East Rutherford 19th September 2012 - show 65

So here we are - the first of three shows at The Met Life Stadium.  There had been discussions in our house about whether to go or not.  In the end we decided not !

There was a time when going to see Bruce in New Jersey was one of my top ambitions. After this year's European tour, and the rave reviews about the crowds as well as the set lists, I wonder whether it is better to spend our hard earned cash on extra shows in Europe.

Speaking of the overseas shows I'm not sure where this reviewer got his information about the Europeans:-

This was also Springsteen’s first Jersey show since his three-month semester abroad, and naturally some of us were anxious. Would The Boss play the guitar with his pinky out? Would he be wearing a beret?

Anyway back to tonight. There are no shortage of reviews for tonight's show.  Of course Bruce's first show at The Met Life Stadium was always going to be a big event. 

There are the reviews we have come to expect this tour like the one from examiner.com :-

Bruce, now age 62 played for nearly 4 impossibly romantic and superhuman hours. Bruce's energy, crowd surfing and performance was so powerful it can only be described as religious...
...Once you've seen Bruce live, you will have no doubt how he earned his notorious nickname, The Boss.

But from Tris McCall on NJ.com a slightly different take:-

It might have been the approach of autumn that was getting to him, or the prospect of facing a new Meadowlands stadium, for the first time, without Clarence Clemons by his side. Maybe he was thinking about his 63rd birthday, which arrives, like one of those freight trains he’s always singing about, on Sunday. 

Even the charismatic street preacher persona he has cultivated on recent tours is fading away, replaced by something quieter, more reverential and, occasionally, even wordless. During “My City of Ruins,” a nightly dedication to the two late members of the E Street Band, he nearly stopped the song cold to hover for a silent minute at Clarence Clemons’ former station. The natural entertainer disappeared, replaced by a man momentarily oblivious to the world around him. So much of this tour has been dedicated to exhibitions of Springsteen’s superhuman virility. Here, he did not look young — and didn’t try to.  

And this review is written in the same vein:-

I've seen Bruce on stage many time, but this was the oddest concert of them all. Try as he could, he couldn't shake the ghosts that haunted the Stadium, chilling on the chilly night. And the result was a concert that didn't deliver Bruce's magic, his ability to rise us up. We couldn't quite get there. he was too down. It was a downer. It was like hanging with a friend who is always kidding around (somebody like me, to be honest) when they are feeling sad. They try and shake it off but it lingers.


So to the set list.

About three hours before the show Bruce appeared on stage to do a couple of songs acoustically - Growin’ Up and For You.

The set is a 'Patti list' if you see what I mean - Human Touch, Mansion On The Hill and Easy Money all feature her vocals.

I think I'm at odds with most people in saying I like the Bruce and Patti version of Mansion On The Hill.  I would've been happy to see this live so no apologies for the You Tube clip below which also takes in the ice cream story Stan Goldstein mentions in this review.

	Washington DC 14/09/12 Time 8.24 to 11.54	East Rutherford 19/09/12 Time 8.30 to 12.24
1	Prove It All Night (23)	Shackled And Drawn (49)
2	My Love Will Not Let You Down (8)	Prove It All Night (24)
3	The Ties That Bind (14)	The Ties That Bind (15)
4	Hungry Heart (24)	Hungry Heart (25)
5	We Take Care Of Our Own (64)	We Take Care Of Our Own (65)
6	Wrecking Ball (64)	Wrecking Ball (65)
7	Death To My Hometown (64)	Death To My Hometown (65)
8	My City Of Ruins (64)	My City Of Ruins (65)
9	Spirit In The Night (36)	Spirit In The Night (37)
10	Blinded By The Light (1)	E Street Shuffle (17)
11	Jack Of All Trades (54)	Jack Of All Trades (55)
12	Jackson Cage (4)	Human Touch (3)
13	She’s The One (21)	Johnny 99 (20)
14	Johnny 99 (19)	Darlington County (20)
15	Darlington County (19)	Working On A Highway (32)
16	Shackled And Drawn (48)	Easy Money (18)
17	Waitin’ on a Sunny Day (64)	The Promised Land (37)
18	The Promised Land (36)	Waitin’ On A Sunny Day (65)
19	Racing In The Street (9)	Mansion On The Hill (1)
20	The Rising (56)	Racing In The Street (10)
21	Badlands (57)	The Rising (57)
22	Land Of Hope And Dreams (43)	Badlands (58)
23	We Are Alive (53)	Land Of Hope And Dreams (44)
24	Thunder Road (38)	We Are Alive (54)
25	Born To Run (64)	Thunder Road (39)
26	Detroit Medley (3)	Born To Run (65)
27	Dancing In The Dark (64)	Rosalita (14)
28	Tenth Avenue Freeze Out (63)	Dancing In The Dark (65)
29	American Land (11)	Tenth Avenue Freeze Out (64)
30	Twist And Shout (24)	Twist And Shout (25)
31
32
33

