1978-06-23 Paramount Theatre, Portland, OR

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Info & Setlist | Venue

As he had done a couple of months earlier in New York City, Springsteen makes an unannounced guest appearance at a Warren Zevon gig – this time playing guitar, harmonica and sharing vocals on a wild, extended version of "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead", Warren's final encore of the evening. Jim, sent his recollections of the evening to Brucebase: "The house was about half-full. Zevon was fairly popular at that time, with college kids and so forth. My good friend and I were set to see Bruce (for the first time!) the following night, but we had tickets to see Zevon too. We took our spots about fifteen rows out from the stage in the Paramount Theatre. As we sat down, we couldn't help but notice four, or five guys behind us. They seemed familiar, but were dressed differently from the Oregon fans. Oh well, I really didn't give it much thought… Zevon came on. He was horrible. This was during a period of his career when he was drinking too much. It was pretty evident throughout the show that he was a wreck. The show was low energy, and just not good. Nobody got up, not even to bring him back out after the set was done. However, as the obligatory "give us an encore" applause continued Zevon and band came back out. Still no standing ovation. Then…. from stage right, this figure appears. He comes bopping out onto the stage- he's wearing the newsboy hat, he's got on a black jacket and has an Esquire slung around his shoulder. The place went CRAZY! It was Bruce!! All at once the roof went off - everyone was standing and screaming, and the half-full venue now seemed to be jam packed. Zevon launched into "Sleep When I'm Dead." Bruce joined in and handled the harmonica parts and some stinging guitar riffs. It was amazing. This made the evening worthwhile. Oh, and those guys sitting behind us? Now I recognized them! It was Miami Steve, Garry, Roy and probably Danny (memory is a bit hazy after all these years, no Clarence though)."



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