Milan 7th June 2012 - show 31

Mike outside the San Siro - sadly not there to see Bruce

Milan is Italy's second largest city.

Daft fact - the  aperitivo was actually started by i milanesi. An aperitivo is the Italian version of the Anglo-Saxon ‘Happy Hour’.

The photo above has been taken from Flickr and belongs to maxalbino's photostream

We had a lot of friends at this gig, and boy, they picked a good one!  According to Backstreets when I had a quick look this morning this was Bruce's second longest concert ever.  Looking now I see they seem to have changed this to 'one of the longest of Springsteen's career'

Arguably the longest show was during The River tour.  This from Wikipedia. ' The most famous of the shows on the tour is probably the New Years Eve 1980 one at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, New York. With a set list 38 songs strong, it is one of the longest Springsteen shows of all time and also often regarded as one of the best'


Surely this Milan show is destined to become part of Springsteen folklore.  Definitely an
I-was-there show.

I told Mike after the last tour that next time we would go to Spain, Italy or Sweden. It's well known  that the audiences in all three countries are the best around and Bruce always puts on a great show for them.  Where are we going? Sunderland, Manchester and Paris. Ah well perhaps next tour.

Here is the very long set list.

	Lisbon 03/06/12 Time 00.15 (on 04/06) to 2.40	Milan 07/06/12 Time 08.40 to 11.58
1	We Take Care Of Our Own (30)	We Take Care Of Our Own (31)
2	Wrecking Ball (30)	Wrecking Ball (31)
3	Badlands (24)	Badlands (25)
4	Death To My Home Town (30)	Death To My Hometown (31)
5	My City Of Ruins (30)	My City Of Ruins (31)
6	Spirit In The Night (8)	Spirit In The Night (9)
7	Because The Night (10)	E Street Shuffle (9)
8	No Surrender (6)	Jack Of All Trades (29)
9	She’s The One (12)	Candy’s Room (6)
10	I’m On Fire (2)	Darkness On The Edge Of Town (5)
11	Shackled And Drawn (18)	Johnny 99 (8)
12	Waitin’ On A Sunny Day (30)	Out In The Street (14)
13	The River (8)	No Surrender (7)
14	The Rising (29)	Working On The Highway (7)
15	Lonesome Day (15)	Shackled And Drawn (19)
16	We Are Alive (29)	Waitin’ on a Sunny Day (31)
17	Thunder Road	The Promised Land (25)
18	Born In The USA (9)	The Promise (2)
19	Born To Run (30)	The River (9)
20	Glory Days (4)	The Rising (30)
21	Hungry Heart (6)	Radio Nowhere (4)
22	Dancing In The Dark (30)	We Are Alive (30)
23	Tenth Avenue Freeze Out (30)	Land Of Hope And Dreams (20)
24	Twist And Shout (1)	Rocky Ground (27)
25		Born In The USA (10)
26		Born To Run (31)
27		Cadillac Ranch (2)
28		Hungry Heart (7)
29		Bobby Jean (6)
30		Dancing In The Dark (31)
31		Tenth Avenue Freeze Out (31)
32		Glory Days (5)
33		Twist And Shout (2)

By consensus of opinion among my Bruce buddies this was the highlight of a night of many highlights.

Washington DC Sunday 1st April 2012 - show 7

Distance from Philadelphia to Washington DC is about 137 miles. Total so far?  2625 miles.

Life is full of good and bad, highs and lows, pluses and minuses. We get The Promise but the trade off is Adam Raised A Cain.  I've tried to like Adam. We've heard it live and I must admit Bruce gives it everything. It's just not for me.  

The Promise on the other hand - well I would be thrilled to hear this one live.  

Wouldn't say 'no' to a three hour show either!

