Scheduled: 19:30 Local Start Time ??:?? / End Time ??:??
Live debuts of "Tunnel Of Love", "All That Heaven Will Allow", "Roulette", "Spare Parts", "I'm A Coward", "One Step Up", "Part Man, Part Monkey", and "Walk Like A Man", plus the first ever on-tour renditions of "Two Faces", "Brilliant Disguise", "Tougher Than The Rest", and "Light Of Day", along with "Be True", which has had only one other public outing before. E Street Band premiere of the alternative arrangement of "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)". This rockabilly style arrangement was included on The Ties That Bind, the unreleased 1979 single album. "Spare Parts" include a highly personal and different introduction story than on later shows – a must-hear. "Part Man, Part Monkey" includes "Love Is Strange" in the outro, as it will throughout the tour. "Walk Like A Man" includes a beautiful instrumental intro, played only once more, two shows later. "Born To Run" is solo acoustic. "Detroit Medley" includes "I Hear A Train", "Sweet Soul Music", and "Shake", and will do so for almost the entire tour when the song is played. "Roulette" and "Cover Me" in the soundcheck are just the instrumental intros, rehearsed a few times each; the first "Part Man, Part Monkey" is just the ending, with the "Love Is Strange" snippet, while the second, full version also includes "Love Is Strange". The final "Walk Like A Man" in the soundcheck is just the intro.
incl. Rehearsals.
- 2005-10-20 DCU Center, Worcester, MA
- 1992-08-14 Centrum In Worcester, Worcester, MA
- 1992-08-13 Centrum In Worcester, Worcester, MA
- 1988-02-29 Centrum In Worcester, Worcester, MA
- 1988-02-28 Centrum In Worcester, Worcester, MA
- 1988-02-25 Centrum In Worcester, Worcester, MA
- 1984-09-05 Centrum In Worcester, Worcester, MA
- 1984-09-04 Centrum In Worcester, Worcester, MA
© 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.
Audience tape and partial DVD. Four recording sources circulate, available from master tapes (MarkP) circulates with slightly better sound than on previous recordings of this show. This release includes the complete show unlike the 'First Date' boot - 'Heart Attack On The First Night' (Ev2). A second source (Flynn) is available from the master (Two Of Us) tapes. A third source is available from a low generation tape transfer (Buckshot). A fourth source is available from a CDR source as 'The First Date' (Flynn). Some pro-shot footage (mostly short snippets, but also including a near-complete "Brilliant Disguise") supposedly shot by a local TV news crew is circulating among collectors. The second half of the show is also filmed from the audience (the first half was not captured). Soundboard recording of the soundcheck circulates.
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Intro to "Tunnel Of Love"
"Ready for a date"
Intro to "All That Heaven Will Allow"
´´So how the hell´ve you been ? (cheers)….hey man, how you been…good to see you….I ain´t seen you in a little while….a couple of years or so….what´ve you been doing ?….(?) married now….had the kid …what do you got ? oh-oh, oh-oh, here come the baby pictures….it´s the little Big Man…. where´d you get that little saxophone and stuff ? (chuckles)….he looks good, he looks good… man, we used to sit on this bench in 1975….we used to watch, watch the girls go by at 12.30 lunch-hour when they came home from work….(?) here comes somebody in a red dress, in the red skirt, the red skirt…..(?)….man, I remember I was with you, I was with you when you met your wife….you know, we were overseas and she came in the room….and you, you came back to my room that night and you said ´Oh, I met the girl I´m gonna marry´ but you said that about every girl that you had every time so…..(?) but that time you meant it, you meant it, you did, you know, that´s nice, that´s nice….I met my wife on TV, it´s not as romantic, you know (chuckles)….what happened to those, remember those guys that used to hang out around here ?….hey, Ritchie, Ritchie !….they´re back there somewhere…..oh yeah…. remember how it is the first time you see somebody come walking in, how you felt ?….it´s nice….well, dinnertime….take care, good to see you, alright, see you later….”
