BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN PLAYED the first of his Dublin gigs last night – with a little help from a six-year-old audience member.

Springsteen played for more than three hours at a packed-out RDS. He kicked off his set by finishing Twist And Shout – the song that was controversially cut off as he played with Paul McCartney in London at the weekend.

“Before we were so rudely interrupted,” the singer reportedly said as he brought a generator on stage with guitarist Steve Van Zandt.

And midway through the set, Springsteen picked a young girl out of the audience to give him a little help with the lyrics of Waitin’ On A Sunny Day:



YouTube/7wobbly

Six-year-old Sophie Sutton, from Leopardstown in Dublin, was sitting on her father Paul’s shoulders when she was spotted by the Boss.

Paul told Newstalk Breakfast this morning that he was “proud and tired” after the night’s exertions. He also insisted that he’d had no idea his daughter would be picked.

Asked whether she was nervous as she sang in front of more than 30,000 fans, Sophie said: “No.”

Meanwhile, health and safety authorities in London have set the record straight over Saturday night’s plug-pulling – by saying there were no health and safety issues at stake.

Kevin Myers, deputy chief of the Health and Safety Executive, issued the following statement:

As a longstanding Bruce Springsteen fan and one of the crowd at Hard Rock Calling, I was doubly disappointed to hear Live Nation give ‘health and safety’ as the reason for cutting short Saturday’s gig. It’s ironic that this excuse has been used in relation to Bruce Springsteen, who certainly knows what real health and safety is all about – look at the words of Factory referring to the toll that factory work can take on the health of blue collar workers.

Here’s another video of Sophie Sutton’s appearance on stage:



YouTube/CycleDub