First night in London

The first show in London has been the longest show of the tour so far, with 28 songs and 2 hours and 47 minutes.

"Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" has been the opening show tonight, in a show that surprisingly hasn't included the stunning "She's the One" (Bruce has played "Working on the highway" instead, during which he has been picking up all kinds of request signs from the fans in the pit).

"Prove it all Night", possibly for the first time ever, hasn't featured the usual guitar solo. Instead, "Because the Night", has indeed included a long and delirious guitar solo from Nils Lofgren. "Cadillac Ranch" has been one of the songs performed thanks to one of those signs Bruce picked up. The same goes for the beautiful rendition of "Point Blank" ("it's request time!", he said).

Songs like "Mary's Place", "Thunder Road", "Gory Days" or "Badlands" have received the most enthusiastic response from the London audience.

See complete set list.

fotos: copyright 2008 Point Blank

Manchester

Bruce Springsteen delivered tonight another great show in Manchester, perfectly combining songs from most of his albums, from the early ones like Greetings from Asbury Park ("Saint in the City", "Growin' Up") and The Wild, The Innocent... ("Rosalita"), to his most famous albums Born to Run ("Night", "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out", "Born to run") or Born in the U.S.A. ("No Surrender", "Dancing in the Dark", "Darlington County"), alongside the new stuff off Magic (including today the rarely performed "I'll Work For Your Love") and some raritites ("Trapped").

A very long 6-song encore lasted well over half an hour. In tota, nine different songs from the previous show.

See complete set list.
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RIP: David Gahr, photographer

You are probably very familiar with the photo on the right, as it was used in the cover one of Bruce Springsteen's best albums: The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle. The author, photographer David Gahr, passed away on Monday. He was 85. Gahr took also the famous picture of The E Street Band that appears on the backcover of the album, taken in 1973.

Gahr was a prestigious photographer, who shot and worked with all the big names in music, from John Lennon to Janis Joplin, including Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson, Charles Mingus or Miles Davis, and his work was featured in many album and magazine covers.

Videos from Dublin 25th May

Spirit in the Night:


Rosalita:


Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out:


Ramrod:

New photo gallery: Dublin 25 May

Check out the new photo gallery with photos from the May 25th concert in Dublin, by René Van Diemen.

Greetings from Dublin

Finally, another one of those nights! Nothing can go wrong when Bruce and the E Street Band are in full force, delivering the goods. And there were quite an amount of great goodies tonight: "Spirit in the Night", "Sandy", "Rosalita", "The Ties That Bind", "Atlantic City", "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out", "Growin' Up", "Racing in the Street". Want more? When the show was over after "American Land", the band came onstage again to deliver yet two more: "Ramrod" and "Glory Days". 2 hours and 40 minutes, 26 songs.

See complete set list.

See photo gallery with pictures from the May 23rd show.

Photo: copyright 2008 René Van Diemen.

Dublin #2

Second show in Dublin, with 9 changes over the previous night which doesn't help much as Bruce and the band deliver a very uninspired performance. Welcome to the beer & stadium tour.

See complete set list.

Photo: copyright 2008 René Van Diemen

'Magic' tour returns to Europe

The 2008 European Tour has begun tonight with a show in Dublin. "The Promised Land" has been the opening song of a "greatest hits"-oriented show, Bruce going on the safe side playing all the hits that please so many fans, such as "Mary's Place", "Waitin' On a Sunny Day", "The River", "Thunder Road" or "Bobby Jean", while most of the stunning material he was doing at the U.S. shows has been left aside (and if you wonder: we mean "Kitty's Back", "Racing in the Street", "Jungleland", "Streets of Fire", "Rosalita" or some of his finest brand new songs like "Your Own Worst Enemy"). Here's hoping this was the "first night" syndrome.

See complete set list.

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Two videos

First, a real gem: a previously uncirculated film recorded in Houston on Sept. 13th, 1975, during the Born to Run tour. Filmed by a fan in the front row with an 8mm camera. The sound has been added later and comes from a well known soundboard recording of the same show. This is vintage Springsteen, full of energy.



The second is a very recent video. Not great quality, as it was shot with a cell phone, but a unique document nonetheless as it was shot at the recent Ranney School benefit concert. An exclusive event which only parents and teachers of the Ranney School could attend. It's the first glimpse of one of those private concerts for the school. Filmed at The Stone Pony, in Asbury Park, New Jersey, May 17th 2008.

Bruce Springsteen joins Mike Ness at Asbury Park concert

On Saturday May 17th Springsteen joined Mike Ness (ex-Social Distortion) onstage at the second of two shows Ness had at the Stone Pony club in Asbury Park, NJ. Bruce joined for 5 songs during the encores, including the classic "I Fought The Law".

Both had formerly worked together on Ness' 1999 album Cheating at Solitaire, which had Springsteen singing and playing guitar on some songs.

See complete set list.

Springsteen plays school benefit in Asbury Park

No rest for Springsteen. During the break between the American and European legs of the Magic tour he found time again for another show in a small venue: The Stone Pony in Asbury Park. The yearly benefit show for his kid's school, which only parents and teachers can attend, featured the usual mix of oldies and original songs.