Washington DC 14th September 2012 - show 64

That famous red phone that’s depicted in many movies isn’t actually in the Oval Office. It’s in the Pentagon.

So here we are in Washington DC after nearly a weeks rest. I wonder whether Bruce is getting a bit jaded yet. He doesn't seem to be flagging at all unlike me. It's becoming more difficult to think of anything useful to say so I'll leave it to others. 

From this blog :- 

There aren't many things worth an unplanned hour of standing around to get in the door and then get something to eat, along with standing another 90 minutes on packed subway trains to get home. However, one such thing is the opportunity, in between all that standing, to stand for three hours of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band. 

The whole piece is a good read.  I've pulled out another couple of paragraphs here :-

To the average fan, the most famous Roy Bittan intro is probably "Jungleland", but I'll go out on a limb and say for the diehards, there are no opening piano notes that go right to the heart like the ones that tell you that you've been lucky enough to show up for a setlist that includes "Racing In The Street". 

And this one was a beauty. Springsteen sang the first two verses at a standstill, holding that old guitar aloft with one hand. He brought it down, told the rest of the part of the story that you can tell with words, and the band entered what you'd consider a sacred space in the Church of Bruce, the "Racing" coda. Roy took the spotlight on the piano but didn't overplay his fills, and as they appeared to sit there on a stage in a center field on a warm, cloudy night in Washington, the band motored through a stretch of paved and lonely sanctuary in Just Outside Somewhere, New Jersey.

... If you can go, then go. Just get a good night's sleep, and wear comfortable shoes. Rock and roll does not exist to give you all that you can sit.

This article  points out the uniqueness of a Washington DC audience:-

Ours is the only city on Earth where you can hear the most mythologized musician of his time sing about America’s powerless to America’s powerful. And that’s sorta weird, right?

...Whether he’s touring the Rust Belt, the Bible Belt, the Garden State or olde Europe, the man gets up there for three-plus hours and sweats his soul. 

...Hearing adulation like this can be intoxicating. Or terrifying. But it all speaks to the Herculean responsibilities we’ve heaped on poor Bruce in the past decade. Whenever a new Springsteen album lands, we expect it to embody our values, understand our struggles and illuminate our future. In other words, we expect Springsteen to do what we expect politicians to do, which is probably why so many politicians love Springsteen.

According to NJ.com Nothing Man was sound checked. It didn't turn up in the set though.

Here's the list. A good solid list for me. No stand-outs but nothing I don't like. 

