On this date in 1995, we saw the first of two Bruce Springsteen shows on his Ghost of Tom Joad tour. It was only the fourth show of the tour. He opened with this song on both nights, seen here on The Tonight Show:
Rage Against the Machine recorded a powerful cover of the song in 1997. Many years later, Rage guitarist Tom Morello joined the E Street Band for several live performances when Steven Van Zandt was unavailable, resulting in what you might say is Bruce covering one of his own songs. Morello made quite an impact, and this is the version I go to now. It turned up on recordings in 2008, they played it at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009, Morello rejoined the band in 2013 where the song featured again, and finally, it turned up on Bruce's 2014 album High Hopes. Here is one of the live performances:
A present for Bruce fans, but probably of little interest to others. The angle here is that we see Bruce and the Band behind the scenes as they prepare for a new tour. Each band member gets a chance to say a few words, and there is nothing so interesting it makes you pause. The musical numbers are not presented in full, which I always hate, but since I kept crying my eyes out at my favorites, I guess Zimny included enough of them.
Percussionist Anthony Almonte tells about finding Bruce in the gym the morning after a long concert, and marvels at his leader. Each day, Bruce would tell him, "You haven't seen anything yet. Wait till we get to Barcelona." It's a recognized truth that in later years, Bruce is more popular in Europe than in the States, and Barcelona stands tall in that legend. In 2002, he recorded an entire concert in Barcelona and released it on video the next year. It was, and remains, a revelation. Springsteen is a legendary live performer, but until that time, some of us were disappointed in the official output. The gigantic box set Live 1975-85 was treasured, but it was a composite of various shows over the years. In 1993, he and "The Other Band" put out an album of their appearance on MTV Unplugged, but the song order was butchered and it mattered. Live in NYC has plenty of memorable moments, but once again, a single concert was presented out of order. It wasn't until Live in Barcelona that we got what we had wanted and needed all along: a full concert. And it had that Barcelona crowd.
I post this video a lot in various places, and I always say to watch the faces of the people if you want to know what it's like for us to see Bruce. It occurs to me now that this video, more than anything else in the 20+ years of this blog, is a personal expression of who I am.
We first saw Bruce on October 31, 1975. This video is from 19 days later. It's the first song of his concerts on that tour, and it's still how I remember that first sight of him on stage. This is where it began.
The Swingin' Medallions, "Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love)". I'm not sure the Swingin' Medallions ever expected to be big stars, and I like to imagine they enjoyed their moment in the sun. Many (most? all?) of the original band members have passed on now, but the band retained a popularity in the South for a long time, and if YouTube is proper evidence, they never tired of playing their classic for fans. I love this trivia about the song. It was originally released in 1963, three years before the Medallions' version, by Dick Holler and the Holidays. Holler went on to write "Abraham, Martin, and John", a memorable record by Dion. "Double Shot" was an example of a subgenre called "Frat Rock" (think "Louie Louie" by The Kingsmen).
One big fan of the song was Bruce Springsteen, who mentioned it at least once when introducing his own frat-rock composition, "Sherry Darling". Bruce being devoted to his influences, and always ready to share the stage, it was inevitable that the following happened in 2009:
Bonus: Bruce Springsteen, "Sherry Darling". I love late-70s Bruce more than anything in the world.
PJ Harvey, "Down by the Water". It's not that I missed the boat on Harvey, it's just that I never appreciated her as much as she deserves. I have been known to play "Rid of Me" videos over and over again, though.
Bruce Springsteen, "Across the Border". We saw Bruce twice on his Tom Joad tour, although I admit I've preferred the live E Street Band versions of many of those songs. This is my favorite song off the album. Bruce's idea of God is different from mine, but I love the ending of this song so much, I wouldn't mind if they played it at my funeral:
For what are we Without hope in our hearts That someday we'll drink from God's blessed waters And eat the fruit from the vine I know love and fortune will be mine Somewhere across the border
TLC, "Waterfalls". The single came out in 1995, the album '94. Yes, Bette Midler recorded a cover of this one.
Bonus: Coolio, "Gangsta's Paradise". Coolio takes a piece from Stevie Wonder; the song ends up on the soundtrack to a Michelle Pfeiffer movie. Yes, Weird Al Yankovic did a parody, "Amish Paradise".
It had been so long since we'd seen Bruce that he was only 66 years old at the time. We didn't miss any tours ... this was his first tour since we saw him in '16. But there was COVID, and then he did his Broadway show, which played off and on between 2017 and 2021. He stayed busy. There were three studio albums, one of which, Western Stars, later was released in theaters as a full performance of the album. He released an album of soul covers. The Broadway shows were released as an album, as were his performances at the No Nukes concerts in 1979. He also continued his release of live concerts from the archives, almost 100 of them since that last show we saw in 2016. These are properly mastered, and basically replace all those decades where we collected bootlegs. Four of those were of shows we attended. So yeah, the old geezer kept busy.
