the river - tour by bruce

[Ken Gargett]

wondering if any of our members are so fortunate as to be attending any of the concerts on the tour. as they say in the classics, i'd give my left cod.

if anyone does make, please let us know thoughts.

meanwhile, here is a review from the nyt.

Review: Bruce Springsteen, Keeping an Eye on the Clock, at Madison Square Garden

By JON PARELES

JAN. 28, 2016

Bruce Springsteen performing at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night. Credit Nicole Fara Silver for The New York Times

“The subtext to ‘The River’ was time,” Bruce Springsteen said as the E Street Band played a slow, shimmering vamp. “Time slipping away. And once you enter that adult world, the clock starts ticking and you’ve got a limited amount of time to do your work, to raise your family, to try and do something good.”

That was Mr. Springsteen’s postscript to the opening two-hour stretch of his concert at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night: a complete performance of his 1980 double album, “The River,” prefaced by “Meet Me in the City,” one of the many outtakes from the album issued last year in the boxed set “The Ties That Bind: The River Collection.” He’s performing the whole album throughout his current tour.

Time means even more now, 36 years after “The River” was released. The time Mr. Springsteen spent onstage: an intermissionless three hours as he followed “The River” with one can-you-top-this song after another. The time that Mr. Springsteen has led the E Street Band, which got its start in 1972, still includes its original bass player (Garry Tallent) and has now gone through generational changes, with Jake Clemons taking over on saxophone after the death of his uncle Clarence Clemons in 2011. (At the end of the show, Mr. Springsteen invariably praises the band with a carnival-barker string of adjectives that now includes “death-defying.”) The time that Mr. Springsteen’s loyal fans have had to absorb his albums, revisiting their joys and lessons as their own lives play out, perhaps marveling that Mr. Springsteen is still filling arenas.

“The River” has held up. For Mr. Springsteen, “The River” was a pivotal album — the distillation of a lengthy recording process and long deliberation. Released when he was 31, the album opens, pointedly, with “The Ties That Bind.” As Mr. Springsteen explained onstage, “The River” strove to address the connections, responsibilities and compromises of adult life, from the fleeting pleasures of a night out dancing to the commitments of marriage and parenthood. The album also changed Mr. Springsteen’s approach to songwriting; it newly compressed and streamlined his storytelling style. And the album’s 20-song sequence carefully juxtaposed its ups and downs, with pensive ballads like “The River” itself and boisterous, cowbell-thumping rockers like “Crush on You.”

On the album, and now live, each song responds to the one before it — sometimes by extension, sometimes by contrast — in a flux of resilience and resignation, impulses and consequences. The songs themselves hold dualities; “Cadillac Ranch,” the album’s most irresistibly twangy stomp and holler, praises cars yet contemplates death. Time is also folded into the music of “The River,” which was made in the 1970s with a history of rock and roots — the Byrds, Chuck Berry, Phil Spector, doo-***, Bob Dylan, Otis Redding, the Rolling Stones, Roy Orbison, Woody Guthrie — threaded through its songs.

Onstage, Mr. Springsteen was committed as always to connecting with the audience and the band, clowning with the guitarist Steve Van Zandt and sometimes sharing a single microphone with up to four band members, leaning in and out for call-and-response vocals. He often stepped onto a platform where people up front could reach his legs, and he walked onto and around the arena floor for handshakes, high-fives and selfies. During “Hungry Heart,” the hit single from “The River,” he not only led the joyful singalong but also fell back on upstretched arms to crowd-surf up to the stage.

Mr. Springsteen spoke in depth about a few songs, introducing “I Wanna Marry You” as “a song of imagining love in all its excitement and its tentativeness,” then sharing an eerie, extended vocal introduction to the song, his voice overlapping with Mr. Van Zandt’s.

“The River” ends in mourning and persistence, with “Wreck on the Highway,” a song narrated by an onlooker who wonders about the dead man’s girlfriend or family and those who will have to bring the bad news: time ended for the man in the wreck, time stretches ahead for those connected to him.

But Mr. Springsteen wouldn’t leave a concert on that doleful note. Moments later, the band was barreling through a string of songs about lust, love and romance: the pealing arpeggios and Bo Diddley beat of “She’s the One”; the galloping momentum of “Candy’s Room”; the anthemic surge of “Because the Night” with a leaping, swooping guitar solo played by Nils Lofgren as he hopped and twirled on one foot; and the updated girl-group pop, with troubled thoughts, of “Brilliant Disguise,” which ended with Mr. Springsteen embracing his wife (and backup singer), Patti Scialfa.

