nudge, you start to get the same feeling you do at a real-life show. It seems like the show just blew by in five minutes, but at the same time it’s like anything that happened before the show belongs in another lifetime. The power of Bruce and the E Street Band still manages to fill your soul, even through your TV screen. And despite its flaws – such as whether they should have chosen this show to begin with – that’s actually the highest praise a concert DVD can get.

So forget about your reservations. True or not, they are just not important in the big picture. The big picture being that this is as fine a representation of a post-reunion Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band show as your TV screen is likely to offer. That is not a bad thing.