	Chicago 08/09/2012 Time 8.14 to 11.14	Washington DC 14/09/2012 Time 8.24 to 11.54
1	The Promised Land (35)	Prove It All Night (23)
2	The Ties That Bind (13)	My Love Will Not Let You Down (8)
3	No Surrender (18)	The Ties That Bind (14)
4	Hungry Heart (23)	Hungry Heart (24)
5	We Take Care Of Our Own (63)	We Take Care Of Our Own (64)
6	Wrecking Ball (63)	Wrecking Ball (64)
7	Death To My Hometown (63)	Death To My Hometown (64)
8	My City Of Ruins (63)	My City Of Ruins (64)
9	E Street Shuffle (16)	Spirit In The Night (36)
10	Pay Me My Money Down (3)	Blinded By The Light (1)
11	This Depression (3)	Jack Of All Trades (54)
12	My Hometown (2)	Jackson Cage (4)
13	Darkness On The Edge Of Town (10)	She’s The One (21)
14	Because The Night (26)	Johnny 99 (19)
15	Working On The Highway (31)	Darlington County (19)
16	Shackled And Drawn (47)	Shackled And Drawn (48)
17	Waitin’ On A Sunny Day (63)	Waitin’ on a Sunny Day (64)
18	Who’ll Stop The Rain (6)	The Promised Land (36)
19	Ghost Of Tom Joad (6)	Racing In The Street (9)
20	Badlands (56)	The Rising (56)
21	Thunder Road (37)	Badlands (57)
22	Rocky Ground (33)	Land Of Hope And Dreams (43)
23	Born To Run (63)	We Are Alive (53)
24	Rosalita (13)	Thunder Road (38)
25	Dancing In The Dark (63)	Born To Run (64)
26	Tenth Avenue Freeze Out (62)	Detroit Medley (3)
27	American Land (10)	Dancing In The Dark (64)
28		Tenth Avenue Freeze Out (63)
29		American Land (11)
30		Twist And Shout (24)
31
32
33

Chicago 8th September 2012 - show 63

The infamous “Route 66″ starts in Chicago at Grant Park on Adams Street in front of the Art Institute of Chicago?

http://coolbeforedawn.com/2012/09/bruce-springsteen-links-sun-9-sept-2012/

Very scant reviews from tonight's show.  Backstreets has a brief paragraph and NJ.com doesn't say much more. It rained is about the sum of it!

The video of Tenth Avenue Freeze Out from YouTube has this note:-

You might notice in the big screens that Bruce had a cut on his right hand which was present for the last three or four songs. One of the reasons the show was shortened about 20 minutes from the previous night.

So a short post...

...and here's the set list

	Chicago 07/09/2012 Time 3hrs 25 mins - don't know the start and finish times.	Chicago 08/09/2012 Time 8.14 to 11.14
1	Prove It All Night (22)	The Promised Land (35)
2	My Love Will Not Let You Down (7)	The Ties That Bind (13)
3	Out In The Street (31)	No Surrender (18)
4	Hungry Heart (22)	Hungry Heart (23)
5	We Take Care Of Our Own (62)	We Take Care Of Our Own (63)
6	Wrecking Ball (62)	Wrecking Ball (63)
7	Death To My Hometown (62)	Death To My Hometown (63)
8	My City Of Ruins (62)	My City Of Ruins (63)
9	Spirit In The Night (35)	E Street Shuffle (16)
10	Trapped (13)	Pay Me My Money Down (3)
11	Jack Of All Trades (53)	This Depression (3)
12	Atlantic City (11)	My Hometown (2)
13	Lonesome Day (22)	Darkness On The Edge Of Town (10)
14	I’m Goin’ Down (4)	Because The Night (26)
15	Darlington County (18)	Working On The Highway (31)
16	Shackled And Drawn (46)	Shackled And Drawn (47)
17	Waitin’ On A Sunny Day (62)	Waitin’ On A Sunny Day (63)
18	None But The Brave (1)	Who’ll Stop The Rain (6)
19	Ghost Of Tom Joad (5)	Ghost Of Tom Joad (6)
20	Badlands (55)	Badlands (56)
21	Land Of Hope And Dreams (42)	Thunder Road (37)
22	We Are Alive (51)	Rocky Ground (33)
23	Thunder Road (36)	Born To Run (63)
24	Born To Run (62)	Rosalita (13)
25	Dancing In The Dark (62)	Dancing In The Dark (63)
26	Jungleland (4)	Tenth Avenue Freeze Out (62)
27	Tenth Avenue Freeze Out (61)	American Land (10)
28	Twist And Shout (23)
29
30
31
32
33