Talk To Me

We first saw Southside Johnny at The Leadmill in Sheffield in November 2005.  That night he only sang a couple of songs we knew.  One was The Fever.  I can't remember the other but I suspect it was another Bruce song. This was also the first time we encountered Bernie. For those of you who don't know Bernie is a little chap with long grey hair and a unique way of dancing.  He can be seen at Bruce gigs all over the world.

Last night The Picturedrome in Holmfirth was our 5th show, and although Johnny sang a lot more songs which I know, I'm still at that stage where I often don't recognise them until we get to the chorus! The Fever was in the set list again. This is a bit of a sing-a-long for the audience and any Springsteen fan would recognise the song straight away. Talk To Me is taken at quite a lick. The crowd like to sing along to this too, as can be heard from the rather out of tune audience participation from Holmfirth a couple of years ago! - skip to about 3.40. There aren't many folks who are worse singers than me but this could be one of them.





Mike and I knew Southside's version of this before it became familiar to all of us when it was featured on 'The Promise'.  Hearts Of Stone is also a Southside classic and I prefer his version of All The Way Home to Bruce's. We are still waiting to hear this live.

Here they are doing that version together.



A Southside show doesn't give me the collywobbles in the same way as a Springsteen gig does. I'm so excited before a Bruce show I can hardly eat. The first show of a new tour is always the worst. Will it be as good as the last tour? How will the new songs sound? How will Bruce sound? How many of the classics will we hear? Will we get any of the songs from the more recent albums?  Once that first show is out of the way I relax a little but there is a special frisson of excitement before any Bruce show that nothing else can match...nothing else at all!

Don't get me wrong I was really looking forward to Saturday but whether it was a good or bad show wasn't so important to me. Actually I've never seen either Bruce or Johnny put on a bad show.  There are some I've enjoyed more than others but that's down to the set list. Can't fault the effort they both put in night after night.

Anyway I took my trusty little note book with me to try to piece together the set list. I knew I would have to be creative with my notes as the titles of most songs would elude me.  I popped down a line or two if I had no clue but it was surprisingly easy to work out the title once I had heard the chorus through a couple of times.

Here's the (almost) full list

Cross That Line
I Played The Fool
Baby Don't Lie
All Night Long
Gin Soaked Boy
Without Love
Lead Me On
?
Why Is Love Such A Sacrifice
Forever
I Remember Last Night
Harder Than It Looks
Walk Away Renee
Number One Son
Love On The Wrong Side Of Town
This Time It's For Real
Talk To Me
Happy


A couple sung by the keyboard player
A Song For You (The Carpenters)
I'm A Man(The Spencer Davis Group)


I Don't Wanna Go Home
Trapped Again
The Fever
One More Night To Rock
Hearts Of Stone

Oh and Bernie was there.

The latest rumour on the Bruce album front is a release date of February 2012.  I love a good bout of speculation but even I am getting a bit cheesed off with all this now.  Lets hope that the next time we hear anything it's a bit more concrete.

Bruce is planning to get himself up on stage though.  He's going to be in Pittsburgh with Joe Grushecky on 3rd and 4th of November.  For anyone who wants to see some earlier performances check out Blogness on the Edge of Town.

That's all for this week.