Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

Nils is pretty much wasted in the E Street Band.

to some extent, every guitarist who isn't bruce is pretty much wasted in the e street band. but if i were bruce, i'd happily pay nils to stand around doing nothing for three or so hours a night just so i'd know he'd be there whenever "because the night" came around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd6c6z2owak

http://www.app.com/story/entertainment/2015/12/09/ny-officials-looking-springsteen-ticket-availability/77025086/

Sharp-eyed Bruce Springsteen fans have noticed tickets for the Boss’ upcoming River Tour already on sale on secondary ticket sites.

How can that be when tickets for the tour go on sale the morning of Friday, Dec. 11?

That’s what New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman wants to know. He’s investigating why the secondary ticket sites StubHub, TicketNetwork and Vivid Seats had “speculative” tickets to River shows on sale this week, according to Reuters report. He’s also asked the sites to remove the listings.

Nothing new...

Every time he tours it gets worse and worse, I imagine especially on the east coast. It's like the Pope making an appearance. In the near future they'll be closing down the city during his performances.

Enjoyed this writer's proposed assemblage, reminds me I gotta get back to the Albums That Never Were site:
http://www.vulture.com/2015/12/bruce-springsteen-the-river-ties-that-bind-single-album.html

I even enjoyed Rolling Stone review of the new box! (spoiler: favorable)

Great hypothetical track list, some nice thought put into it.

So he's gonna work on a solo album after this River tour....

the river - my least favorite of his classic albums, but my favorite album cover. that typeface. that blue. (points deducted, however, for non-gatefold packaging of double album.)

I had to check my vinyl copy just now to confirm, but holy shit, you're right--why isn't this a gatefold?!

What is the demarcation between the classic and non-classic albums, fcc?

XP Probably a trade-off for the lyric folder, methinks.

It's funny, I don't think I've ever thought of "The River" as my fave Bruce, but at least 3/4 of it is my fave Bruce. It's where the floodgates opened up and all this stuff spilled out. You can totally hear how he was (reportedly) inspired by "London Calling." It's kind of fascinating how the album exists in this strange purgatory between the depression and starkness of "Nebraska" and party music, with stuff like "Hungry Heart" the perfect conflation of the two.

Speaking of Bruce, I've been listening to a bunch of stuff that, just coincidentally, features Roy Bittan. Early Peter Gabriel, Bowie's "Station to Station," and "Making Movies" by Dire Straights ... it's amazing how essential he is to Bruce's sound, and how much of that sound he brings to the disparate folks he's worked with.

Any single-album version of The River that doesn't include the title track is wtf. That song is pivotal.

If The River were on Nebraska it'd be the only track that trumps Atlantic City for universal obsession. Though everything about The River is so perfect I'm not sure how well it would work a la Nebraska.

What is the demarcation between the classic and non-classic albums, fcc?

for me, everything through tunnel of love.

i still like the river, just have never truly loved it. a lot of the songwriting is almost too on-the-nose for bruce. but i also agree with everything josh in chicago said, especially: the album exists in this strange purgatory between the depression and starkness of "Nebraska" and party music, with stuff like "Hungry Heart" the perfect conflation of the two.

it also struck me, listening to it last night, that in a lot of way's it's clarence clemons' last hurrah as bruce's official sidekick. here it's still very much "here comes clarence!," whereas by born in the usa, he's become one piece of an ensemble.

that's otm. I definitely don't "get" The River yet, despite loving particular songs from it. wonder if it's the sound on cd, maybe the new version will hit me harder. my broocest buds ride hard for the album so the problem seems to be me.

I say "yet", I mean, it's an album I've had for over twenty years

When they released remastered versions of the albums a couple of years back, the remastered "River" was in some ways most revelatory. Vocals, bass lines, organ parts, etc. that I had never heard or noticed before. This new set uses that same remaster. Speaking of the new set, while some of the unreleased stuff sounds like, well, unreleased stuff, none of it is bad, and some of tracks are absolutely smoking. While I don't like that Bruce adds new music and vox and stuff to some of the music from the vaults, I guess I do like how this stuff has come to light. First "Tracks," then "The Promise," then "The River." Those re-releases alone have given us 8 or so CDs worth of "new" old Bruce music, with very little repetition, some of it never heard before even as bootlegs, some of it, maybe even much of it, on par with his best work. And I can still think of another disc or two of known good stuff that has yet to get official release, so who knows what we'll get for the inevitable BitUSA/Nebraska set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIni5l8oBXA

^Some interesting stuff in here, not only lines that popped up decades later in "Radio Nowhere," but possibly a reference to Magazine's "Shot By Both Sides."

Well, those went quick. I failed to get The River tour tickets for DC, as they sold out online in minutes. Someone I know up in Rochester, NY got in line at 8:15 am there for the 10 am ticket sale, and got tickets in Rochester by 10:15 am. Oh well, I saw him way back when

think the bruce "album in its entirety set" i'd pay to see is actually the passaic nights bootleg. just listening to it yesterday, unbelievable.

I got myself one (1) ticket for the Cleveland show, since I've never seen him before.

Scratch that, I saw him and Patty Scialfa do a few songs at an Obama rally back in 2008. But obvs that's a lot different.

Official ticket sales are so corrupt. A couple of years ago I had no problem getting tickets to see him at Wrigley Field a week or so in advance.

it's clarence clemons' last hurrah as bruce's official sidekick...whereas by born in the usa, he's become one piece of an ensemble

Maybe on record, but Clarence was still the key band member in the live shows, especially on the Born In The USA tour.

kinda want to see this tour, am on the fence abt $$

me too. i'm kinda like whoever it was above in that the river is the least fave of his classic albums. i like it but i'm pretty always more likely to reach for a different one when i'm in the mood for bruce. at the same time i think this is the material i'd be most interested in seeing him dive into live. idk if that makes any sense.

Tunnel of Love is his best album.

i'm pretty sure i had that as my #1 in the poll. what from the past 15 or so years do i really need to check out? i think the only thing i've heard much at all post-tom joad are the seeger sessions and that was just when i happened to be at borders.

Love the Seeger Sessions. Lots of The Rising has aged well. Some of Magic and bits of Devils and Dust. None of Working on a Dream or High Hopes, save maybe a song. Definitely Wrecking Ball, which is solid.

"long time comin'" off of devils & dust is like a top ten springsteen song for me

also really love basically the entire first half of magic after which it really slips away

I can dwell forever in the organ solo in "Two Faces."

Yeah, that album is a masterpiece. It's everything after that's winners and losers, and don't caught on the wrong side of that line.

one who LAUGHS
one who CRIES
one sez hello
one seezzzz GOOOOODBYE

The Wild the Innocent will always be my fav, feel like he lost so much rhythmic interest musically after that

That is kind of on the money but feel like some remnant of rhythmic interest remained until Max took one too many drum lessons before or during the recording of Born In The USA.

The River has a lot of songs I love but it's like listening to a shuffled playlist, it doesnt feel like an album to me

which is kinda nerdy i know but i prefer a bit of flow

but tbrr there are few greater feelings in my life than immediately after a bruce show

dude has restorative healing powers

which is why i kinda want to see this show

idk it feels very much like an album to me, especially on vinyl. I love the sequencing, the way each of the four sides ends in a downtempo number that fatally undercuts the optimism of what has gone before

It's a great example of a sprawling album that benefits from sides. Like Sandinista!, which is sort of overwhelming as a double CD rather than triple LP.

The Wild the Innocent will always be my fav, feel like he lost so much rhythmic interest musically after that

You can blame Jon Landau for a lot of that. Losing David Sancious didn't help.

And losing Vinnie "Mad Dog" Lopez.

Watched the Fallon interview, and for an ass-kisser he just gets so much information wrong. What a tool.

The Ties That Bind is on the BBC IPlayer at the minute, I don't know how long the DVD version is, at 60 mins this might be an edited version.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06s71sv/bruce-springsteen-the-ties-that-bind

I had sort of resigned myself to not going to see Springsteen on Tuesday, but then I saw this on his Facebook page:
https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/t31.0-8/12485823_10153724399460250_6639444703948459920_o.jpg

That means "The River" start to finish, followed by (possibly): Badlands, Wrecking Ball, Backstreets, Because the Night, Brilliant Disguise (!), The Rising, Thunder Road, Born to Run, Bobby Jean, Dancing in the Dark and the return of Rosalita!!!

Needless to say, I got off my butt and did some clicking, and lucked (paid) into GA seats, which is the best possible outcome. I am a happy man.

Hey hope that's a great show. My pops is bugging me to go & I may consider it. It's pricey & United Center/Ticketbastard/afraid-I'm-gonna-see-the-strings-holding-them-up acts have gotten too much bread from me lately.

I mean, it worked out OK. General Admission means I can get as close as I can/want, and because those tix started out at $50 the Ticketmaster/fee/secondary market shell game scam of a markup basically put the ticket on par with the original price of his "good" seats. So more or less $150, and of course GA is as good as it gets in my book. Not cheap, but as we've all been reminded, no one lives forever. I feel very fortunate that I've gotten free tickets to so many hundreds of shows over the years, huge and small. If I cheaped out for one of my favorite acts of all time, and one of the best live acts of all time, I'd feel like a chump.

Speaking of which, the current Ticketmaster system is so much worse than it's ever been, a shameful hall of mirrors. Tell me where I'm wrong here: tickets go on sale, sell out immediately (5 seconds in Chicago). Bruce tix are not that much, relative to comparable acts; GA is $50. So someone gets one of those $50 tickets, pays fees and stuff that pump it up another $25, which TM pockets. Then that person turns around and resells the ticket on the TM site at three times face ... and TM gets to pocket another set of those same fees. So TM not only still makes it easy for people to buy and horde tix with the intent to sell them, but actually gives those sellers a platform on which to sell them, doubling its fees in the process. It's really ridiculous.

https://burjintheburbs.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/chris-traeger_pr1.jpg

"Irving Azoff is <literally> THE DEVIL."