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Scheduled: 19:30 Local Start Time 20:10 / End Time 23:45Info & Setlist | Venue
Show was rescheduled from March 31. First British show since 1975 at the Hammersmith Odeon, and start of nearly a month of touring in the UK over 16 shows. Bruce also inserts an original verse of his own into "This Land Is Your Land" referencing the recent Brixton riots in London. 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" features the 'when we do this…' schtick. First ever performances in England of "Follow That Dream", "Prove It All Night", "Out In The Street", "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)", "Wreck On The Highway", "Racing In The Street", "Candy's Room", "Ramrod", "Point Blank", and "Rockin' All Over The World".
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Audience tape available on CDR 'You Can Look' and in good quality from the master tapes.
11.05.81 Newcastle, England, intro to “Darkness on the Edge of Town”
“Finally made it* (crowd cheers)…”
[*The show was meant to take place in March but Bruce got ill and the shows in Britain had to be postponed.]
11.05.81 Newcastle, England, intro to “Independence Day”
“This is, uh, this is from “The River,” this is called “Independence Day” (crowd cheers) I need a little quiet for this song, thank you…(intro music starts)…I grew up…in this little town and we lived on, on this, on this main street, next door to this gas-station…and I had a bedroom that was out, out over the backyard…and 6 am every morning I used to watch…watch my old man, he’d get up, I’d hear him out back…fiddling around under the hood of the car trying to get it started so he could, so he could make it to work…and…as I got older, I watched around, I didn’t see how the things, how my life was going to be much different than his was…because it seemed …that if you were born in a certain place…that things didn’t change …things didn’t change much for you, I looked back at him and he went into the army when he was nineteen and he came out and he got…got married and started to work in a plastics’ factory…and then his old man before him worked all his life in the rug mill…and I could never remember, I could never remember my old man ever…
when I got older I could never, I never had a picture in my mind of him laughing, all I could remember him doing was sitting at the kitchen table at night with the lights out, smoking a cigarette… waiting…waiting for it all to go away or something…and I tried to think what was the thing that, what was the thing that we all had in common, why did, why did…why did it time after time end up that way and it was that we didn’t, we didn’t know enough, we didn’t have enough…enough knowledge about the forces that were controlling our lives…and I started to read this book…and it was…it was called “The History of the United States”…and I seen how the way that things were weren’t the way that they were meant to be, like, like the way my old man was living and his old man and the life that was waiting for me…wasn’t, ¬¬¬that wasn’t the original idea… but…but even…even if you find out, find those things out, it’s so, it’s so impossible and so hard to change things…and it wasn’t until I heard, I started listening to the radio and I heard something in the singers’ voices that said there is more to life than what my old man was doing and the life that I was living and they held out a promise and it was a promise that, that, that every man has a right to live his life with some decency and some dignity (crowd cheers) and it’s a promise that gets broken every day…in the most…in the most violent way but it’s a promise that never ever, ever fucking dies and it’s always inside you…but I watched my old man forget that… and don’t let it happen to you…”
11.05.81 Newcastle, England, intro to “Who’ll Stop the Rain?”
“This is a song by, by John Fogerty…”
11.05.81 Newcastle, England, intro to “This Land Is Your Land”
“(Someone yells out a request) We’re gonna get to that one, alright (chuckles)…back in 1977 we played in Memphis, Tennesee, and…we hadn’t been down South that much, it was after the show, we were sitting in the hotel and we were gonna go out and get something to eat so we got in this cab with this cab driver and we said “Take us someplace way outside of town, we need something to eat,” he says “Alright, I’ll take you right by Elvis’ house” (some cheers) so we said (chuckles) so we said “You know where Elvis’ house is?” he says “Yeah, I’ll take you right by there,” “Let’s go there right now” so went down…Elvis Presley Boulevard and we got out in front of the, the house, it was about 3.30 in the morning and the gates were all locked up and I looked in through the gates and I seen like one light on and I figured that must be Elvis’ room, he must be up reading (laughs from the crowd)(chuckles)(?) say hello so, so the taxi cab driver says “No, don’t, don’t go over there because they got big dogs and they’ll eat you up and you’ll be done for” so I jumped up over the wall (laughs from the crowd and cheers) I jumped down on the other side and I went into my attack position (laughs from the crowd) and uh…I ran up the driveway and there was nobody there, I didn’t see nobody, I didn’t hear no alarms going off or anything so I got right in front of the door and I was about to knock (someone in the audience barks) and this guy (laughs from the crowd and cheers)(?) vicious old dog, right (laughs from the crowd) and, and this guy comes out of the woods and says “What do you want?” I said “Well, is Elvis home?” (laughs from the crowd) he says “No, Elvis, Elvis, he’s in Lake Tahoe,” I said “Well, can you tell him that I stopped by or something?” (laughs from the crowd) and I said “I got a band and we played in town tonight and, you know, we’ve made some records and stuff” and he goes “Yeah, sure, sure” (chuckles)(laughs from the crowd) so then he threw us…then he says “Well, you gotta get out” so he walked me down the driveway and he let me out but, uh…so I never, I never…I don’t know if he was up reading or not (laughs from the crowd) but it wasn’t long after that that, that he died and I remember sitting home, wondering how somebody, somebody that, that had so much and, and seemed like such a winner, so alive, could in the end lose, lose as heavy as he did, you know…and this song is a song by Woody Guthrie and it’s a song about, it’s a song about living free…and it’s a song about not having to, not having to, to die 55 or 65 (?) you can’t find a job, about, it’s about not having to die in some, in some fancy mansion with, with a whole lot of nothing running through your veins so…it’s called “This Land Is Your Land”…
