1984-10-21 Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA

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

Info & Setlist | Venue

Roy plays a snippet of "Out Of Limits" during the introduction to "Glory Days". "Growin' Up" features the bear story. "Detroit Medley" includes "Travelin' Band". On this same day MTV have a one hour Sunday Special which includes footage from Meadowlands. Bruce’s parents Douglas and Adele, who lived nearby, were in attendance at this Oakland show (Bruce dedicated "Mansion On The Hill" to his dad). Three weeks prior to this show Bruce parents had given a little-known-about, but highly fascinating, interview at their home to a local journalist from their small hometown newspaper in San Mateo – incredibly this would turn out to be the only interview that Bruce’s father ever granted. Please see our News tab to read the interview.

21.10.84 Oakland, CA, intro to ´´Johnny 99´´
´´This is….this is about powerlessness….´´

21.10.84 Oakland, CA, intro to ´´Reason To Believe´´
´´This is, uh….this is a song about blind faith and, uh….it´s always a dangerous thing, whether it´s in your girlfriend, I guess, or if it´s in your government….it´s, uh….this is 1984, a lot of illusions out there, people searching real hard for some reason….´´

**21.10.84 Oakland, CA, intro to ´´Mansion On The Hill´´ **
´´When I was a kid, I remember, there used to be this, this house that stood on kind of this hill out on the edge of town….and uh….I remember when I was young, I don´t remember any real sense of having more or less money than the next person - somehow you just knew (chuckles) I guess, but, uh….here´s for my Dad….´´

21.10.84 Oakland, CA, towards the end of ´´Darlington County´´
´´Everybody, everybody, everybody gotta be free!…..they´re gonna be looking for you down there, just watch out!…´´

21.10.84 Oakland, CA, intro to ´´Glory Days´´
´´(after the singalong) oh, ain´t got no bass singers out there, huh? (chuckles) oh, this is a song about….history….about how all things must pass and other profundities….see, when I get home, I get home late, usually the only thing on is like ´Outer Limits´ or ´Twilight Zone´-re-runs….I´ve seen every ´Twilight Zone´ five times….but the one that always gets me, kind of chokes me up, is the one where there was this actor and he got old and, and he was sitting around all the time grumping about, you know, how terrible it was these days and, and how great a time he had when he was young and how he´d give anything to be back, back when he was young again….so, of course….(plays a snippet of ´Outer Limits´) he slips into the Twilight Zone…..and he´s back there and he´s all young but he finds out that like everybody that he thought was so nice to him was treating him like a dog and his girlfriend was going out with some other guy and, you know, his jobs weren´t as great as he thought they were so I guess the end or the moral of the story was he wishes he was back in, in his normal age, in his real life, so at the end he comes back, now, the reason I bring this whole thing up is because that happens to me all the time (chuckles) I´m always slipping into the Twilight Zone (chuckles) it´s like I go out, there´s always somebody coming up to me, going ´Bruce, Bruce, how´s the band? man, didn´t we have a great time, remember when we were in high school? boy, that was fun, we had such a great time in high school, we were going out all the time, didn´t have no responsobilities,´ you know, and you´re sitting there and I´m going ´Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah´ (chuckles) you know, but then I get home and I realise that like when I was in high school, I couldn´t stand high school….I suffered daily, daily defeat and humiliation in front of my peers in high school….when fall comes around, I´m still glad that I don´t have to go to high school!….uh, I guess, I guess the best thing about high school was I got, I got interested in two things and one was the guitar….and the other one…..now, the guitar is the one that I became proficient at….the other one, I´m still looking for some volunteers, who wanna practise, practise, practise….gotta rehearse, you gotta rehearse (chuckles) anyway, this song ain´t nothing, how in the end, all these wonders (chuckles) ain´t nothing but glory days….ready, boys?….ready, Big Man?….let me tell my story….´´

