Enjoy the show, goombah. Let us know how it was.

Yeah, my dad picked up the new Magic CD for me when it came out. I like it too. I wish I could go to one of his shows on this tour, but it sold out at Pittsburgh reeeeeeeeeaally quickly.

Will do, Klydon.

I don't know if you guys have the Tracks boxset, but Bruce has been playing "Thundercrack" during the encores in most cities this tour.

I drove to see Springsteen in Pittsburgh at the Mellon Arena in 2000. I think I saw three concerts that tour. It was a decent venue, but traffic getting out of downtown Pittsburgh was awful.

Surprisingly, this Sunday's Cleveland show has not sold out. This was a huge Bruce market going back to the beginning of Bruce's career. WMMS (particularly disc jockey Kid Leo) were huge supporters, even doing a live radio broadcast of a legendary show at the Cleveland Agora.

Say hi to Sil for us HA!HA!. I listen to WMMS down here. I've always liked that station.

I was totally at that concert. Haha. And traffic is always bad in Pittsburgh, its ridiculous.

How was the show Goombah?

A great show in Cleveland to cap off a great Sunday. It did sell out by show time. I went with some longtime buddies who now live out of town, so it was great to relive some of our youth. We watched the Browns game downtown and capped it off with the Bruce show. Bernie Kosar was in attendance as he & Steve Van Zandt are friends.

The setlist was very diverse: a mixture of new songs, classics (Promised Land, She's the One, Badlands, Born to Run, Dancing in the Dark), and some gems that were dusted off and sounded great (It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City, Kitty's Back, Be True, Reason to Believe).

Clarence looked like he has lost significant weight. My buddy joked that he thought CC was doing the South Beach Diet. Steve looked and played great as well, with a couple of great solos.


Backstreets review:
A knockout performance for Cleveland, with a setlist to match. Every E Street album was represented in the show tonight with the exception of The River -- and if you count River-era B-side "Be True," which had its tour premiere, it was a sweep. Representing Greetings was another tour debut, "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City." Paired with "She's the One," it was just massive. "Tunnel" represented Tunnel, and from The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle in the encore, it was another stunning "Kitty's Back." All that, and they still had room for "woman power," as Bruce put it, with Patti spotlighted on "Town Called Heartbreak" as she returned to the fold after her absence in St. Paul. Oh, and speaking of woman power, Bruce referenced the Lynn Goldsmith photography exhibit down the road at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: "I hope they don't have pictures of me with my pants down!" In the crowd: The Raspberries' Eric Carmen, and retired longtime Plain Dealer rock critic (and huge Springsteen fan) Jane Scott.

Setlist:
Radio Nowhere
Night
Lonesome Day
Gypsy Biker
Magic
Reason to Believe
It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City
She's the One
Livin' in the Future
The Promised Land
Town Called Heartbreak
Tunnel of Love
Be True
Devil's Arcade
The Rising
Last to Die
Long Walk Home
Badlands
* * *
Girls in Their Summer Clothes
Kitty's Back
Born to Run
Dancing in the Dark
American Land

Some sad news from [url=http://www.brucespringsteen.net/news/index.html]Bruce's official website[/url:

DANNY FEDERICI TO TAKE LEAVE OF ABSENCE

Danny Federici, an original member of the E Street Band, is taking a leave of absence from the current Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band tour to pursue treatment for melanoma. Charles Giordano, who played with Bruce as a member of the Sessions Band, will temporarily fill in for Danny until he is able to return. Federici has been playing keyboards with Springsteen since the late Sixties. Said Springsteen, "Danny is one of the pillars of our sound and has played beside me as a great friend for more than 40 years. We all eagerly await his healthy and speedy return."

Federici has been actively supporting the Melanoma Research Foundation and its Wings of Hope Gala, honoring Dr. Paul Chapman.

The Boss' current tour has been one of major variety. The current leg has seen Bruce & the band shake up quite a bit of the setlist, including a revolving rotation of opening numbers, dusted off obscure songs, and other surprises.

