1975-09-12 Municipal Auditorium, Austin, TX

Scheduled: ??:?? Local Start Time ??:?? / End Time ??:??

Info & Setlist | Venue

"The E Street Shuffle" includes "Having A Party". "Thunder Road" is the slow version with Roy on piano and Bruce on harmonica and vocals. "Kitty's Back" includes the spaceship story (which runs for 3.45). "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" includes a snippet of "Theme From Shaft" in the midsection. "Twist And Shout" closes out with a brief "Save The Last Dance For Me". The final encore of Bobby Fuller's "I Fought The Law", Springsteen's first performance of the song, is missing from the circulating audio, but is confirmed by an eyewitness and by a (mostly negative) review in the September 14 Austin American-Statesman.

12.09.75 Austin, TX, intro to ´It´s Gonna Work Out Fine´
´´Oh, enough of all this jumping around and stuff (chuckles) enough of all this jumping around and dancing around and stuff, we´re gonna bring the band down a little bit….yes it is ….Clarence, I saw a friend of mine the other day….yes I did….I was walking down the boardwalk and there´s this cat coming my direction and I knew I recognised him, right, ´cause I found out, I got a little closer and I realised he was, he played the organ in one of my bands that I had before, you know, and he was there and he had this little blonde lady with him and he had a little kid with him, right, I ain´t seen him in about five years or nothing so we stopped, we was talking and stuff, ´How you doing ? what´s going ?´, you know…. ´Where´d you get all that hair on your face ?´ and stuff like that, you know, and he told me he was married and he hadn´t been playing too much lately and, uh, had the kid, you know, and was like, this like art designer type of guy or something, was doing something like that, and it set me thinking ´bout all the cats I was…..in the earlier bands with, I was in my bands with that like had settled down and got hitched up and stuff….you know, it´s like, I don´t think hardly any of ´em still playing any more, you know, it´s like you get, you know you´re getting older when you see ´em, you know, this guy´s getting married, this guy´s settling down, this guy´s got this steady job here and you´re still out running around and, you know, messing up all over and stuff but….we got some married folks in the crowd here ? (?) yeah ? that´s good, only two, one, two, three, come on, let´s go (chuckles) who´s married, man ?…. right on, gimme a ´right on´ for the married folks (Clarence: ´Right on, right on´) this is for the married folks….this is, tell me, this must´ve been what it´s like, you know, when you decided to like do this (?) are you ready, band ?….´´

12.09.75 Austin, TX, intro to ´Growin´Up´ (following ´It´s Gonna Work Out Fine´)
´´That was for all the married folks….(chuckles)….this is for all the young folks…..´´