Atlanta 18/03/12 Time 8.10 to 10.44	Washington DC 01/04/12 Time 8.26 to 11.27
We Take Care Of Our Own	We Take Care Of Our Own (7)
Wrecking Ball	Wrecking Ball (7)
Badlands	Night (2)
Death To My Hometown	Death To My Hometown (7)
My City Of Ruins	My City Of Ruins (7)
The E Street Shuffle	Seaside Bar Song (2)
Jack Of All Trades	Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street (3)
Seeds	Jack Of All Trades (7)
Easy Money	Trapped (2)
Waitin' On A Sunny Day	Adam Raised A Cain (1)
The Promised Land	Easy Money (7)
The Way You Do The Things You Do	She’s The One (2)
634 -5789	Waitin’ On A Sunny Day (7)
Shackled And Drawn	The Promise (1)
Lonesome Day	The Way You Do The Things You Do (7)
The Rising	634-5789 (7)
We Are Alive	American Skin (41 Shots) (3)
Thunder Road	Because The Night (2)
Rocky Ground	The Rising (7)
Land Of Hope And Dreams	We Are Alive (7)
Born To Run	Thunder Road (7)
Dancing In The Dark	Rocky Ground (7)
American Land	Out In The Street (1)
Tenth Avenue Freeze Out	Born To Run (7)
	Dancing In The Dark (7)
	Land Of Hope And Dreams (6)
	Tenth Avenue Freeze Out (7)

Looks Like Out In The Street was a sign.

I'm So Excited

So who's getting excited then? - ME!!!!!!.

Only three weeks until the new album and only 130 days (or if you prefer 3120 hours or 187200 minutes or even 11232000 seconds) until my first gig of the new tour. By then Bruce will have already done 35 concerts so, being an avid set list watcher, I will pretty much know what the nightly staples will be.

There'll be time for him to change it around a bit if it's not working.  There were only six new songs in the set list at at the beginning of the Working on a Dream tour. By the time we saw him in Dublin they'd been whittled down to three. 

On The Rising tour there were 11 new songs in the set when the tour started in August 2002.  All of these were still present and correct when we saw Bruce at Wembley Arena in October.  By the time Old Trafford came around in May the following year 9 songs were still there. At the time the band remarked how quickly the fans had taken to The Rising - do I remember this from interviews they did prior to televising the show from Barcelona? 

We all know that Bruce has a pretty good feel for the audience, so what we hear this tour, may depend on how well he percieves the new stuff is going down.

Of course there are other new (old) songs for Bruce to draw on, as he hasn't been out and about much since The Promise was released.  Now, I really like The Promise and I had hoped, at the time that Bruce would tour with it. Who knows I may like Wrecking Ball just as much but I'd still love to hear, perhaps, Wrong Side of the Street or The Brokenhearted or better still It's A Shame.

When I first heard It's a Shame I thought it would have been a great song for Southside Johnny but Bruce must have wanted to hold onto it himself at the time. The song has horns - lots of them - a great fit for The Jukes. 

Now we know what Bruce has in store for us. Perfectly described here. I quote in part:

Can we call them the new Miami Horns??? Yes it will take 5 accomplished, mortal men to replace one Big Man! When Bruce Spingsteen hits the road next month, he will have a 5-piece horn section which will include Ed Mannion and Jake Clemons (Clarence's nephew) on sax, Barry Danielan and Curt Ramm on trumpet and Clark Gayton on trombone.

Most impressive, Boss!!!

So Bruce a horns section. It would be a shame not to play It's a Shame. 

I might have an ally here in Little Steven

I think we share the same music taste as second album of Tracks is also one of my faves.  Give me Loose Ends or Where The Bands Are any day.  Actually I've been lucky enough to hear both of these live already but a second time wouldn't hurt.

Anyway, before all that, the thing that has me brimming over with excitement today are The Grammys.  I can't wait to see this first live performance of We Take Care of Our Own.  Apparently it went down a storm at rehearsals according to The Toronto Sun:

The 62-year-old singer-guitarist took to the stage at L.A.'s Staples Center to perform his new single We Take Care of Our Own, but quickly turned the normally subdued rehearsal process into an energized mini-concert for a few hundred lucky onlookers.

Accompanied by a string section and backed by his long-serving band — minus sax player Clarence Clemons, who died last year — Springsteen delivered several powerful, commanding performances of the song. Although it was ostensibly just a runthrough for TV and technical crews, The Boss played and sang as if he were in a sold-out arena instead of a nearly empty one. Clad in a black-leather jacket over jeans and a V-neck T-shirt, he windmilled and slashed away at the strings of his Telecaster, at one point jumping onto his upturned Marshall speaker cabinets to commune with drummer Max Weinberg. Between takes, he helped teach the string section their parts, standing on an amp to conduct. "They sound good," he enthused. "We're getting there. Almost."

Springsteen's performances — which generated more interest and applause than any Grammy rehearsal I've seen — was an early highlight on the second day of prep for the 54th annual awards.