Recent opening songs of the past 2 1/2 months worth of concerts:
So Young & In Love
Night
Trapped
Thunder Road
No Surrender
The Ties That Bind
Darlington County
Atlantic City
Spirit in the Night
Out in the Street
Light of Day

Rarely played gems that have been peformed this leg of the tour:
Loose Ends
Janey Don't You Lose Heart
Kitty's Back
Because the Night
Jungleland
Meeting Across the River
Jackson Cage
Rosalita
Racing in the Street
Be True
Working on the Highway
Detroit Medley
Incident on 57th Street
It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City
Cadillac Ranch
Growin' Up
Rendezvous
Lost in the Flood
Glory Days
Something in the Night
Candy's Room
For You
Fire

Why do I mention all of the above? Because of most major artists, nobody mixes up their concerts like the E Street Band. If you go to see the Eagles, Stones, Who, etc., the setlist is pretty standard with very little change whatsoever. I think it's what sets artists like Bruce, the Grateful Dead, Pearl Jam apart by constantly trying to improve their craft.

I plan on scalping tickets with some friends to see Bruce in Giants Stadium in late July.

I have seen Springsteen 3 times in my life and I must say that he puts on the best shows! He is more electric then any other band I have ever seen.

ds

Elvis, Dylan, Springsteen = The Holy Trinity of American Rock!

ds

That's an amazing trio, DS. I saw Dylan & Springsteen perform a few songs together in the 1995 Cleveland Rock Hall Opening concert. They were amazing. Did you ever hear the story how Bruce (around 1975-76) scaled the wall at Graceland in hopes of meeting the King? True story - Bruce tried to get past security by truthfully telling them how he was on the cover of Time & Newsweek simultaneously in 1975.

I've seen Bruce live about 10 times: with the E Street Band, solo acoustic, and with his 1992 band. Obviously the E Streeters are the best, but he was electrifying in each show that I have been to.

Bruce was just here in Anaheim. Probably as close to my town as you'd get and I missed it. And I hear the Pond in Anaheim is so nice.


TIS

Here is the opening song, Light of Day, from one of the Anaheim concerts TIS referred to.

From the same show, The Ghost of Tom Joad, with Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello.

I never heard that story before. Its great! I only saw bruce 3 times all with the e Street band. I really wish I could have seen him on tour for the Tom Joad shows though. I think the ghost of Tom Joad album is one of his best. Every song on it tells a great story.

ds

I want to bump this thread because very recently I've become infatuated with Bruce's music. I finally really got into Born to Run as a complete album and not just the title track, and of course Born in the USA is just so accessible that I've gotten into his work much more lately. Darkness, The River and The Wild, the Innocent... are incredible pieces of music. I don't know what it was, but his music just speaks volumes to me now, it's amazing. I'm loving him right now even more than Dylan.

UGH! My roommate in college blasted that blasted album every focking morning in the bathroom waking me up!! Made me hate Bruce for years!!!! Still haven't heard the entire album since. But go figure -- he's been on the road with Bruce for YEARS and I'm here.

Haha! That's Tom Morello! I'm not much of a Springsteen fan, but I'd go see him if it meant Tom Morello would be playing with the band.

You've hit on the big albums, but there is still some great music on Tunnel of Love, The Rising, and most definitely Nebraska. Would love to hear more of your comments about what songs you are digging. For the real enthusiasts, Tracks is the holy grail of Springsteen releases as it has 66 previously unreleased songs that didn't make it onto the records, including many concert staples, cult faves, and B-sides.

How did I forget Nebraska? It's such a departure as far as just being Bruce, a guitar and a harp as opposed to the bombastic E Street Band but it still works as a showcase for his songwriting talent. It's so dark and depressed, but it's not a shock considering you kinda heard him heading there on Darkness and def. some parts of The River.

As far as individual songs go, it really depends. I'm a sucker for the epics, especially "Backstreets." I really became attached to that song just through listening to it as I was walking around one night, the desperation and bitterness in the song are just so momentous; one particular section NEVER fails to reach deep into me and just rip everything out...

Endless juke joints and Valentino drag where dancers scraped the tears
Up off the street dressed down in rags running into the darkness
Some hurt bad some really dying at night sometimes it seemed
You could hear the whole damn city crying blame it on the lies that killed us
Blame it on the truth that ran us down you can blame it all on me Terry
It don't matter to me now when the breakdown hit at midnight
There was nothing left to say but I hated him and I hated you when you went away...

I mean, my favorite type of music is the kind that can touch a nerve or reach a certain part of your soul; the kind of music that gives you a kind of roller coaster feeling in your gut, and Bruce does that time and time again.