12.09.75 Austin, TX, intro to ´The E Street Shuffle´
´´(?)….BAM !….oh yeah…..(?)….bam…..it´s about, it´s about three, no, about, hell, it was four or five years ago that me and Steve, me and Steve here and my bass man, Garry, we had this little band and we´re playing this club down in Asbury, Asbury Park, you know….now, we was playing this place, you know, we couldn´t get any gigs at the time, right, ´cause there´s nobody hiring unless you played like, uh, like club material and stuff, you know, and we was playing like, like, you know, Chuck Berry songs and stuff, you know, all the stuff like that, it was like…..so we went into this joint, it was about midnight, we figured we had to get a gig, we went into this place at midnight, this place called Student Prince, it was this little bar….(?) and, uh…..and, uh, there´s only about five or ten people in there at the most, right, in this place…..so we figured this is place for us, right, so we went up to the owner who was this, uh, what´d he do, Steve ? what´d Bobby do ?….he was a bricklayer, laid bricks all the time (someone yells) another bricklayer in the crowd, we got (chuckles) alright (chuckles) well, that´s what this guy did, right, this guy did this and he had, owned this bar so we, we said ´Listen, Mister, we´ll come in here, we´ll play for the door if you like, uh, we´ll play for the door, you don´t have to give us no money, we´ll charge a dollar to get in and, uh, we´ll take what we get´ so first week I went in there a, I had a seven-piece, a seven-piece band, went in there, played for a week, split up 13 bucks…..really, came back there, came back there with, next week with a five-piece band (chuckles) split up about 25 dollars, that went on and on, people started coming and we started do pretty good….so, but we played there like three or four months and started to get depressed, figured ´What´s the matter with us, man ? we ain´t got no breaks, ain´t got no deals coming, howcome we ain´t got no record, you know ?´, (?) you sit around there, all the cats in the bands, how many guys play in a band out there ? (some yells) really ? you guys, you notice like you sit around, you go ´What´s the matter ? you know, we´re as good as them cats, howcome we ain´t got a record and stuff ?´ so…..so we was sitting around one night, we, trying to figure out what we was missing….we knew all the guys played pretty good and we´re playing the right material and we had a, we knew we had like teen appeal, we had a bass player that got a long hair, right (some cheers) see, all the girls, the girls always like the bass player with a long hair, (?) he´s so quiet, he´s so shy, he´s (?) get that joke, right (chuckles) yeah, they always like the bass player (chuckles) used to always go for that stuff so we figured what´s the matter, we should have it covered, you know, but yet we was missing something so it was late, like three, it was four in the morning and me and Steve were walking north down the boardwalk, all depressed and stuff, right…..as you see Steve had his guitar with him, he always carried his guitar with him, never trusted nobody like with it and he was practising all the time, before he went to Miami and became known as Miami Steve, he was known as the Great Practiser, you see (chuckles) so…..so there he was practising, right, and there we was walking….real dark, nastiest night of the year, a nasty night, cold, it was cold, it was hot, it was raining, it was snowing (chuckles) if it was bad, it was happening (chuckles) and all of a sudden, just like that, all of a sudden down the end of the boardwalk, we see something coming at us, we don´t know what it is, I didn´t know what it is, Steve didn´t know what it was, did you ? (Steve: ´I don´t know what it is´) he didn´t know what it was….(Steve: ´It´s big, I know that´) all we knew was it was real big and was like some sort of mist coming (?) as it got closer we could see that here come this cat, the biggest guy we ever seen, all dressed in white…..walking, right, now, walking like it ain´t no, walking like it ain´t raining, like it ain´t snowing, like the wind ain´t blowing, walking like it´s a summer day, 75 degrees (chuckles)….right….now, you would figure that we was a little scared at this, right ? we was, we was a little scared, we wasn´t too scared, you know, you know, we got, we walked down a little closer, we figured we ain´t gonna take no chances, all we wanna do is get home, turn on the Late Late Show, get in the sack, throw in some Pop-Tarts, (?) and relax, right…..so we figured we´re gonna duck into this doorway and wait till whatever this is…..blows by….so we duck, we´re hiding in the doorway, right, like this, we hear the footsteps coming closer…. man, we´re, we´re getting a little nervous now, footsteps coming even closer….(?)….he didn´t do that, did he ? didn´t blow….instead of that, he turns and faces (?)….now, we stood there for a second….we knew we was in trouble ´cause this guy, he wasn´t gonna hit us with a stick, he wasn´t gonna shoot us with a gun or stab us with a knife, he was gonna beat us to death with what appeared to be a saxophone….(?) so Steve pushed me out there and me being the Boss, you gotta show a little leadership (chuckles)(?) you run your own band, you gotta show leadership….I got out there and I tried to act (?) figured ´Don´t act like you´re scared´, you know….(Steve: ´He ain´t going for that´) he didn´t go for it, all he did was pick up the saxophone (Clarence plays) at that point we threw all our money on the ground…. threw down my hat…..and begged for our lives (chuckles) all this cat did was put out his hand (the source tape is missing the ending)….´´