The concert’s only 21st-century songs were “Wrecking Ball” from 2009 — Mr. Springsteen’s funny, far-reaching personification of a soon-to-be demolished Giants Stadium — and “The Rising,” a post-Sept. 11 song that plays out as a ritual of redemption. Then came the final, full-throttle, standing-ovation, shout-along final sprint: “Thunder Road,” “Born to Run,” “Dancing in the Dark,” “Rosalita” and — signaling show’s end — “Shout.” They were, besides being unstoppable, songs that have what the succinct verse-chorus-verse songs of “The River” had set aside: elaborate structures, virtuoso instrumental passages, key changes. But they are also songs that have connected Mr. Springsteen and his fans through the decades, defying time once again.

[OZCUBAN]

Sounds great I am going to get the album this weekend was going to do it earlier but have been busy

Let's hope the "RIVER TOUR" becomes international

Cheers Ken

[IPORTER]

My Missus holding out for a European tour..........

[Maxismoke]

March in LA booked, and then (i hope) 2 dates in Sweden in July, it's going to be a great year!

[Corylax18]

I wont be going to any of the dates on this tour. I was lucky enough to snag FIRST ROW seats for a show the last time her was in Denver though. Definitely one of my favorite shows, but still wont live up to first time I saw him at the old Meadowlands.

[ayepatz]

Just got into my hotel in Stuttgart, and they've got Bruce playing in the bar. (Not live. Lol)

Wasn't going to stay for a beer, but that changed my mind!

Fingers crossed he sticks a few foreign dates on the end of that tour.

[Ken Gargett]

Just got into my hotel in Stuttgart, and they've got Bruce playing in the bar. (Not live. Lol)

Wasn't going to stay for a beer, but that changed my mind!

Fingers crossed he sticks a few foreign dates on the end of that tour.

i saw he had added a date in lisbon, i think. it would seem really odd that he would add just one concert in europe.

sadly, unless he decides to extend it to next year, i fear we are no chance. these huge acts seem to aim for jan/feb.

love this idea of covering an album in the concert. he did the entire 'wild, innocent and E street shuffle' in brizzy and a lot more. best of his i have ever seen. this was the review from billboard.

plus a clip of the opening.

Bruce Springsteen Wraps Australia Tour With Marathon Set, Bee Gees Cover and a Group Twerk

2/26/2014

After all these years, Bruce Springsteen still manages to surprise. The Boss’ evangelical rock 'n' roll experience has just completed another lap of Australia, where each city has been rewarded with some rare musical gems -- not all of them his own. On this trip he’s been dishing out some homegrown tunes, including AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” and INXS’s “Don’t Change”. On tonight's tour-closing show at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, he didn’t keep his fans wondering for long. Springsteen and his E Street Band opened with a cover of the Bee Gees’ 1970s disco classic, “Stayin' Alive.”

It was a most unexpected start. But a fitting one. The Gibb brothers’ formative years were spent in Redcliffe, a suburb north of Brisbane where a statue was unveiled in their honor in 2013.

https://youtu.be/fs-7N8Y1s68?list=UU04BQNeSm2raNmqGu3FYaDA

Tonight was all about giving-back. Springsteen and his gang gave Brisbane fans exactly what they wanted, and more than they expected. There was more homestyle goodness in the set-list, including a rendition of “Just Like Fire Would,” a 1986 work ofChris Bailey, the frontman of local punk pioneers the Saints. And later in the set, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder took to the stage for a performance of AC/DC’s nihilist standard.

The Boss was in one of his “force of nature” moods. He dispensed with a support act on the night, and punched through with a marathon set that started at 8pm and finished-up just before midnight. There was no intermission, no breaks. Just rock 'n’ roll. This one will be talked about for a long while.

The set went deep into Springsteen’s catalog. Songs were pulled from his 1973 debut “Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.,” then he delivered his follow-up album “The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle” in its entirety. And there were those big crowd-pleasers, “Dancing in the Dark,” “Glory Days” and “Born to Run.”

The production had little in the way of gimmicks. Just three big screens and 18 musicians getting to work (and on two occasions, an eight-female-strong string section). Springsteen tinkered with the set-list, taking his cues from the many hand-made signs bouncing in the crowd. “We had plans for tonight but none of it is happening. So we're just following the signs,” he said. “I don't know who else runs a show like this. We don’t do it every night. Just mostly.”