(…)(sings:) Now they’re dying on the streets of New York and down in Liberty City…in Harlem County and the streets of Brixton (crowd cheers) people wonder, people worry…if this land was made for you and me…”
11.05.81 Newcastle, England, after “Thunder Road”
“We’re gonna take a short break and then we’re gonna be back and do another whole set for you (crowd cheers) see you in a little while…”
11.05.81 Newcastle, England, intro to “Wreck on the Highway”
“(Someone yells out “Candy’s Room”) We’re gonna get to that one for you in a little while…oh…this is, uh…this is from “The River,” this is called “Wreck on the Highway” (crowd cheers) I’ll need a little quiet for this, thanks…”
11.05.81 Newcastle, England, intro to “Backstreets”
“I don’t know if anybody seen us when we were here in ’75 (someone yells) did you really? (chuckles) not kidding…well, this is, uh…this is from back then…”
11.05.81 Newcastle, England, intro to “Point Blank”
“(beginning missing from the source tape)…he says “It takes one two to dream but it takes two to make a dream come true”…and… when times get, get tough…like I know they are here and they’re getting that way in the States…uh…that’s the first thing, for some reason, people forget, you know, and it’s…people…they seem to turn…like in the States…what’s happened is that the…thing that threatens people’s lives they can’t see and so they attack the things that they can see, which is usually their neighbor who looks different or acts different…and people that got, that they have common interests with…and this is a song about somebody that loses, loses that connection, that connection, uh, that simply says that, uh, that, we’re gonna die without each other and this is called “Point Blank” (crowd cheers)…”
11.05.81 Newcastle, England, middle of “Rosalita”
“To the far left of the stage…over there…on the piano…Professor Roy Bittan (crowd cheers) play it, Roy (Roy plays)…on the guitar… Miami Steve Van Zandt (crowd cheers) on the bass, Mr. Garry W. Tallent (crowd cheers) on the drums, the Mighty Max Weinberg (crowd cheers) on the organ…Phantom Dan Federici (crowd cheers) and last but not least (crowd cheers) how can I say it? (crowd cheers) words fail me…let me just say…he’s the king of the world (crowd cheers) master of the universe (crowd cheers) he’s the emperor of all things (crowd cheers) he’s faster than a speeding bullet (crowd cheers) more powerful than a roaring locomotive (crowd cheers) able to leap tall women, I mean tall buildings in a single bound (crowd cheers) is it a bird? (crowd: “No”) is it a plane? (crowd: “No”) what the hell is it? (crowd cheers) Clarence Big Man Clemons on the saxophone (crowd cheers)…me (crowd cheers)…”
11.05.81 Newcastle, England, middle of “Detroit Medley”
“Bring it down, guys, way down…I got, I gotta make an emergency announcement, I just…talked to the hall manager and if there’s anybody in the hall tonight that has a weak heart or a weak stomach, please step out into the lobby as the next portion of the show gonna be dangerous to your health, alright (crowd cheers) I see nobody going out there, I warned you…alright…you see, it ain’t, it ain’t so bad when me and the Big Man do this…and it ain’t so bad when me and the Big Man do this…and you might even get away with light injuries and a short trip to the hospital when me and the Big Man do this (crowd cheers) but…but…but…when we do this (crowd cheers)…”
11.05.81 Newcastle, England, intro to “Rockin’ All Over the World”
“I wanna, I wanna thank everybody for coming down to the show tonight, thank you (crowd cheers) thanks for, thanks for giving us such a great reception here (crowd cheers) thanks for being so quiet on them slow songs too, it really means a lot to me (crowd cheers)…”
Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi
| Peter Woodruff | I was 21. My brother Bill didn’t know Bruce’s music, and his hand was in plaster due to a broken scaphoid bone, but he was up clapping, caught up in the marvelous performance. We were in the middle of the front row of the circle, with the speakers hanging from the ceiling in front of us, looking down on the stage. He was, as I said in 1981, “excellence excelling”. Superb, brilliant concert. Had the whole audience in the palm of his hand. On at 8.10pm-9.30pm, a short break and back on at 10pm-11.45pm, over 3 hours! of rock and roll. The City Hall, compared to his Wembley and National Exhibition Centre gigs is intimate and therefore the concert far better. The sound system, suspended from the ceiling, was superb. He seemed interested in his performance & gave his all. Excellence excelling. |
© All credits to the original photographer. We do not monetize a photo in any way, but if you want your photo to be removed, let us know, and we will remove it.
Links:
- Highway '81 Revisited: Springsteen's Longest U.K. Tour (Part One: From the Thames to the Tyne) (Backstreets)
- Highway '81 Revisited: Springsteen's Longest U.K. Tour (Part Two: Rested, Rescheduled, and Recovered) (Backstreets)
- Highway '81 Revisited: Springsteen's Longest U.K. Tour (Part Three: From Newcastle to Brighton) (Backstreets)
- Highway '81 Revisited: Springsteen's Longest U.K. Tour (Part Four: Wembley, Birmingham, and Beyond) (Backstreets)
- How Newcastle City Hall was rocked by an electrifying Bruce Springsteen show 40 years ago (Chronicle)
- Hungry Heart - Bruce Springsteen's Newcastle debut, 11th May 1981 (NorthEastMusicHistory)
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