12.09.75 Austin, TX, intro to ´Kitty’s back´
´´I got this, I got this phonecall, they called the office, the manager’s office, this, uh…. this We Magazine, you know that magazine that has all the pictures of the girls on the cover and stuff….I got, really, uh (chuckles) it’s the truth (chuckles) I got this phonecall, right, from this We Magazine, they was doing a poll…..you know, a poll like, funny things, and, and they wanna know if I ever seen a flying saucer….right, so ´course I told ´em ‘Sure’, you know, ‘Yeah, I’ve seen flying saucers’….and…..it happened, I seen my flying saucer when….it was back in (?) hometown many years ago….yeah, that´s where it was (chuckles) was many, was many years ago that me and Clarence lived in this house that had this, uh, on this, on this regular-type street that had this rotten, this tomato patch across the street, you see, and one day me and Clarence was sitting on the, uh….sitting on the porch, you know, just sitting there and I was, I was about 15, I guess, you know and uh…..and all of a sudden we seen this thing shaped like a hot dog, right, was shaped just like a hot dog, you see, it was in the sky, it wasn’t flying smooth, it was flying like (?) came down in the field, you see, it came down into the tomato patch, now, this tomato patch we used to go over and we used to have tomato fights, you know, when we were kids (?) pick out rotten tomatoes, ‘Hey!’ (Bruce makes a sound like a tomato gets smashed) we used to have these tomato fights, so me and Clarence seen this thing land in the field there and, and we went over, right, and we picked up these tomatoes….we figured whatever this was, we were gonna get it with some tomatoes, right, you know, whatever came out of that thing was gonna go like ‘Take me to your leader’ (Bruce makes the tomato-smashing-sound again) gonna get it right in the face, right (?) so sure enough the door goes down, let me have some door-going-down music (some piano and drum sounds)(chuckles) no, this is a space movie, got to have space music (strange piano sounds)….then we hear this weird noise like this coming from the inside….and the door goes down and out comes this skinny, green thing, right about as skinny as this microphone, was all green, had some yellow patches, had three noses and some eyes around his head…..and couldn’t’ve scared nobody, was too small and skinny, right, it’s like, like I can’t scare nobody, you know, it’s like, the only person I ever scared, when I grew my beard I scared my mother once, but this thing was green and it comes down and it walks down and before it can be cool and do its thing, this ‘Take me to your leader’-number, he drops down into the tomatoes and starts going through this (?) thing (someone in the band makes weird noises) and uh…..goes through these gesticulations (chuckles) and, and makes, says this weird thing, right, so I, I quickly….being a smart lad, I wrote it down best I could…..we watched the thing die on the spot, right, and I went back, I went back home where me and Clarence tried to figure out what it was he said….we turned it upside down, put it sideways, you know, we did everything till finally when we did the old ‘hold it up to the mirror’-trick, right….we held it up to the mirror (Clarence: ‘Right on’) ain’t that what we did ? (Clarence: ‘Yeah’) (?) (Clarence: ‘Tell ‘em what it said, Bruce’)….it said…..´Watchout now ‘cause Kitty’s back !….
(….) Here she comes….Clarence, how she get down to Texas, man ?….I wanna know how she got to Texas (Clarence: ´I didn’t bring her, man´)….(Clarence: ´Hey, Bruce !´) what ? (Clarence: ´Steve did it, man, I cannot tell a lie, Steve bought the ticket on the plane that got her to Texas, that’s how she got here´)….Steve bought the ticket (Clarence: ´The new man, the new man´) on the plane that flew through the air, that came to Texas (Clarence : ‘He did it’) that let her out, that brought her to the Municipal Auditorium (?)….you can lose your hat for that…..(?)….this girl follows me around, you see…..and the band thinks it’s funny and they’re always buying her tickets to chase me from city to city….and here she comes….´´

12.09.75 Austin, TX, middle of ´Rosalita´
´´On the piano….Mr.Roy Bittan, please (Roy plays)….on the bass guitar….the often imitated but never duplicated, Garry Tallent….gimme three (Max gives three drumbeats)….on the guitar….Miami Steve…..gimme four (Max gives four drumbeats)….on the drums, the Mighty Max….on the organ, Dan Federici….and last….the Duke….the Kahuna….the Man….on the tenor saxophone, Clarence Clemons…..´´

12.09.75 Austin, TX, middle of ´Quarter to Three´
´´What ?….you talking to me ? (cheers) am I in Austin ? (cheers) am I in Austin ? (cheers) am I in Austin ? (cheers) then jump back !….

12.09.75 Austin, TX, middle of ´Twist and Shout´
´´(Steve: ´What´s the matter, man ? what´s the matter, man ?´) That was it !…I can´t make it ….I don´t think I can make it….I don´t know (Steve: ´Can he make it ?´) I don´t know about it (Steve: ´Can he do it ?´) I don´t know (Steve: ´Can he do it ?´) no, I´m going home (Steve: ´No !´)….well….well….well….well….well, shake it a-baby….´´

Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi

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