On one of his crowd-surfing sessions, Springsteen got more than he bargained for. He arrived back on stage with a toy kangaroo tucked under his arm, and a mobile phone inserted into his back pocket. “That's a first,” he quipped. “I don't know how it got there. I didn't feel a thing.”

Springsteen could be spotted drinking what appeared to be a luminescent aqua-colored fluid. Perhaps the secret to his energy is in this “Bruce juice”? Artists half his age will want some.

There’s something about the business of Bruce Springsteen that makes little sense. Here’s a veteran artist who, frankly, doesn’t really do “hits.” Not anymore. And yet, his albums are blockbusters. In a saturated touring market, when money’s tight, and slick-moving 20-something pop singers are hogging the limelight, Springsteen is always a hot ticket. And here in Australia, on the other side of the world from his native New Jersey, Springsteen does remarkable business. It’s a business that almost defies logic.

His most recent album “High Hopes” was partially recorded Down Under and it opened at No. 1 on its release here in January (his only other No. 1 studio album was "Born in the U.S.A."). The new album, comprising covers, outtakes and reinterpretations of earlier songs, yielded no hits. Until 2013, he hadn’t played Australia for the best part of a decade. Now he’s trekked Australia twice within a year. For most artists, that would amount to "overexposure." This tour was a sellout. “We could feel the bottom of the earth was moving for us or something," he said of the 2013 run and the decision to come back. “It's been a wonderful two seasons. We promise to be back."

As time marched towards midnight on this finale, Springsteen gathered his ensemble for a farewell bow. With arms around one another, the E Street Band members wiggled their butts at the audience as Springsteen shouted, “Let’s twerk!”

He wrapped his monster show with a stripped-down version of “Thunder Road.” Just Springsteen, his guitar and a harmonica. “Australia, the E Street band loves you. We'll be seeing you."

Australian audiences will be hoping it’ll be sooner, rather than later. Another visit next year, perhaps.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Feb. 26 Setlist:

1. Stayin’ Alive (Bee Gees cover)

2. It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City

3. Does this Bus Stop at 82nd Street?

4. Growin’ Up

5. Spirit In The Night

6. High Hopes

7. Just Like Fire Would (Chris Bailey Cover)

8. You Can Look (But You’d Better Not Touch)

9. Sherry Darling

10. Save My Love

11. Fade Away

12. The E Street Shuffle

13. 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)

14. Kitty’s Back

15. Wild Billy’s Circus Story

16. Incident On 57th Street

17. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)

18. New York City Serenade (w/ strings)

19. Darlington County

20. Waitin’ On A Sunny Day

21. The Rising

22. The Ghost Of Tom Joad

23. Badlands

24. Glory Days

25. Born To Run

26. Bobby Jean

27. Dancing In The Dark

28. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

29. Highway To Hell (with Eddie Vedder)

30. Thunder Road (solo)

[ayepatz]

i saw he had added a date in lisbon, i think. it would seem really odd that he would add just one concert in europe.

sadly, unless he decides to extend it to next year, i fear we are no chance. these huge acts seem to aim for jan/feb.

love this idea of covering an album in the concert. he did the entire 'wild, innocent and E street shuffle' in brizzy and a lot more. best of his i have ever seen. this was the review from billboard.

plus a clip of the opening.

Bruce Springsteen Wraps Australia Tour With Marathon Set, Bee Gees Cover and a Group Twerk

2/26/2014 [/size]

After all these years, Bruce Springsteen still manages to surprise. The Boss evangelical rock 'n' roll experience has just completed another lap of Australia, where each city has been rewarded with some rare musical gems -- not all of them his own. On this trip hes been dishing out some homegrown tunes, including AC/DCs Highway to Hell and INXSs Dont Change. On tonight's tour-closing show at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, he didnt keep his fans wondering for long. Springsteen and his E Street Band opened with a cover of the Bee Gees 1970s disco classic, Stayin' Alive.

It was a most unexpected start. But a fitting one. The Gibb brothers formative years were spent in Redcliffe, a suburb north of Brisbane where a statue was unveiled in their honor in 2013.

https://youtu.be/fs-7N8Y1s68?list=UU04BQNeSm2raNmqGu3FYaDA

Tonight was all about giving-back. Springsteen and his gang gave Brisbane fans exactly what they wanted, and more than they expected. There was more homestyle goodness in the set-list, including a rendition of Just Like Fire Would, a 1986 work ofChris Bailey, the frontman of local punk pioneers the Saints. And later in the set, Pearl Jams Eddie Vedder took to the stage for a performance of AC/DCs nihilist standard.