The versatility of the E Street Band never hurts either. They can give you something super funky like "Freeze-Out" or "The E Street Shuffle", they can absolutely burn the house down like a freight train with stuff like "Badlands" (Max is king) or "Prove It All Night" (live, from the minute amount of boots I've heard, is unbelievable) or they can kinda stay a bit reserved but still make things incredibly charged up ("I'm on Fire"). I've just kinda been loving it all really, even the minor album songs sometimes stand out because Bruce manages to have themes that can relate to us (what "Bobby Jean" kind of is to me); I just feel terrible that I really wasn't this into him before he came to Fort Lauderdale on the Magic (which I still need to check out) tour.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ilODa8KAJdM

I mean, just watch this and tell me you don't get goosebumps when the intro to "Backstreets" begins.

Don Andrew

I highly recommend you see Bruce sometime before the tour ends in late summer, if possible. Seeing the E Street Band live is like no other concert experience. There have been some tremendous moments when we sat stunned at what he played: "Pink Cadillac" for the first time in over 20 years in 2003; "Be True" in 2007, a one-two punch of "Trapped" right into "Darlington County (which had a few bars of "Honkey Tonk Women thrown in for good measure) in '99; an acoustic "Dancing in the Dark" in 1992.

I've seen these epics in person: "Backstreets," "Kitty's Back," "Rosalita," "Jungleland."

If you want some great souvenir shows, this guy's site rocks. I've bought several shows and have never been disappointed. One reason I mention it is there is an awesome boot called "Nebraska Live," which has some very terrific live versions of the album, plus a few others, all taken from the Ramrod 1985 BITUSA tour.
http://www.springsteenliveinconcert.com/

This is one of the great, underrated songs that Bruce does and it is killer EVERY time he plays it live:
Ramrod live 1985

And this is a great cover called Seven Nights to Rock, which was played a lot on the The Rising Tour.

Yeah, I'm working on Jacksonville the 15th as it's pretty much the last shot I have this tour.

The new record "Working on a Dream," the third this decade with the E Street Band, will be released Tuesday, Jan. 27th. NPR.org has the album on its site this weekend. Check it out - some of Bruce's strongest material in 20 years.

At least four instant Springsteen classics:

My Lucky Day - a catchy, upbeat rocker that could have easily been on "The River" but sounding very much 2009

Working on a Dream - excellent title track; I love the whistle solo

Good Eye - a distorted vocal that rocks; I could easily see this song played on "The Sopranos"

The Wrestler - the song from the Mickey Rourke of the same name. As bleak as anything on "Nebraska."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99173117

Looking forward to purchasing this. Bruce continues to be prolific in his output!

My Springsteen Greatest Hits CD is in my car, which my mom has borrowed for awhile.

Listening to Good Eye now

Springsteen on VH1

Let me tell you a quick a story about the song "Backstreets." When I was 13 in 1984, Bruce was at the zenith of his popularity. To put into persepctive, he was selling 17 million copies of Born in the USA and on a sold-out 18 month tour. He sang on "We Are the World," had a song from that album called "Trapped" that received heavy airplay, and even his B-sides like "Janey Don't You Lose Heart" and "Pink Cadillac" were constantly on the radio. In other words, Bruce was EVERYWHERE.

A friend of mine in gradeschool turned me onto Bruce's music. We were on the speech team in 8th grade. My aforementioned friend, Mike, for his speech recited the lyrics for "Backstreets." It was (and probably still is) his favorite Bruce Springsteen song. We all practiced our speeches for weeks. I remember going to see him recite the speech and he won. In fact, the rules stated that the students had to go to the podium with their speech written out. But Mike knew the words backword and forward. So that he would not be disqualified, our teacher wrote the lyrics out 15 minutes before the speeches were to begin, with Mike reciting it line by line.

"Backstreets is #3 on my favorite Bruce songs, trailing only "The Promised Land" and "Born to Run." While the electric version of the latter is phenominal, the acoustic version is every bit as good. It can be found here and on the "Chimes of Freedom EP" and "the Bruce Springsteen Video Anthology."

Born to Run (acoustic)

Goombah, i remember Springsteen mania back in 1984 very well. Even in the UK he was massive. He played 2 consecutive nights at St. James' Park,our local football stadium. Both of these were 30,000 sell outs and he donated some of his money to the miners who were on strike at that time!

A top man is the Boss!

Oh yes, Yogi, he was big around the entire world in 1984 & 1985. Nearly as big as Michael Jackson at the time. I saw a Max Weinberg interview once saying one of the highlights of the tour for him was playing Wembley Stadium on July 4th. He noted how ironic it was to have the British singing so loudly to the two opening songs: Independence Day and Born in the USA.

Do you have the Hammersmith Odeon performance from the "Born to Run" 30th anniversary release? It is a classic 1975 concert from your neck of the woods.