music friday: here comes the river

Sunday, Bruce Springsteen’s “River” tour comes to Oakland. At this show, he will play the entire album The River. In 1980, we took our only extended Bruce vacation, seeing him in three cities in two states, five shows in seven nights. He was touring behind The River, of course, so we saw him perform those songs night after night. For some reason, he never played “Fade Away”, so we’ll have one “new” song on this tour. Along with anything else he tosses in.

This will be my 36th Bruce show, dating back to 1975. Robin missed a couple of those. Bruce’s first tour since this blog began was The Rising Tour in 2002, and I took that time to write about my experiences with him over the years. Here is what I wrote about The River album:

The River

We all grow up eventually, even Steven Rubio and Bruce Springsteen, but it always struck me as odd that someone with as much adolescent energy as Bruce Springsteen also always seemed older than his years. If he was 30 when he made The River, he sounded lots older on songs like "Point Blank" and lots younger on songs like "Sherry."