Intro to "Spare Parts"
”It’s good to see you again (cheers)….missed you….when I was….oh, I guess about 8 or 9 ….me and my sister who was a year younger than me….we slept in the same room, in the same bed in this little corner house….and the head of the bed was right by the window…..and in the summertime we´d sleep with the window open…..and right across the street….kind of directly opposite the window, there was another house….that a woman named, uh, Audrey and her three children and her husband Bill lived in….and uh, Bill, he worked in a meat-packing plant…..down south, like a lot of the men in the neighbourhood did…..and, uh, Audrey during the day she´d stay home with the kids and I can always remember my mother saying how crazy she was about her, about her kids…..and it wasn’t like she….she didn´t fuss over ´em a lot or anything, you know, but it was just something in the way that she was with them….like in the summer, she´d sit out on the backporch with her little girl and it was just something about the way that she would brush her hair….she´d take the brush and she´d run it down the back of her hair and then she´d follow it with her other hand and kind of smooth the hair down….the back of the little girl´s neck…..and uh…..Bill, most of the guys, I guess, in the neighbourhood´d get home around 6, that´s when my old man would come home if he wasn´t working on the nightshift…..and Bill, sometimes he’d come home and sometimes he wouldn’t and sometimes he’d come home and, and he’d had too much to drink…..from our bed we could hear ‘em argueing…..and I think when you’re a kid….one of the scariest things is hearing, is hearing grown-ups argue especially if it’s in your house, you get really frightened….now, I can remember one night….that Bill came home late…..and they really got into it and they started fighting and you could hear stuff, stuff breaking and then all of a sudden I remember Audrey calling for help…..and I ran in my mother´s bedroom and my
father wasn´t there and I got my mother out of bed and I brought her into our room….and Audrey was calling for help, Audrey was calling for somebody to call the police….but nobody did….and the next day….I remember I was in the backyard and I crawled under a ….sheet she was hanging and I looked up at her and I could see that the side of her face was bruised and that her eye was swollen and she looked down at me and she walked quickly into the house…..but then she turned around and came to the screen door….and stood looking out at me like there was something that she wanted me to see…..and people talked and time passed…..and then I moved away….but the older I got, for some reason the more….the more I kept coming back to that street ….like there was something that…..was missing, there was some missing part of me that was there, that I still couldn´t find….and I´d drive my car down late in the summertime, park on the corner, walk up the street and re-trace the cracks that I used to walk on when I was a kid….and I’d look at all the houses and they´d be all lit up and I´d imagine like at night when the houses are lit, they would always look so safe inside….. and they look happy…..and one night, it was late in the summer, I came, took my drive, parked the car on the corner….started to walk up the street and I saw a woman standing in front of Audrey’s house…..and she had long brown hair and I thought, I was sure it was her so I started walking a little faster and I must’ve scared her because as I got close to her, I could see that it was somebody else….and so I was kind of embarrassed and I walked on down the street, across the highway ….and saw a friend of mine…..but later that night when I walked back down that street…..I felt different…I felt like I had changed, that somewhere along the way…..I had become a man and that the people who were kind to me or hurtful to me when I was a little boy were gone from that street forever…..and that the people in those houses were strangers just like me, doing the best that they could to hold on to the things that they loved….and I walked down the street…..and I got in my car….and I drove home to my house and to my family because I knew that street wasn´t mine any more …..”
Intro to "I´m a Coward"
”Now, are there any brave men out there in the audience tonight ? (cheers)….are there any macho men out there tonight ? (cheers)…..well, I’ve known men….that would climb mountains, that would swim rivers…..that would wrestle with a grizzly bear…..but there´s just one thing that they were afraid of…..there´s one thing that scares them to death…..there´s one thing that gets their knees shaking….you wanna know what that is ?….I’m gonna tell you what that is…..it´s L….U…V, love, let me hear you say it…..well, now, girl, I’m talking to you too now….I’ve seen women that would jump out of airplanes at 30,000 feet….that´d get in a canoe and go down the Amazon River wrestling with snakes and crocodiles…..I´ve even seen women that would date the horn section in this band….but there´s just one thing that they´re afraid of, there´s just one thing and you know what that is, that´s love….now I’m down here tonight because I’ve got a confession to make….I´ve got something to get off my chest, I´ve got lay my burden down right here tonight…..because I have sinned !….and I don’t care who you bring down here, man….you can bring Hulk Hogan down here, you can bring down the Road Warriors, you can bring down George the Animal Steele, I´ll take ´em on…. you can bring down Andre the Giant, I´ll take him on…..I don’t care who you bring down here…..I ain´t afraid of those kinds of things….what I’ve got to say is…..what I have to say is ….what I´ve got to confess is….I’m a Coward ….when it comes to love…..save me, boys….”