21.10.84 Oakland, CA, intro to ´´The Promised Land´´
´´Oh yeah…oh….this is for Barbara….Landau….´´

21.10.84 Oakland, CA, intro to ´´My Hometown´´
´´Thanks, uh, I´m gonna….this next….this next song is a song I guess when I wrote it I thought I was just writing of a memory I had of the town I grew up on but, uh….I guess what it´s about, this song is kind of about responsobility to the place that you live….and uh….I know when I was 16 or 17, I, I kind of….I was in a love-hate relationship with the place that I was born and, uh, I used to get on the bus and go to New York City….´cause the town I grew up in was real, it was kind of real smallminded, real narrowminded….and uh….later on I was real hesitant to go back, I guess, it´s, uh, you kind of end up being afraid, afraid to belong to something….but, uh….anyway, someday you have a head-on collision with all those things and you realise that….I guess that, uh….that nothing can kind of pull us apart…. and, uh….right here in your area, there´s a group called, uh, the Berkeley Emergency Food Project and….they´re people that are trying to live up to that responsobility, they´ve been, uh, what they do is they feed people, people who´ve been cut down by the injustices in our social system and by….the economic policies of the current administration….they´re out there, the Berkeley Emergency Food Project, they´re out there trying to do something about it and they can use your help, they´ve been working at it for 14 years, they provide food and they provide other services, counselling, and they´re, uh, people out there trying to make it a more decent place to live so….their, uh….their telephone number will be out at the concession stands, if you can help them out, and they´d appreciate it and I´d appreciate it so ….in the end this is your hometown….´´

21.10.84 Oakland, CA, intro to ´´Cadillac Ranch´´
´´To quote William Shakespeare….´Is there a Cadillac in the building?´….´´

21.10.84 Oakland, CA, intro to ´´Pink Cadillac´´
´´Take it easy, boys….now, this song is about the conflict….between worldly things and spiritual health….between desires of the flesh….and spiritual ecstasy….between the mansion on the hill and the mansion in the sky….now, where did this conflict begin?….well, it began in the beginning….in a place called the Garden of Eden….now, the Garden of Eden was originally believed to have been located in Mesopotamia….or South Babylonia….but the latest theological studies have found out that its actual location was ten miles south of Jersey City just off the New Jersey Turnpike….that´s why they call it the Garden State….now….in the Garden of Eden, there were none of the accoutrements of modern living….there was no television, there was no beds, there was no, no clothes, no houses, you couldn’t drive out on to the highway and get a hamburger if you wanted one….there was no sin….there was no sex …..man lived in a state of innocence….now, when it comes to no sex, I prefer the state of guilt that I constantly live in….but, but before this tour, I took a spiritual journey to the location of the Garden of Eden, which is now, it´s now occupied by Happy Dan´s Celebrity Used Car Lot….to seek out the meaning to some of these mysteries….I met Happy Dan and he said ´Son….it´s a simple thing: what you need is a yellow convertible, a four-door DeVille with a Continental spare, wide chrome wheels, air-conditioning, automatic heat, a full fold-out bed in your backseat, TV, tapedeck and a phone so you can talk to your baby when you’re driving all alone’…I said ´No, Dan, no, I want, I wanna know the mysteries of life, I wanna know about temptation´….and he said ´Well, that´s easy….you see, in the beginning there was the Garden of Eden….there was the Tree of Life, there was the Tree of Knowledge, there was an apple, there was a snake, there was Adam, there was Eve, she looked good….and parked curbside there was a getaway car….a pink Cadillac….´´

