Hey Bruce fans

[EStreetJoe]

For those that haven't seen this parody yet, it's a riot:

 

[shockey]

leaving in 30 minutes for bruce's show at nassau coliseum. it will be the best three hours i've had in months ad expect it to be for several more. never have my expectations failed to be met -- covering more than 40 shows in 30 years. ;D ;D ;D

woo-hoo!! will check back with a mini-review later.

 

[shockey]

For those that haven't seen this parody yet, it's a riot:

guess that hitler clip/spoof is multi-purposeful. it's oft-used to mock the cowboys after hard losses. never gets old.

ciao, 'til after the show!!! ;D ;D ;D

 

[Magic In The Night]

Hey, I was in Greensboro this weekend for the super party and was in the pit, about two people from the stage and close enough to touch Bruce. Too tired to write a mini-review now because I came straight in to work after flying back this morning but let it be said, Ohio State fans haven't seen "Hang On Sloopy" done right unless they were in the old Coliseum barn Saturday night. Unbelievable show and crowd and he even pulled out "Human Touch." Lots of memories I'll have for a long time from this one.

 

[BYH]

Not to steal shockey's thunder, but Bruce ripped the ****ing roof off Nassau Coliseum tonight. My friend and I decided to go at quite literally the last minute (7:15 for a 7:30 show...Bruce went on at 8:15, less than five minutes after we settled into our seats among the retired numbers) and see if there were any tix left and it ended up being the best $75 I've ever spent.

Best show I've seen by anyone in a long, long, long time. This is the third time I've seen him but the first time I really understood what ESJ, Webster, shockey, spnited, et al, are getting at when they talk about how great Bruce shows can be. Maybe Bruce's music is better appreciated after life has kicked you square in the nuts a few times, but he was just ****ing out of this world tonight.

I'll let the Springsteenophile shockey provide the set list and a more in-depth review but if you have any interest at all in seeing Bruce, do it. He provides you your money's worth and then some.

(Oh yeah, and cause I know how much it annoyed spnited to read my text earlier: "Rosalita" was the finale, muahaha )

 

[shockey]

byh nailed it nicely. the guy (bruce, not byh) is the eighth wonder of the world. i dunno how he keeps ragin' on after all these years.

one of my buds accompanying me was a brooce! virgin. i so enjoy going with first timers, to see the show through their eyes/ears. now he understands the devotion, as i came to understand, too, 30 years ago when brooce! won me over after years of mocking him for being "an overhyped dylan wannabe who couldn't sing."

well, all it took was an hour to close one of the "no nukes" shows to blow me away. to get me to finally "get it." as my bud mitch reminded me again tonight, "yeah, your famous quote was, 'i'm here to see jackson browne.'"

i've made up for wasted time since, seeing bruce 40-plus times. another bud puts it best: "these shows range from LEAST GREAT to MOST GREAT."

tonight's 27-song, 2-hour, 55-minute show was probably in my TOP 10 MOST GREAT.

no jay weinberg sitting in for daddy max on drums. the old man held up fine, still going strong on "land of hope and dreams" during the encore. "jungleland" was powerful, per usual, as was "rosalita" to end the exhausting show.

other hights included "for you," which i'm not sure i've ever seen him do live before, and "rendezvous." the latter during the collection of request placards plucked from the crowd, a cool staple reminicent of the intimate shows of yore, when there was much more bruce banter in place of songs.

it's part of what makes these shows in recent years so amazing. we old timers love to wax poetic about bruce's marathon shows in the '70's, which were so great. but the number of songs he actually played were much less than now. first of all, his catalogue was smaller, obviously. and much of the time was bruce talking to the audience -- charming and fun, but really just filler, when you think about it. plus those shows included intermissions, which were often 30 minutes.

now the guy goes at it non-stop. boom! boom! boom! unreal.
the pace of the show was stupendous. the band was tight. i'm constantly amazed how his voice and body hold up at his age -- i mean, he's doing another show tonight in virginia!

anyway, any complaints would only be about disappointments about songs not done. his catalogue is so chock full of tremendous songs there's no way he can please everyone.

so i've learned to accept it's only 50-50 whether we get "thunder road," my all-time fave. and a buddy was disappointed he didn't get "born in the usa." hey, my list of no-shows could go on all night, including, "racing in the street," "because the night," "incident on 57th street," "out in the street." and on and on.

great show. great set list. great crowd and energy from all. i'm still flying high and have left out several memorable moments. here's the setlist, courtesy of "backstreets.com:"

http://backstreets.com/setlists.html

that's it for tonight. gotta try to sleep, but it won't be easy.

 

[BYH]

You're not alone, Shockey. I'd be up a while longer anyway, but I couldn't sleep now if I tried.

It was hard to explain to my wife why tonight was so great. As a Bruce neophyte building my collection from present on back, I knew only half the songs or so, but I was mesmerized even by the songs I didn't know. It was just an incredible show. I wish I was half as passionate and productive (and athletic) at 35 as Bruce is at 59.

I know not everyone gets Bruce, but anyone who enjoys music should see him, just to see the chemistry between the band. It's unbelievable how tight and cohesive those guys are.

One thing Shockey and I forgot to mention: Nils Lofgren just ****ing shredded tonight. His solos on "Tom Joad" were scalding.

I almost bought a ticket from a friend to see Bruce 10 days ago in CT but decided a.) it was too expensive (my mistake, she couldn't get rid of the tix and ended up getting $40 for $100 seats...she told me if she knew that she just would have given them to me, d'oh) and b.) to take my chances tonight. Damn glad I did. I can't imagine he put on a show like this in Hartford.

 

[spnited]

To my friends shockey and byh:


I hate you both!

Because you were there and I wasn't.