Here in the UK when anything like this is on there is always much discussion beforehand about whether or not we will be able to see it.  As I write this we are thinking we might have access to the live stream. It'll involve staying up until 1.00am though and I have work in the morning. I understand there will be highlights on UK TV on Monday night - nearly as late though 12.30am!...so actually Tuesday morning.

So my friends over the pond we are relying on you to get something up on YouTube by the time we are up and about on Monday morning.

Hello Dolly

It's been a bit of a Brucey week for me this week considering the man himself seems to have gone to ground.  Lets hope he is working on a new album and sorting out the itinerary for a new tour.

On Monday we nipped to our local retail park and whilst we were there I thought I might as well visit HMV. A chap was hovering around the Springsteen DVDs but I knew just what I wanted so pushed in front of him, picked up The Promise and headed off back to the car. Knew I wouldn't have time to watch it.  In fact I forgot all about it for a couple of days. Trouble was I also forgot we now have a Blu Ray player and I had bought the bog standard DVD.

So Wednesday evening after work I'm at HMV in town doing the swap.
 'Is this the one that was on the telly' asks the chap serving me
'Yep it was in the box set too'
'Can't get that any more wanted to buy it at the time but couldn't afford it.  Awesome documentary'.
Assistant next to him buts in 'Is that the box set that cost about £90? I've never known anything so expensive sell so fast'

Me - well I'm feeling quite smug and proud of our man at this moment. Lets face it most people think Bruce is a has been. In our circle of friends we have a large proportion of Springsteen fans but in the wider world we are part of an increasingly small minority. I know there are new fans all the time and I don't have the stats, but I suspect the fan base decreases year on year. So I'm chuffed to know that Bruce can still draw the attention of young HMV staff.

Cupcake salt and pepper set

Went into Urban Outfitters after this to buy these. Saw them in a magazine and knew they were just the thing for our kitchen. Whilst I was there I saw album frames. I bought BITUSA for a couple of quid from Ebay a few years ago. It isn't my favourite album but it was the first Springsteen album we bought although we had the cassette. I talk about this in my earlier post.

I actually bought the album to frame and put on the kitchen wall - this is also just the thing for our kitchen. If you want to know more about our kitchen the Ideal Home Magazine article is here. Anyway it's in the frame but not yet on the wall.





Wednesday night in the absence of anything else we had The Sopranos on the TV in the background. This sort of passed us by when it was on originally but I started to buy the box sets.  I was hoping for another West Wing but it didn't grab me in the same way.  Now we know the characters, though, it's easy enough to watch the odd episode.  Of course the Bruce connection makes it watchable.  Well we haven't watched it for weeks but the very episode we happen upon there's a bit of Bruce dialogue.  Copied from Entertainment Weekly:-


Early on in the episode, the script calls for Tony to make a Boss wisecrack. A Fed whose unit has been taping Tony's associates tells him, ''There's something we want you to hear.'' Tony shoots back: ''The Springsteen box set? I already got it.'' But that's just nervous bravado — by this time, he's been shaken by the ultimate betrayal: He's pretty sure that his mother (Nancy Marchand), and his uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese) have ordered his death. Why? Because the anxiety-attacked Tony's been seeing a therapist (Lorraine Bracco's Dr. Melfi), and they're afraid he's blabbed too much family business to an outsider.


They play State Trooper over the end credits too. Might mean nothing to some folk but it's the sort of coincidence I like.

As far Soprano quotes go though this has to be the best:-

Anthony 'Tony' Soprano Sr.: Where the fuck have you been? You're late! 
Christopher: Sorry, the highway was jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive. 


Another chance happening yesterday - getting back to the car and turning the radio on in the middle of  Danny and the Champions' version of Tougher Than The Rest. It's the first time I have heard it but can't find it anywhere on You Tube to share it with you.  Think it's only available on vinyl on the Record Store Day EP and I don't have a record player any more.  Anyway if you want to listen Dermot O'Leary played it yesterday on his Radio 2 show.

This weekend I've spent most of my time trying to finish the Bruce doll.  It's taken me longer than I thought. I was having to make it up as I went along so there were a few false starts. I really enjoyed making it though. I see rag dolls sell for anything from £16.00 to £69.00 on some online shopping sites. Can't see me ever making enough to earn my fortune though.

Anyway here he is - not quite finished.  He needs a guitar strap and some boots.

Not the best likeness. I hope my next one (if I make one) will be better.  I think it's one up from this though!  Scary!