21.10.84 Oakland, CA, intro to ´´Growin´ Up´´
´´Now, this is a story that happened a long, long time ago….in a land way away from here ….where no man has ever gone before….New Jersey (chuckles)….
(….) There I was….I was still in high school….but I wasn’t doing so good….I was getting in a little bit of trouble, wasn´t doing any good in my studies, so they sent me down to guidance counsellor….the guidance counsellor said ‘Mr.Springsteen….what’s the problem?’…I said ‘Well, Sir, Sir, I don´t know, I don´t know what I wanna do with myself, I don’t know what I wanna be….I´m kind of lost, I ain´t got no faith, I need some hope, I need….I need a date´….
he said ‘No, that’s too big a job for me, you better go home and talk to your folks’….so I went home and my dad was sitting in the kitchen…..I walked in and I said ´Dad, I got something, I got something I gotta talk to you about, you see, I´m getting in trouble in school, I don´t know what I wanna do with myself, I don’t know what I wanna be, I got no faith in nothing, I got no hope, I mean I´m lost, I need, I need, I need´….and he said ‘Get me another beer out of the icebox’….so that was it, I was about to call it a day, end it all, I hitchhiked down to Asbury Park…I was in this little bar…and up on the wall there was this
phone number, it said ´Advice and answers to all problems, nothing too big or too small´ so I got a dime and I went out and called in the phone booth, the phone rang once, it rang twice and I heard (Clarence: ´Hello´)….it was this guy called Clarence ‘He who knows all’ Clemons….so he invited me over to his house, I came by, knocked on the door….(?)….kind of checked each other out….we decided we’d make good partners….(?) (chuckles) now, Clarence, he had a map to the secret of the world….so we got in his car, was an Oldsmobile and we started to drive south….south down into the Jersey pines….it started raining, snow was coming down, it started hailing, there was lightning, there was mud splashing all over, there was a flash flood, a blizzard hit, we got hit by a heatwave but we just kept on driving down south into the Kokomo….and finally the engine block cracked, we got a flat, the carburetor gave out, we ran out of gas, the windshield wipers broke, the convertible top blew off….we were sitting there by the side of this dark road….Clarence said according to the map what we were looking for was just on the other side of those woods….so into the forest we went….it was spooky (crowd cheers) there was noises coming from everyplace (crowd cheers) we had to go by this big shade tree, we could tell it was a shade tree because it had its shades on….we heard sounds like lions in the woods (crowd roars) we heard wolves (crowd howls) we heard homicidal cows (crowd moos) now, Big Man, there ain’t, there ain’t no like dangerous beasts, I never heard of no dangerous beasts in New Jersey, did you? ain´t nothing like….you sure we´re going the right way now? ain´t nothing gonna get us in here? (?) I think I hear something….wooah! there we were all of a sudden, we were confronted by this big man-eating bear but, but instead of being a man-eater, he was kind of friendly….he gave me a kiss, he said that, that he ran away from the circus and that he´d been out in the woods two years and that he wasn’t mean, he was just lonely and that if we’d be his friends, he’d show us, he’d show us what we were looking for, I could tell by the way he wore his hat that he was smarter than the average bear….and so, and so we followed him back into the forest and all of a sudden, the clouds pulled away from the moon….and there in this clearing we found the answer to our quest….and then we stood there in the moonlight….and when….. and when we touched…..
(….) And here we are tonight….´´

21.10.84 Oakland, CA, middle of ´´Rosalita´´
´´Ladies and gentlemen….and children in all stages….it´s now my honor, my pleasure, my duty, my responsobility to introduce to you the members of the E Street Band….I would like to begin by introducing to you a man, the most educated member of the E Street Band, the only member of the band with a full high school diploma….a man turned down a scholarship to Harvard University where he was going for his BS, I mean his BA in unusual sexual practises….to join the 1984 tour with the E Street Band….he gave up higher education in order to rock the nation….I give you the complicated, the dedicated, the educated, the sexually liberated, the heterosexual intellectual, Professor Roy Bittan on the piano….I salute you….next, we´ve got an alumni of Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes….from Long Branch, New Jersey, the lovely, the talented, the beautiful Miss Patti Scialfa on the vocals…. then we´ve got the man that brings you the thunder from down under, that puts the bass in your face, his mother was a Tallent, his father was a Tallent, on the bass guitar, Mr.Garry W.Tallent….on the drums, we´ve got the man that puts the heat in the beat to get your asses out of your seats and moving your feet….the man with bionic hands, Mighty Max Weinberg ….next we got on the organ, the inimitable, the inevitable, the unfathomable, the impractical, the incorrigable, the unbelievable, the incredible Phantom Dan Federici on the organ….and now I´d like to introduce to you a gentleman that´s sweet as life itself, the newest member of the E Street Band, on the guitar, Mr. Nils Lofgren (Nils does his trampoline stunt)….(the rest of Bruce´s band intros are missing)…. (Clarence: ´Powerful, poet, a genius, lover….it is my honor….I have seen the future of rock´n´roll….and its name is….Jimmy the Dancing Bear….yes it is´)….he´s very funny….´´

**21.10.84 Oakland, CA, intro to ´´Follow That Dream´´ (following ´Jungleland´) **
´´Thanks….Big Man on the sax….Roy Bittan on the piano….if I could take a minute and thank everybody for coming down to the show tonight, thank you very much….and I´d like to ….like to remind you about the Berkeley Emergency Food Project, they´re out there….trying to make, make your community a little more decent, better place to live, there´s a lot of people hurting out there….and their number´s are right outside, please get it, please take it home with you and please remember tomorrow (chuckles)….´´

21.10.84 Oakland, CA, intro to ´´Twist And Shout´
´´You must be getting tired out there now (crowd: ´No´) you gotta be getting tired (crowd: ´No´) you guys gotta get up and go to work tomorrow….gotta go to school tomorrow….well, call up your boss and tell him I said you got the day off (crowd cheers)….´´

Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi

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