Intro to "Part Man Part Monkey"
´´I was reading the papers and, uh….now, dig this….”
Intro to "Born to Run"
´´Thanks….oh….I´d forgotten how much work this is ! (chuckles)….it´s fun too, though (chuckles)….I guess the hardest thing….I know one of the hardest things for me over the past ten years has been trying….to understand what growing up….and being a man is about and…. trying to find out how to make some sort of home for myself….and then trying to hold on to it ….which is a hard thing for anybody to do….I know that, that my dad did his best….to show me what that is about….and uh, and things get pretty confusing….now, when I was 20, when I was 24 years old I wrote this song….and it was about a guy and a girl….who wanted to run and keep on running…..and uh, as I got older, I realised that that….that is my song and maybe ….maybe that was your song too….but I also realised that, as I got older, that I didn´t want it to be….that I wanted to….learn how to make a home for myself, learn how to fit in (?)…. ´cause there´s really nothing, there´s nothing in being homeless….so….anyway, I wish you luck on your….your trip and do this for you….”
Intro to "Can´t Help Falling in Love with You"
´´Gotta do a love song….just wanna thank everybody for coming down to the show….and this is for you, God bless you and the one you love….”
Intro to "Detroit Medley"
´´Should I go for the heart attack ? (cheers)…on the first night ? (cheers)….(?)….”
Intro to "All That Heaven Will Allow"
”Hey man, how you been doing ?…..I haven’t seen you in a little while….what’ve you been up to ?…..you got…..(?) married, got the kid now, huh ?…..(?) that big ? No…..he is, he’s about that big and he’s only about…..how old is he ?…..he’s three, he’s half as big as Clarence is now…..he’s gonna be the Little Big Man (cheers)…..he’s got no saxophone (chukles)….oh man….we used to sit, we used to sit on this bench…..at lunchtime…..you know…..back in like 1974, 75 (cheers)…..we used to bring our records with us…..sit ‘em on our lap and hope that the girls would…..notice (chuckles) …..it was about 12.30 , they’d always be coming by…..here they come…..here comes somebody….in the blue….the one in the blue blouse, here she comes, man…..(laughs) I remember I was with you, I was with you when you met your wife….you know….she came in that room…..and you came back that night and we sat on the bus…..Clarence come back and said ‘Man….I met the girl I’m gonna marry’….you know….but Clarence would always say that after every girl that he would meet (cheers)(chuckles)….he would mean it too, though….wow….but that time you really meant it (chuckles)….you know…..remember how it feels like that first time when you see….. when you see somebody come walking in the room……you know….hey Richie, do it (?), man ……it feels like that (chuckles)…..looking good…..man, I gotta get home at dinnertime, can’t be late now…..I gotta be in bed by like eleven o’clock now, you wouldn’t believe it……”
End of "Dancing in the Dark"
´´Now, have you ever felt lonely ?….so lonely that you wanted to cry, cry, cry….that´s when you need a little help….you need somebody….somewhere…..that you can just reach out…. that makes you feel like a human being….hey, baby….´´
Middle of "Light of Day"
´´On the piano, Professor Roy Bittan….on guitar and vocals, Miss Patti Scialfa….on the drums, the Mighty Max Weinberg….on the guitar, Mr.Nils Lofgren….on the bass, Mr. Garry W.Tallent….on the organ, Mr.Dan Federici….and back on the horns, we got Mr.Ed Manion on the baritone, we got a young man, Mr.Mario Cruz on the saxophone…..Mr.Mark Pender on the trumpet….Mike Spengler on the trumpet….and last but not least, the most sensuous man in the state of New Jersey….a man whose sexual vitatlity boggles reality….Richie La Bamba Rosenberg on the trombone….and of course, the one, the only….the handsomest man you´ve ever seen….´Big Man´, Clarence Clemons on the saxophone….´´
Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi. |
Ralph | Opening Night, US Tour. It was a cool day with no snow. Why not? Bruce was in town and the town was red hot. Central Massachusetts kinda like being on the NJ Turnpike in 'Open All Night'. There was a big contingent of Bruce fans from the NY/NJ/Philly area. We walked in and there was this giant grey stage that was awesome. The band would enter the stage from a walkway under Max's drumkit. It was a great way to enter the arena. Bruce and the band were red-hot and played a good deal of River and TOL music. It was a time of change for Bruce and he was home. This was Opening Night. It was not quite home in NJ, but it was the good old USA. He was coming off of a huge BUSA Tour and this was TOL. Amazing. After the show, I got a chance to get on the stage the next morning. I was chatting with a guitar technician (in 88, could it have been Kevin?) and got onstage. I stood where Bruce stands. I was in awe. How can someone have so much command of his disciples. Amazing. I stood there and took in the moment. How does Bruce do this every night? How do the fans rally to do this every night? It all works. Somehow, how can it not? See ya further on up the road - Forever friends. |
© 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.
