NEW Jersey's finest son has always been a back to basics kinda guy, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that Bruce Springsteen would eventually give the big, blustery stadium job a rest and sally forth with just an acoustic guitar and a handful of home spun ballads.

However, part of the audience at last night's intimate gig at The Point didn't seem to appreciate The Boss taking a busman's holiday, and some begrudging boos could be heard beneath the cheering and the clapping.

Springsteen has become too big to ever really reconnect with his core audience, but he made a brave attempt last night, ignoring the temptation to flex his rock n roll muscle and going for some gentle persuasion instead.

The songs from his recent album, The Ghost Of Tom Joad, formed the heartland of Springsteen's performance, and their tales of immigrants, vagrants and petty criminals rang, through the venue with rootsy honesty.

Straight Time, Highway 29 and Dry Lightning evoked the spirit of Woody Guthrie as the stumbled across the dusty lands, and songs like Sinaloa Cowboys and Balboa Park walked a perilous line between folklore and social commentary.

Youngstown made the transition successfully, emerging as both poem and polemic.

Sometimes, however, there was a thunderous rumble in the distance, as Springsteen strummed home the harsh truths of Darkness On The Edge Of Town, Born In The USA and Promised Land, reworking some of his better known anthems with sweeping slide chords and wounded, wailing vocals.

In between the songs came the home spun stories, but it was hard to guess if Bruce was talking about his own life or simply taking on the role of a character in one of his songs. He spoke about the joys of fatherhood and the problems of relationships, then eulogised about John Ford's film of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, laughing nervously like a regular guy trying to say his piece.

In the end, this concert didn't bring us much closer to Springsteen the man, but at least we managed to cross the border.