This has proved nearly impossible to complete...

"There are football bores and family bores, but there's no bore like a Bruce bore." - Julie Burchill.

Over two nights, Bruce Springsteen and his ten-piece E Street Band, average age fifty-ish, clocked up six hours of live rock'n'roll. I've been trying to find ways of selling this monstrous, fabulous, unequalled musical experience to someone who doesn't know The Boss, and it's tricky. I find myself bigging up my own breadth of gigging experience, trying to prove my credentials to convince the cynic. And then I'm tangled in hyperbole, when raw facts can overwhelm without elaboration. For example: on the second night at Crystal Palace, nine songs were different, which is a third of the set, or nearly an hour's music changed from the previous night. The band played 53 songs in total, few shorter than five minutes. And so on...

The background music stops and 30 seconds later The E Street Band walk onstage, waving to the crowd, with barely a lighting change to announce their arrival. They pick up - or sit down at - instruments and start playing. Like nothing. Like sewing. But when the music hits you I swear it's notches above any previous benchmark. An enormous, three-pronged guitar sound is underpinned by thunderous rhythm, yet fenced in at the sides as well, by swirling organ on one side and chiming, expressive piano on the other. Two tracks from 'The Rising' open, before the first classic is dropped in. This sets a pattern: they mix'n'match old and new material but the new songs remain consistent on both nights, while the older tracks are varied. Spread thin like this, the new material stands up extremely well and a couple of my least favourite album tracks truly gained wings. Straight rocker 'Empty Sky' is stripped to acoustic guitar, harmonica and quiet mandolin. Springsteen and wife Patti Scialfa intro and outro with a hymnal two-part falsetto melody. 'The Fuse' - on record a high-res production job - becomes a stretched, tense juggernaut and there's a half-verse of a cappella where Springsteen makes a subtle sucking hiss with his mouth as the music dies - one breath and he's swallowed the world. Meanwhile 'Mary's Place' rolls around for 15 minutes, all vamping and giggling while he introduces the band before the last chorus.

These ten players are all virtuosi, from Steve Van Zandt's crazed blues to Max Weinberg's thunderous, economic drumming. Of course lots of groups - especially those darned yanks - can play blindingly well but here, the spiritual, born-to-do it instrumental ability is taken lightly and held in trust for the benefit of the 'whole'. They can go from ten players to a tiny percussive solo and back in the blink of an eye - with the world's coolest horn blower Clarence Clemons spending a song tapping tiny Chinese bells together. They stop on a knife edge from a vocal cue, then wrench themselves back into gear in a way that is honestly superhuman. And they are wired live in a way that few others match, so the Boss can change direction mid-song and take the whole gang with him - it is a masterclass in spontaneous music-making. Still learning too. Newest member, violinist Soozie Tyrell, has added a folksy edge to the happier numbers and the show even takes on an Arabic flavour a couple of times, presumably seeds grown from cross-cultural empathy anthem 'World's Apart' (a Muslim ensemble guests on the album version).

Classic moments. The pairing of 'Meeting Across The River' and 'Jungleland' on night one, same order as on 'Born To Run'. Bruce walking out alone to open night two with his slide-guitar reworking of 'Born In The USA'. The huge full band version of 'Atlantic City' on night two. The way Badlands raised the stakes (and the roof) 90 minutes in, both nights. The reinvention and rediscovery is ongoing. The Beatles lasted about 10 years together, as did the real Blur lineup. Most of The E Street Band will celebrate their 30th anniversary playing together in the next 2 years. They don't need aloof artistic cynicism or self-regard. Self-awareness can be confined (though this is the wrong word) to the genuine emotional journey within each song and the potency of the gang performing it. In other words, they are the best damn bar-room band that ever existed, writ large enough that fifty-thousand people become enthusiastic dancing-on-tables family and friends. This is clear at the climax of the second London night, as their own classics give way to the 'Detroit Medley', excerpts of 'Devil In A Blue Dress' and other standards followed by an astonishing trawl through obscure rock'n'roll classic 'Seven Nights To Rock'.

Unlike almost any other musical commodity you can purchase anywhere, Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band are a true community and while they're up there and I'm down here, I'm part of it.

The best two nights of music I've experienced. Transcends criticism.