And my reply to dickhead's text that simply said "ROSALITA" was "FU"

 

[BYH]

Yeah that was awesome.

I'm sure you'll get two great shows and at least one "Rosalita" in Jersey in a couple weeks.

And I was just reading those setlists Shockey posted...sonofabitch, he played "Human Touch" last week! That's about the only way this one could have been better, if he'd played that.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

Thought the shows in L.A. a few weeks ago were pretty awesome. I hate being one of those "Man, your music really got me through" dorkboys . . . but the two shows, with their quality sets and performances, came at a rather opportune time for me.

Tom Morello was breathtaking on Ghost of Tom Joad. Had high (pie in the sky) hopes for a McCartney guest spot on Night Two, but getting Social Distortion guy was just fine. More than fine.

Great sets, great performances as far as this rookie is concerned. My brother went to his first show on Night Two (we spent the last 20 years hitting metal shows and wondering what all the fuss was about), and he commented in the car on his love for "Candy's Room" which they ended up playing second.

Love how he rewards the repeat guests. Can't think of another artist I've ever seen who spreads 52 different songs over three shows (including the Giants Stadium one I saw last summer).

My brother had asked what to expect, noting that Metallica has seven songs they MUST play each night, and he just saw AC/DC and the show was very similar to one he saw 20 years ago. I told him (based on a LOT of bootlegs) "He'll play Born to Run and pimp the local food bank, saying 'They're on the front lines, doing God's WORK!' Aside from that, no idea."

Got Racing in the Street and Backstreets over the two nights, so I'm happy. He even almost sounded like he meant it on Thunder Road.

Was a little surprised there wasn't some humorous comment on Tax Day during the April 15 show, and there was no mention of Danny Federici during the April 16 show, a day before the anniversary of his passing. More surprised by the Tax Day thing.

I hope they come back this fall for a pair in Anaheim (especially at the bargain prices the Sports Arena shows fetched on stubhub), but I'm not holding my breath.

Think the whole "Request weird covers!!!!" thing has long since lost its luster. Dude has so many amazing original songs, asking to hear the E Street Band's take on "Wild Thing" is just sort of blech.

Hell, play "Roulette".

 

[Oz]

Is it wrong that when I saw this thread, I thought Bruce Willis?

 

[BYH]

Thought the shows in L.A. a few weeks ago were pretty awesome. I hate being one of those "Man, your music really got me through" dorkboys . . . but the two shows, with their quality sets and performances, came at a rather opportune time for me.

Me too, believe me. Hearing "Waitin' On A Sunny Day" was worth the price of admission for me.

 

[friend of a friend]

This thread frightens me.

 

[BYH]

So does your face.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

This thread frightens me.

Try this one:

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/45125/

None of this is as scary as when the Pearl Jam nuts start talking.

 

[buckweaver]

Bruce even has Piotr hooked now. Holy crap. He might develop good taste yet.

Next time the band's in SoCal, I'm there. I need to see them again, at least once more.

Only been to one show -- the night they debuted American Skin in Atlanta, right before all those shows in NYC -- even though I grew up listening to my dad the Bruceophile extol the virtues of seeing them live. It was everything I was told it would be. Still among my top 5 all-time.

It's been hard for me to justify paying those prices, so I haven't ... but I will have to go back.

 

[EStreetJoe]

Glad you guys got a great show last night. I had class so I couldn't make it. Even if I didn't have class, fatherhood has caused me to cut back on how much I travel to see Bruce so I wouldn't have made my first trip to Nassau Collesium for a concert anyway. The two shows in Philly last week were tremendous.

 

[Huggy]

I was hoping to go to the Toronto show on Thursday night but the team I work for is still in the playoffs and that's a travel day for us.

I'm jealous of all of you!

 

[Magic In The Night]

OK SportsJournalists.com Springsteen mafia, I think we can all agree to be jealous of each other each time we go to a show. After that show Saturday night in Greensboro, I'm sitting here planning how I can make another one on this leg, or could I possibly go to Europe to see him?

Geez, it just blows you away when you see the full band how incredibly tight and searing they are. Sat. night's guitar solos were astonishing. It was like Bruce and Nils were feeding off each other and competing at the same time. And Steve is playing with new vigor on this tour, his work was amazing as well. We had Jay on drums for about three quarters of the show and he can definitely kick it right up there with his old man. It's a different, wilder, more loose style but he's going to surpass him someday you can just see. Bruce was so impressed by him, he kept letting him have a bunch of solos.

The only thing I thought we missed Sat. was "Incident" because I've never seen it but I wasn't counting on it either. Got Thunder Road, my first, last, always song (witness screenname) and it was a good version with band kinda in background and just Bruce and harmonica. I would have liked to have seen a bit more of the new stuff but Outlaw Pete is really good live and almost like a rock opera, if only a tiny bit too long. I also would have rather had Dancing in the Dark than Glory Days but we did get the extra song on the encore and even a little of Louie, Louie on the end for frosting.

I disagree that it's not fun to see Bruce and Co. play the covers. Especially when they're crazy obscure like 7th Son and Hang on Sloopy Saturday night. That sign for 7th Son was like a 5-inch piece of paper that Bruce found a little kid holding. It's cool to see something different. And to get Human Touch was amazing too. I wish he'd do more from that period.

Bruce was incredibly loose and soooo into the crowd, which was raucous from the jump. It's a crappy old arena with no luxury boxes, just the kind he likes to play. I think it reminds him of the old days. Plus, it was a Saturday night and no Patty with him! Which usually means he flirts and plays with the crowd more.

All in all, well worth the travel money to NC and got to see my brother and family as a bonus. Oh the memories!

 

[Webster]

Reports from my similarly obsessed friends were that it was a great show last night.