Springsteen Starts First Tour in 2 Years |
Bruce Springsteen wants to grow up, settle down and remind his huge audience that there's no escape from responsibility. ''One of the hardest things for me over the past 10 years,'' he said Thursday as he introduced and partly disavowed a song from 1975, ''Born to Run,'' ''has been trying to understand what growing up and being a man is all about - trying to make some kind of home for myself and then trying to hold on to it.''
But he also wants to rock out, and for Mr. Springsteen, the two goals are almost always at odds. In the opening show of his first United States tour since 1986, which immediately sold out the 13,000-seat Centrum here, he did his duty by the somber, fatalistic ballads about uncertain love and diminishing prospects that have filled his albums since the 1978 ''Darkness on the Edge of Town.'' And a supercharged rock and soul finale turned the last half-hour of the nearly three-hour show into a rip-roaring, cinderblock-shaking jubilee.
Mr. Springsteen's past tours have earned him a reputation for indefatigable showmanship and anthemic sing-alongs. The current tour still includes dramatic monologues, songs not available on his albums, sing-alongs, oldies, occasional band shtick and a re-enactment of the ''Dancing in the Dark'' video clip. Once he had documented his concerts on the five-LP set ''Live: 1975-1985,'' however, Mr. Springsteen scaled down the arrangements and changed subjects for his 1987 album, ''Tunnel of Love.'' His early albums were about boyish dreams; his next ones were about men's work; ''Tunnel of Love'' is about men and women who are in love or married but not living happily ever after. Most of the songs are midtempo ballads or pop-rock hymns: ruminations on love, not anthems.
Mr. Springsteen performed eight songs from ''Tunnel of Love,'' and from the rest of his catalogue, with a few exceptions (including a searing version of ''Seeds,'' about migrant workers stranded by the Texas oil bust), he's chosen songs about relationships rather than economic troubles. Where he used to end his concerts with, ''I'm a prisoner of rock-and-roll,'' he now shouts, ''I'm a prisoner of love!''
Most of the songs have an earnest, troubled tone, and it's not easy to build a rock-and-roll show around them. The music is solid and assured. Mr. Springsteen plays cutting lead-guitar lines, and his E Street Band and a five-man horn section recruited from the Asbury Jukes fill out the arrangements with warm keyboard sounds and horn-section chords.
Mr. Springsteen has taken to heart his responsibilities as a mass-audience performer. Unfortunately, his good intentions can make him didactic. Where his older songs were kaleidoscopic in everything from vocal delivery to arrangements to wordplay, his newer songs are virtually monochromatic; Mr. Springsteen stands still, sings in one tone - a moan or a rasp or a choked-back croon - and links images to deliver a parable. The songs are well made, with memorable keyboard mottoes and telling images, but their earnestness undermines them.
Mr. Springsteen hasn't entirely misplaced his sense of humor. In the second half of the concert he came up with ''Part Man, Part Monkey,'' a reggae-style defense of Darwin, and ''I'm a Coward When It Comes to Love,'' which crossbreeds ''Rockin' Pneumonia'' and Gino Washington's ''Gino Is a Coward'' and states his latest themes with comic hyperbole. He also reclaimed his own ''Light of Day'' from the Paul Schrader film, and for his encores he revived the wild, woolly ''Rosalita'' and a soul-oldie medley including ''Devil With a Blue Dress On,'' ''Shake'' and more. By then he was racing around the stage and even dancing on Roy Bittan's piano.
Clearly, Mr. Springsteen is grappling with the demands of maturity. Songs like ''Part Man, Part Monkey'' suggest that, at least part of the time, he knows he doesn't have to be solemn to be serious.
By Jon Pareles via The New York Times. |
Worcester Journal; Town Asks Springsteen, Why Here? (and Smiles) |
Bruce, why Worcester?