It's impossible to attend a Bruce Springsteen show in 2024 without bringing your past along. I couldn't help but compare what I was seeing to what I had seen in the past. Sure, nothing is likely to match the shows from 1978, but he's put on so many great shows since ... the 1999 E Street Reunion return was tremendous, and I was especially taken by a couple of 2008 shows from the Magic Tour. But now it's 2024 ... the E Streeters who have died were replaced more than a decade ago, what you see now is what you get. The musicianship remains top notch, and Bruce's voice is still powerful. If you'd never seen him before, you might not have noticed how little he moved around, but really, he didn't look all that different from other acts, it's just that when we were all young, Bruce would run around and climb on stuff and go into the crowd, and that's in the past. The band had fun with it ... during "Rosalita", always one of the most physically active songs in the show, Bruce and buddies danced in little circles. It was charming.
In the old days, it was always fun to see what new songs Bruce would perform, and that's not as true now, but then, he's got 50+ years of tunes to get through. He played a song each from the two albums he released in 1973, he played four songs from 2020's Letter to You, he played a song from the 2022 album of soul covers. With someone whose back catalog is so huge, there are always going to be songs people in the audience missed (I'm still waiting to hear "Back in Your Arms" for the first time). But, as I said at one point to my wife, he has a lot of songs, and while his peak was, what 1975-1988?, his output since then has not been insubstantial.
On to the setlist junkie info ... he opened with "Something in the Night" from 1978 ... it was the tour debut for this one. Another tour debut was "Atlantic City", which was inspired by a sign in the crowd. Finally, there was a tour debut for "Land of Hope and Dreams". They played five songs we'd never seen live (because they were recorded after 2016). He played seven songs that he had played at our first show in 1975. "Born to Run" is "our song" (us and every other Bruce fan ... some day girl, I don't know when, we're gonna get to that place where we really want to go and we'll walk in the sun ... has meant something different from when we were 22 to now when we're 70). "Rosalita" has always been my favorite Bruce song, and I'm glad to hear it, but it really was better in the olden days. "Backstreets" probably hits closest to home for me ... I choke up the second the piano starts up.
Here is a video ... a tip of the cap to some of these people who do such a great thing under tough conditions.
Over the course of 50 years, some songs rise to the top of your personal pantheon, others slip away only to return down the road. But of all the words Bruce Springsteen has written, these resonate the most for me to this day:
Remember all the movies, Terry, we’d go see Trying to learn how to walk like the heroes we thought we had to be And after all this time to find we’re just like all the rest Stranded in the park and forced to confess To hiding on the backstreets, hiding on the backstreets We swore forever friends on the backstreets until the end Hiding on the backstreets, hiding on the backstreets
I'm typing this on Thursday afternoon, but by the time it posts, I will have seen Bruce Springsteen for the 37th time, and the first time since 2016 (this 8-year break is by far the longest of our life since the first time we saw him in 1975). This is Music Friday 1985, and Bruce didn't release any albums that year ... he was still touring behind the previous year's Born in the USA. We saw him once on that tour ... here is the setlist from that show:
Born In The USA / Badlands / Out In The Street / Johnny 99 / Seeds / Atlantic City / The River / Working On The Highway / Trapped / I'm Going Down / Glory Days / Promised Land / My Hometown / Thunder Road / Cover Me / Dancing In The Dark / Hungry Heart / Cadillac Ranch / Downbound Train / Stolen Car / I'm On Fire / Pink Cadillac / Bobby Jean / This Land Is Your Land / Born To Run / Ramrod / Twist And Shout-Do You Love Me / Stand On It / Travelin' Band
Here is a low-fi video of "Stolen Car" from that show:
Now I'm driving a stolen car on a pitch-black night And I'm doing my best to make it through Well I'm just sitting down here at the Stanton light I wanna get caught but I never do
And here is a Creedence song recorded 9 days later, this time with no video but much better sound ... this closed the set for us in Oakland:
Pink Floyd, "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)". I have a vague memory of someone back in the day questioning the benefits of a pop song telling kids they didn't need no education.
Barbra Streisand, "Woman in Love". From her 22nd album ... she was prolific.
Lipps Inc., "Funkytown". I guess Lipps Inc. were one-hit wonders. The singer's name is Cynthia Johnson.
What was I doing in 1980? Well, in October, we saw Bruce Springsteen five times in seven nights in two states and three cities.
On this date, 45 years ago, we saw Bruce Springsteen at Winterland. It was the final month for that lovable craphole, and Bruce was one of the artists Bill Graham signed to send it off in style. December 15 was the first of two nights ... we went to both, our 2nd and 3rd time seeing him that year, our 4th and 5th overall. Many of us think of that 1978 tour as Bruce's greatest. Maybe that's nostalgia speaking. Anyway, here is "Prove It All Night" from December 15 ... that show was broadcast live on a local FM station, and so it was easily bootlegged:
If you prefer to have some actual footage and don't care about the anniversary, here is the official release of the same song from one week prior to the above:
On this date in 1986, the first Bridge School Benefit Concert was held. Put together by Neil and Pegi Young, the benefits were held annually through 2016. Young got a lot of big names to play at the concert, which was acoustic. (We were there, and also attended one other when Bruce was on the bill.)
Robin Williams was, well, Robin Williams:
Bruce Springsteen brought along Nils Lofgren and Danny Federici:
And Bruce and Nils helped Neil out: