Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

€100 for top price tickets in Austria (around $130).

$130 for top price tickets is a bargain in this racket. Bruce keeps a ton at $50, as does U2, but then, U2's top prices are nuts. Looks like top Bruce tix are around $100 in the US (with fees). Madonna is $375 (with fees). Radiohead is about $50-$80 (with fees).

Ugh. It is a bargain, relatively speaking, and it's a mathematical certainty that Bruce isn't gonna phone it in, but jeez.

Well, that "relatively speaking" part is kind of key, isn't it? Because thank god we are not mandated to go, as there is no better price than zero.

I will say, as someone who goes to shows all the time, big and small, and never pays, that I think most folks ie the average concert goer, hit maybe one or two big shows a year. And with that in mind, $130 is pretty cheap. That's dinner and a movie for two, with a glass of wine. A luxury for some, I suppose, but I don't that's considered a conspicuous expenditure.

he isn't playing chicago on this tour? WTF.

also can we maybe talk about the drum fills on "born in the usa" (the song)?

well they ARE the song

reminds me of thunderstorms

thunder only happens when it's raining IIRC

My favorite musical element: Bruce's wordless howling in the last minute.

Stevie Nicks does not understand weather patterns

the line "son, take a good look around" in "my hometown" just sent chills up my spine. :(

Ugh I love that song

Stevie Nicks should have covered "Cover Me."

this album is good

well duh :)

xpost amateurist, the (very strong) rumor is that he's playing Wrigley Field in September. This is only the first leg of the tour - a bit of the US, then Europe, then most likely back to the US. I'm seeing him in Detroit if I can help it because frankly I'm a little concerned about the band's, er, mortality rate. Seven months is a long time away...

can't make it to detroit, but wrigley field sounds fun.

I saw him at Pacbell Park in Sf in 2002 or 03. One of the best concerts I've ever been to. something about the vibe in a baseball stadium, it just feels so Bruce

Great Springsteen keynote speech streaming on NPR from SXSW:

http://www.npr.org/event/music/147357853/sxsw-2012?ps=cprs

Last night in Austin:

1. I Ain't Got No Home (Woody Guthrie)
2. We Take Care of Our Own
3. Wrecking Ball
4. Badlands
5. Death to my Hometown (with Tom Morello)
6. My City of Ruins
7. Seeds
8. E Street Shuffle
9. Jack of All Trades (with Morello)
10. Shackled and Drawn
11. Waiting on a Sunny Day
12. Promised Land
13. The Ghost of Tom Joad (with Morello)
14. The Rising
15. We Are Alive
16. Thunder Road
17. Rocky Ground (with Michelle Moore)
18. Land of Hope and Dreams
19. The Harder They Come (with Jimmy Cliff)
20. Time Will Tell (with Cliff)
21. Many Rivers to Cross (with Cliff)
22. We Gotta Get Out of This Place (with Eric Burdon)
23. 10th Avenue Freeze Out
24. This Land is Your Land (with Joe Ely, Arcade Fire, Alejandro Escovedo, etc.)

Tom Morello, eh, but Jimmy Cliff!

and Eric Burdon! and Garland Jeffrys

Alejandro Escovedo! underappreciated dude

why doesn't he sing love songs anymore?

because now he is a serious man of politics

politics and rock and roll

He sang that long creepy song about getting a blowjob. Does that count as a love song?

if that's a representative setlist from this tour i might just skip it.

Yeah, it seems like he's going heavy on the new album, but with bits and pieces of the past, a la the Rising tour. But inevitably as he goes forward, he mixes it up a bit. I mean, note the conspicuous absence of much from Born to Run, Darkness and BitUSA, let alone "Born to Run" the song. Obviously the set is heavy on stuff that favors guests (Jimmy Cliff, Animals) or the SXSW fest (Woody Guthrie birthday stuff). The show at the Apollo was heavy on soul covers, albeit soul covers that Springsteen has done before. I'd be curious what a proper set from this tour looks like, but I bet it's not too different.

jesus, the boss isn't suicidal is he? that setlist looks like a cry for help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtTE8aWCe9g

at least the set doesn't end with wreck on the highway, then i'd probably want to stage an intervention

also scott seward/sullivan's travels OTM

man it took him 13 years to release a studio version of "Land of Hope and Dreams" and he fucked it up

It sounds fine to me, what's fucked up about it?

i just hate the changed up drumbeat, mostly

well I like it

so as a kid i never liked this dude

but now there is essentially nothing i'd rather listen to whilst drunk

and i'm having a lot of practice

which album/s?

The Darkness album is my drunk jam :D

weighing in on the treyvon martin case seems like

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

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/arts-post/post/nils-lofgren-defends-bruce-springsteens-use-of-teleprompter/2012/04/03/gIQAOWS6sS_blog.html

Nils sets his local paper straight

Your teleprompter article left out some important points. Last E Street tour, (”Working On A Dream”) we played 192 different songs on that tour alone. Dozens of those songs were from audience-request signs Bruce would collect and dump in front of the drum riser. He would then rifle through them, sailing them around him until he found a song to attempt

Nils got you, Brooce

that's pretty cool! i've worked as a teleprompter tech a bit and while i'm sure bruce has his own dedicated crew he travels with i love just the idea of being the guy he throws a request sign to to pull up the lyrics

Have those Republicans who are annoyed about Obama's use of a teleprompter weighed in on Springsteen & his band's use of one?

http://backstreets.com/news.html

See the April 29th news entry on the New Orleans jazzfest gig I just saw.

I saw the sun setting over the fairgrounds in New Orleans, Louisiana Sunday at the end of the first weekend of Jazzfest. Bruce Springsteen closed the event out with a 2 and half hour set that included a song with Dr. John, a version of the "Saints Come Marchin' In" and various spoken references to the region and songs possibly chosen with the area in mind(a cover of "How Can a Poor man Stand Such Times and Live" , "Mary Don't You Weep).

New Orleans jazzfest gig Setlist:
Badlands
We Take Care of Our Own
Wrecking Ball
Out in the Street
Death to My Hometown
My City of Ruins
How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?
Jack of All Trades
Something You Got (with Dr. John)
O Mary Don't You Weep
Prove It All Night
Johnny 99
Waitin' on a Sunny Day
The Promised Land
The Rising
Lonesome Day
We Are Alive
Land of Hope and Dreams
Pay Me My Money Down
Born to Run
Dancing in the Dark
Rocky Ground/When the Saints Go Marching In (with Michelle Moore)
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out

Lots of Bruce talking early in the set--an "occupy" mention, references to New Orleans and ghosts before and during "My City in Ruins." I could have done without "We Are Alive," "Land of Hope and Dreams," and "Pay Me My Money Down," which all dragged (and sent some folks heading out to beat the traffic early) but I liked the set better than the last time I saw Springsteen (ironically enough, that 2006 Seeger sessions show in New Orleans that New orleans writer Keith Spera liked so much). If I nitpick further I'd say "Prove It All Night" and some of the others lacked the vocal passion and tempos I remember from 78 to early 80s, but it was still pretty great.

I didn't go to the show, but when he played here in Cleveland a couple of weeks ago, he included "Light of Day," which he hasn't done a lot in recent years IIRC. Kinda nice since that movie was based in and partially shot here.

He's never going to stop playing Waitin' On A Sunny Day :(

It's worse than that! He brings kids on stage to sing it with him!!!!

They were home in Jersey for the New Orleans show as was his wife Patty. Bruce joked, "Patty is home keeping the kids out of our drug stash."