1981-04-28 Sportpaleis Ahoy, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Scheduled: 19:30 Local Start Time ??:?? / End Time ??:??

Info & Setlist | Venue

Flo and Eddie make a surprise appearance on stage for "Hungry Heart". "This Land Is Your Land" includes Bruce's "streets of Brixton" verse. Roy plays the piano intro before "The River" and "Once Upon A Time In The West" as a bridge between that song and "Badlands". "Detroit Medley" does not include "I Hear A Train", unusually for the period. First ever performances in the Netherlands for "Follow That Dream", "Prove It All Night", "Out In The Street", "The Ties That Bind", "Darkness On The Edge Of Town", "Independence Day", "Who'll Stop The Rain", "Two Hearts", "The Promised Land", "This Land Is Your Land", "The River", "Badlands", "Cadillac Ranch", "Sherry Darling", "Hungry Heart", "Because The Night", "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)", "Stolen Car", "Wreck On The Highway", "Point Blank", "Candy's Room", "Ramrod", and "Rockin' All Over The World".

Flo and Eddie (Guests)
- Howard Kaylan
- Mark Volman

28.04.81 Rotterdam, The Netherlands, intro to “Independence Day”
“This is, this is called ´Independence Day´….thanks….we need, need a little quiet for this one, thank you…..(music starts)….I grew up in this little town….it was about 20 miles inland off the, off the coast, it was only about 10,000 people….and….when I got to be about 16, I started to look around me and….I looked back at, I looked at my friends and tried to see what they were doing and it didn´t seem like anybody was, was going, going anyplace or had a chance of, a chance of getting out of the kind of life they were living, I looked back at my, at my dad and he….he worked, was working in a plastics´ factory and I looked back at his father and he worked in a rugmill in town….and…..it didn´t seem like it was gonna be any different, any different for me….if I could, uh, get a job at all…..(?) I tried to think what was the things that we had in common that, that…..and it looked like the one thing that me and my father….and his father had in common was that we didn´t, we didn´t know enough, we didn´t have enough information about the forces that were controlling our lives….and it seemed like it was information that you couldn´t get anyplace, you couldn´t find it out on the street ´cause everybody was just hanging around, trying to forget about where they were, you couldn´t, you couldn´t get it in school because they never taught things to you that way…. and….and the only place that I could get a feeling for living was when I listened to the radio at night….and it wasn´t so much what people were saying or what the words were but there was this sound, a sound in the singers´ voices that said that life was better….better than the way that, that I was leading it and that my old man was leading it….and then when I got older, I just, I just tried to read because I never liked reading when I was a kid, I never read anything, and I read this book, I was reading, it´s The History of the United States and….and in it I found out how, where I came from and how I ended up….where I was and how easy it is to be a victim of things that you don´t even know exist and you don´t even know are there ´cause I go back and I see my friends at home and there´s a lot of people there that had, that had strong hearts and, and, and force and, and power inside them that just got crushed….to nothing and I guess if you´re, I guess the most important thing is just trying to find out, trying to find out….what are the things that make you who you are because, because even when you know, changing is….is, is hard but the first step is you gotta, you gotta know, you gotta know so….you gotta, you know, there´s, there´s better ways of living I found out than what I was doing….”

28.04.81 Rotterdam, The Netherlands, intro to “This Land Is Your Land”
“This is a song….it was….written by Woody Guthrie and….back, back in the States…..where I guess it´s….I guess it´s the same now everywhere where unemployment is so bad that it seems that when times get tough….there´s always that….that resurgence of people with common interests seem to turn against each other….and in the States there´s always, like, you always see more about, like, the Ku Klux Klan, the National Socialists….and….it´s….this song was written as….I guess it was written as a dream that the land that, that you live in and the land that I live in was put there, put there for us and that it´s no….and that it doesn´t belong to any one group of people, one race or one color or religion….ah…..it´s hard to, it´s hard to sing it when it´s so far away from being true, it seems, when it seems so far out of people´s hearts (?) but it´s a dream that is….it´s about, it´s just about being human and about just decency and respect and being able to live….”

28.04.81 Rotterdam, The Netherlands, intro to “Stolen Car”
“This is a song, this is from The River, this is…..Marvin Gaye, I was listening to Marvin Gaye´s Greatest Hits the other day…..and he had this song he did with, uh…..with, uh…. Tammy Tarrell, it was called ´It Takes Two´…..and the song says ´It takes one to dream but two to make a dream come true´….I need, uh, I need a little, little quiet for this, thank you….”

Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi

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Rotterdam Ahoy

The two songs that Bruce chose to open the two Rotterdam 'River' shows, April 28 and 29 1981, were both special songs and carefully selected. The first show opened with ‘Follow that Dream’, Springsteen’s rearrangement of a song written by Fred Wise and Ben Weisman and made famous by Elvis Presley. The second show opened with a rearranged and haunted version of CCR’s ‘Run Through The Jungle’, a debut. In an in-depth interview that took place right after the show backstage at the Ahoy, Bruce told Dutch journalist Constant Meijers:

“The first night we played a set that we had already done a couple of times before. Those songs fit well together. The second night we did a new set. Although maybe not everything fitted well together, there were moments in there that went above the first night. That's why I did it. And I wanted to do something different because I realised that the second night there were many people that came the first night. I think I liked the second night better than the first. I had a better feeling about it. I don’t know exactly why. We did too many things differently.
The opener of the first night, ‘Follow That Dream’, provides the framework of what follows. We have only recently been playing that song; I think we played it like three or four times. The set is structured in such a way that the ideas correspond with the structure of the albums. The second night I went for something different. We started with ‘Run Through The Jungle’, which is essentially the opposite of ‘Follow That Dream’.

(…) At the end of an opener like 'Follow That Dream’ I experience something strange; I get the feeling I am immediately in people’s heads. That's the reason I start the show with that song. It is actually too slow to start a show with. But it’s precisely because of that, that you put people in doubt for a moment. I think of that as if you take a deep breath before you make a big jump. The same effect has ‘Run Through The Jungle’ because this song has the same atmosphere and intimacy as ‘Follow That Dream’. At the start of a show people don't expect intimacy, they expect on going like ‘vrroeeemm’… They want to get excited, get up as one, jump to their feet. But if you start the show very slowly, you get people immediately closer, to you. That works very well. We've never done that in the States, that's why I like these shows better.”

Springsteen reworked CCR’s version of ‘Run Through The Jungle’ into a haunted new version, to which he added verses that reference gruesome acts of the Ku Klux Klan:
"Me and Robert Williams / Out on Route Line 3 / Last night they dragged him out of his house / And shot him in the street
Now the land’s on fire / It’s written in blood in the sky / Men load shotguns out of the truck / The city’s burning tonight
Mary wake up, look outside your window / I see the tide is turning / ‘Cause out across the cornfield tonight / I see crosses burning"

Bruce also addresses the Ku Klux Klan in the interview with Meijers:
“In ‘Follow that Dream’ it says, ‘Every man has the right to live. The right to a chance, to give what he has to give.’ That is the opportunity every living create deserves. But what on the other hand do we see? Disappointed personalities, devastated people who never quite find themselves complete. They lock themselves up in their houses, full of resentment, or they join the national-socialists or the Ku Klux Klan because they're looking for an identity, a belief. There you will find the John Hinckleys. People who look for it outside of themselves instead of within. They are not aware of that, because that possibility was never presented to them in a way they could understand it.”

Bruce had addressed the topic of alienation in society also during the first show, during his introduction to ‘This Land is Your Land':
“This is a song that was written by Woody Guthrie. Back in the States - I guess it´s the same now everywhere - where unemployment is so bad that it seems that when times get tough, there is always that resurgence of people with common interests, that seem to turn against each other. In the States you always see more about the Ku Klux Klan, the national socialists. This song was written as a dream I guess, that the land that you live in and the land that I live in was put there for us and that it doesn´t belong to any one group of people, one race or one color or religion. It’s hard to sing it when it’s so far away from being true. When it seems so far out of people´s reach. But it’s a dream.”

Bruce even added a topical verse to Guthrie’s song, in which he referenced the riots in Brixton, UK, just two weeks earlier:
"From California to the streets of New York / From Harlem County to Liberty City / From the streets of Brixton the people are wondering / If this land was made for you and me"
It is here in these introductions on the European tour and in these interviews that Springsteen’s growing social awareness becomes clearly evident. In the interview with Meijers, but also in a second interview with Jan Donkers, that took place even later that same evening at Ahoy, Bruce talks about seeing The Grapes of Wrath and the dance scene at the end of the movie, which 15 years later was the inspiration of ‘Across the Border’ from The Ghost of Tom Joad.

^{By Jos Westenberg via Be True.}

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