The Boss was in one of his force of nature moods. He dispensed with a support act on the night, and punched through with a marathon set that started at 8pm and finished-up just before midnight. There was no intermission, no breaks. Just rock 'n roll. This one will be talked about for a long while.

The set went deep into Springsteens catalog. Songs were pulled from his 1973 debut Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., then he delivered his follow-up album The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle in its entirety. And there were those big crowd-pleasers, Dancing in the Dark, Glory Days and Born to Run.

The production had little in the way of gimmicks. Just three big screens and 18 musicians getting to work (and on two occasions, an eight-female-strong string section). Springsteen tinkered with the set-list, taking his cues from the many hand-made signs bouncing in the crowd. We had plans for tonight but none of it is happening. So we're just following the signs, he said. I don't know who else runs a show like this. We dont do it every night. Just mostly.

On one of his crowd-surfing sessions, Springsteen got more than he bargained for. He arrived back on stage with a toy kangaroo tucked under his arm, and a mobile phone inserted into his back pocket. That's a first, he quipped. I don't know how it got there. I didn't feel a thing.

Springsteen could be spotted drinking what appeared to be a luminescent aqua-colored fluid. Perhaps the secret to his energy is in this Bruce juice? Artists half his age will want some.

Theres something about the business of Bruce Springsteen that makes little sense. Heres a veteran artist who, frankly, doesnt really do hits. Not anymore. And yet, his albums are blockbusters. In a saturated touring market, when moneys tight, and slick-moving 20-something pop singers are hogging the limelight, Springsteen is always a hot ticket. And here in Australia, on the other side of the world from his native New Jersey, Springsteen does remarkable business. Its a business that almost defies logic.

His most recent album High Hopes was partially recorded Down Under and it opened at No. 1 on its release here in January (his only other No. 1 studio album was "Born in the U.S.A."). The new album, comprising covers, outtakes and reinterpretations of earlier songs, yielded no hits. Until 2013, he hadnt played Australia for the best part of a decade. Now hes trekked Australia twice within a year. For most artists, that would amount to "overexposure." This tour was a sellout. We could feel the bottom of the earth was moving for us or something," he said of the 2013 run and the decision to come back. It's been a wonderful two seasons. We promise to be back."

As time marched towards midnight on this finale, Springsteen gathered his ensemble for a farewell bow. With arms around one another, the E Street Band members wiggled their butts at the audience as Springsteen shouted, Lets twerk!

He wrapped his monster show with a stripped-down version of Thunder Road. Just Springsteen, his guitar and a harmonica. Australia, the E Street band loves you. We'll be seeing you."

Australian audiences will be hoping itll be sooner, rather than later. Another visit next year, perhaps.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Feb. 26 Setlist:

1. Stayin Alive (Bee Gees cover)

2. Its Hard To Be A Saint In The City

3. Does this Bus Stop at 82nd Street?

4. Growin Up

5. Spirit In The Night

6. High Hopes

7. Just Like Fire Would (Chris Bailey Cover)

8. You Can Look (But Youd Better Not Touch)

9. Sherry Darling

10. Save My Love

11. Fade Away

12. The E Street Shuffle

13. 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)

14. Kittys Back

15. Wild Billys Circus Story

16. Incident On 57th Street

17. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)

18. New York City Serenade (w/ strings)

19. Darlington County

20. Waitin On A Sunny Day

21. The Rising

22. The Ghost Of Tom Joad

23. Badlands

24. Glory Days

25. Born To Run

26. Bobby Jean

27. Dancing In The Dark

28. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

29. Highway To Hell (with Eddie Vedder)

30. Thunder Road (solo)

He's in his late sixties and still playing 3-hour sets! Makes today's musicians look like a bunch of pathetic part-timers.

And, if you're going to cover somebody, opening your set with their track is a really classy tribute. Tip of the hat!

[pitbos]

Going to see the show in Toronto on Tuesday. First Springsteen show so should be a blast!

[Ken Gargett]

He's in his late sixties and still playing 3-hour sets! Makes today's musicians look like a bunch of pathetic part-timers.

in adelaide, it was pushing 50 degrees C! horrendous.

he opened in total darkness. you just hear his voice - "why is it so f'ing hot!" and the place lights up, everyone in a line and they rip into "heatwave". surprised he did not kill himself!

in brizzy, he was a few minutes short of four hours and never left the stage. he is not from this world!

and pitbos, let us know what you think. very envious.