Backed by Bobby Bandiera and his band, with help from Southside Johnny and Patti Scialfa, Springsteen played for nearly two and a half hours. The set list included lots of soul covers (Sam & Dave's "Hold On I'm Coming", Marvin Gaye's "It Takes Two", "Tell Him" or "Time is On My Side"), rock classics ("Detroit Medley", "Seven Nights to Rock" or "Twist and Shout") plus a variety of his own tunes, from the obvious ("Darlington County", "Rendezvous", "Thunder Road" -done solo on electric guitar- or "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out") to the more obscure or unusual ("Man's Job", "The Fever", "Cover Me", "From Small Things" or "Pink Cadillac") including the recent "Girls in their summer clothes".

See complete set list.

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New photo gallery: Dallas

Check out our Photos page to check the new photo gallery, with photos from Dallas.


See photo gallery

New photo galleries: Tampa, Greensboro & Charlottesville

Check out our Photos page to check the new photo galleries, with photos from Tampa (by René Van Diemen), plus Greensboro & Charlottesville (by Jos Westenberg).

See Tampa.

See Greensboro & Charlottesville.

The Dream Show

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in a theatre! Something that hadn't happened since 1980, early on The River tour. Though originally announced as "An Evening with Bruce Springsteen" it was finally a Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert. Yesterday's show raised $3 million as a benefit for the theatre.

If seeing Bruce and the E Street Band in a theatre is already a major event, it's even bigger when the concert is, indeed, a unique event. As Bruce announced this was "something we've never done before and you're not gonna see anywhere else".

And unique it was, as they performed both Darkness and Born to Run (the albums) in their entirety and its original order. The evening started with the full Darkness album, from "Badlands" to "Darkness on the edge of town", being performed. After a short pause, like in the old times, the band came back onstage to perform Born to Run in full, from "Thunder Road" to "Jungleland", and with a little help: The Max Weinberg Horns (Mark Pender, La Bamba, Jerry Vivino and Ed Manion) came onstage for "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out", during which Bruce jumped to the front rows and onto the seats, like in the old times.

Come encore time, four more jewels: the 1975 outtake "So Young and In Love" followed by "Kitty's Back", "Rosalita" and "Raise Your Hand", with Bruce jumping on the piano and the horns in full force (for all four songs).


See complete set list



Video: New Jersey's Channel 12 TV report.

Springsteen on Time's "Top 100" most influential people list

This week's issue of Time magazine, includes Bruce Springsteen in their "Top 100" list of most influential people in the world. And the person chosen to write about Bruce is no other than actor/director Sean Penn (read).

Rolling Stone's May 1st issue ("Best of 2008" issue) also has an article about Bruce Springsteen. This time to name Bruce and the E Street Band as "best live band in 2008". David Fricke writes about it (read).

Videos of Bruce Springsteen in Greensboro 2008

TV clips of the first four songs in Greensboro (April 28, 2008): Roulette, Don't Look Back, Radio Nowhere and Out In The Street.

Bruce Springsteen enters New Jersey Hall of Fame

Springsteen got inducted yesterday into the brand new New Jersey Hall of Fame. He's part of the first class of inductees in the NJ Hall of Fame, along with other famous NJ citizens such as astronaut Buzz Aldrin, scientists Thomas Edison or Albert Einstein, actress Meryl Streep or the two most famous singers from the state: Frank Sinatra and Bruce Springsteen.

La Bamba and the Hubcaps were the house band for the evening, and Springsteen closed the ceremony joining them onstage to play guitar on Sam & Dave's "I Thank You" and sing on "Glory Days".

Upcoming show: it's been confirmed that Bruce's benefit concert on May 7th at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank won't be an acoustic affair but a full band show with The E Street Band, this being their first theatre show since The River tour.

Video: "Glory Days" (Bruce Springsteen & La Bamba and the Hubcaps")


Video: Springsteen inducts Frank Sinatra.


Video: Springsteen's induction speech.

Ft. Lauderdale

The Spring U.S. tour came to an end last night in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with a great show that found Bruce and the band in full force, opening with "The Promised Land" inmediately followed by the tour debut of "I Wanna Be With You" and the welcome comeback of "This Hard Land". Bruce told then some stories about the early days of the E Street Band, before playing "Growin' Up".

A special guest came up for the encores, Bruce's airplane pilot James Michael Brown, who, as Bruce said "he plays the trumpet!". His performance added some extra horn power to "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out". After a good set of encores (which included "Thunder Road" and "Rosalita") and the usual end with "American Land", Bruce & co went back to the stage, as it happened in Cincinnati, for a final extra encore of "Kitty's Back".

See complete set list.

Coming next: the beginning of a 3-month European tour of stadiums, with three shows in Dublin starting May 22nd.

Charlottesville

The penultimate concert of the U.S. Spring tour didn't bring any song premieres. Anyway, no one will complain with a memorable opening song such as "Loose Ends", in a show that also included "For You", "Adam Raised a Cain" or "Meeting Across the River". Perhaps some hardcore fans will complain a little when they find out what Bruce wrote on his set list but choosed not to play: "Streets of Fire" (second time it's set listed but not performed), "This Hard Land" or "I Wanna Be With You".

The U.S. tour ends Friday night with the postponed show in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.


See complete set list.