Why is Bruce Spingsteen, the nation's biggest rock-and-roll act, beginning his first national tour in two and a half years in this gritty central Massachusetts mill town?
Everyone has an opinion: scheduling, students, sentiment, you name it. But the only thing that really matters to most people here is that come Thursday night, the 38-year-old rocker from New Jersey will be in Worcester and nowhere else.
''This is definitely the biggest event in six years,'' said David R. Mawson, music critic for The Worcester Telegram. The show, Mr. Mawson and others say, is the hottest ticket in town since the Rolling Stones played a small club here in September 1981.
''Everyone is holding their breath until it happens,'' said Chuck Nolin, a disk jockey on WAAF-FM, a local radio station.
Tickets for the three shows by Mr. Springsteen and the E Street Band are long gone - 37,000 were sold in a few hours at $20 apiece. Most people know someone who spent frustrating, freezing hours on line, only to come up empty-handed. The Mayor cannot get a seat.
Without doubt, Mr. Springsteen's shows at the Centrum auditorium are offering a morale boost to this city of 165,000 people. Worcester has been maligned as a dreary backwater whose sole attraction is its proximity to Boston, an hour's drive away. Its abandoned railroad terminal, Union Station, stands forlornly at the edge of downtown, the entrance sealed with gray cinder blocks.
But there are signs the city is waking up, and the visits of top-rank artists like Mr. Springsteen reflect that change, local residents say.
Worcester is the second-largest city in New England, and ''we're going to start acting'' like it, said Mayor Jordan Levy.
Young people are starting to return. There is an emerging night life and cultural scene. Worcester now has a city magazine. The Centrum, which opened in September 1982 with Frank Sinatra and has since attracted many other big names, has helped spur a sagging downtown. Perhaps most important, the city is pushing beyond its heavy industry past toward a modern economy focused on high technology and services.
''We just had an identity problem,'' Mayor Levy said. ''We are our own worst enemy.''
It is this lingering image of a down- and-out, blue-collar town that some think appeals to Mr. Springsteen and could be a reason that he chose Worcester to kick off the ''Tunnel of Love Express Tour.'' Mr. Springsteen performed here in 1984, with less fanfare.
Many of Mr. Springsteen's songs focus on alienated youth or hard-working, disenfranchised people beaten down by the system. ''Baby this town rips the bones from your back,'' he sang in ''Born to Run,'' a 1975 composition. ''It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap, we gotta get out while we're young.''
This theme undoubtedly hit home among younger Worcester residents. In the mid-1970's, the city did not seem to hold much promise or attraction for young people, according to several longtime residents. A local folk singer named Roger Salloom wrote his own version of ''Born to Run'' called ''Got to Get Outta Worcester.''
''If Springsteen is anything like his public persona, it would appeal to him to kick off the tour in an undervalued town like Worcester,'' said Michael Warshaw, the editor of Worcester Monthly magazine.
Business reasons may be even more compelling. The city offers such commercial advantages as a large number of college students, accessibility to interstate highways, a central location in New England and the availability of a first-rate hall with open rehearsal dates and a management with solid ties to the performer.
Could the Boss, as his fans know him, really be so calculating? Say it ain't so, Bruce. Mr. Springsteen's people do not like to talk, but softening the blow, a spokeswoman for his record label, Columbia, offered the observation that ''the New England area has always been a Springsteen stronghold.''
In truth, Mr. Springsteen is not the only show in town this weekend. After Thursday night's performance, he must cool his heels for two nights while the Centrum is visited by the increasingly popular United States Hot Rod Mud Bog Drag Racing Championships, featuring the Battle of the Monster Trucks. Mr. Springsteen will be dancing in the dirt Sunday night if the organizers do not clean up in time the vast indoor mud pit created by 60 dump-truck loads of Massachusetts clay mushed by heavy-duty, four-wheel-drive vehicles.
Not to raise false hopes, if anything could keep Mr. Springsteen in Worcester between shows, it might well be a hot rod show. Referring to one of many cars immortalized in a Springsteen song, Stephen J. Greenberg, the drag race's producer, said, ''Maybe we'll even wreck a pink Cadillac in honor of the Boss.''
By Allan R. Gold via The New York Times. |
Links:
- Springsteen Starts First Tour in 2 Years (NewYorkTimes)
- Worcester Journal; Town Asks Springsteen, Why Here? (and Smiles) (NewYorkTimes)
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