1988-05-16 Madison Square Garden, New York City, NY

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

Info & Setlist | Venue

Roy Orbison's "Crying" is included in the set after the many soundcheck appearances. The first of two "New York, New York" performances of the tour ends the show in an instrumental arrangement. Last performance for "Walk Like A Man" until 2005. "Cover Me" includes "Gimme Shelter" in the outro and "Part Man, Part Monkey" includes "Love Is Strange" in the outro. "Born To Run" is solo acoustic. "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" is dropped for the first time on the tour.

16.05.88 New York City, NY, intro to ´Tunnel of Love´
´´Ready for a ride ? (cheers)….´´

16.05.88 New York City, NY, intro to ´All That Heaven Will Allow´
´´So is spring on the East Coast here yet ? (cheers) how´s things down in New Jersey, man ? (cheers) I ain´t been there in a little while….still there, right ? south, right ? (cheers) we will never die (chuckles)….oh man, it´s nice to come back when it´s springtime, you know….(?) you know, girls leave their winterclothes home, they all look like they´re dressed for summertime out here…..hey, honey….you look good (chuckles)(?)(chuckles) we get days like today and yesterday, you know, I like to take my jacket off…..(?)….that´s when I like to take a little walk in the park and see if any of my old friends are around….hey, hey, man ! yo ! how you doing ? alright (chuckles) good to see you….oh….what´ve you been doing ? how come don´t you ever call me ?….yeah, yeah…..yeah, oh, that´s nice, that´s nice, what do you got ?….oh-oh, baby pictures of the little Big Man….(chuckles) oh, he looks good, he´s got his own shades, he´s got a little saxophone…..(chuckles) he´s got his own apartment, drives his own car, he´s three years old, he´s as big as me already….yeah, a lot of little babies running around up here now….in about 15 years there´s gonna be a E Street Band Volume Two…. (chuckles) he looks good, he looks good….oh man, I remember I was with you the night you met your wife…..the night Clarence meets his wife, he comes, we´re at this little party and she comes walking in and…..you know, she was real nice and…..Clarence comes running up to me, ´Bruce, Bruce´….everytime he would meet a girl that he liked, he would come to me for advice….I was like his Dr.Ruth or something, I don´t know….so he comes up to me, he says ´Bruce, Bruce´, then he runs into the bathroom and he starts fixing himself up and you had that, uh, that patchuli oil that you used to put on yourself all the time…..(?)(chuckles) then he comes out and I´m like following behind him a little bit and listening and I hear him at the bar talking to her and he has on what I call his love-face…..that means he´s being a whole lot nicer than he really is, you see (chuckles) but it worked, you did good, you know, I was your best man and Jesus, I don´t know….remember like back home when that girl walks into the room or comes walking by that you´re interested in and you want her to have some interest in you, it feels kind of like this, hey Ritchie, come on, man…..from the men´s room of New Jersey (the Miami Horns start singing)(?)….yeah….remember we used to stay out like till 4 or 5 a.m ?….we should do that again, we should do that tonight…..you guys can stay up late, huh ? (cheers) good (chuckles) I´ll see you later, alright, alright, I forgot my coat…..´´

16.05.88 New York City, NY, intro to ´Spare Parts´
´´How you doing out there, alright ? (cheers) how are you guys in the backseat ? (cheers) that´s good….oh, there was, uh, this fella and this girl….they, uh, they met in a little shot-and-beer bar down along the coast on the weekend….and he was a house painter, he was kind of young and a little on the wild side, wasn´t saving his money or anything….and she was a little older and she was looking for, looking for somebody to love her….and they met on a Friday, Friday or Saturday night and they started to go out…..there were a lot of things about him that she liked, he was kind of, kind of sweet-tempered guy, you know, real, real gentle, telling, uh, jokes all the time…..and they moved in together, they got a little garage apartment about two blocks in off the beach in the wintertime….and things were going real nice….and
she got pregnant and they were making plans to be married….he saved his money for the first time and he went down and, and got her a ring, brought it home….surprised her….and she went down and picked out a dress…..and then something happened….and I guess he got a little scared, maybe he was a little young or something and he took off on her….but she never really let him go, she kept him in her mind and she kept him in her heart every night and every day….when she got in bed at night, she thought of him and saw his face….and the only problem was that he wasn´t ever coming back….and the world took that dream and broke her heart with every day….because there comes a time when you gotta take that past and you gotta put it away….so this song, this is a song about a woman struggling to understand the value of her own individual existence…..and the value of the life of her child….trying to put down that past, those old dreams that are tying her down and find something new and beautiful and meaningful now….”

16.05.88 New York City, NY, intro to ´You Can Look´
´´This is a song dedicated to that great American pastime…..ah, not that one…..that´s the old one….I´m talking about shopping…..you know that, uh, Home Shopping Network you got around here ?….now tell me you don´t see that damn Home Shopping Network ?….the lady with the little damn horn ?….she beeps the thing everytime somebody buys something….it was 69.95, now down to 49.95, down to 19.95, down to 10.95, if you call in the next ten seconds, they´ll send you a free pair of steak knives that you can stab your hubby with…..´´

16.05.88 New York City, NY, intro to ´I´m a Coward´
´´Let me get my composure back….is my hair alright ?….still up there ?….do we have anybody alive and living in New York tonight ? (cheers) is there anybody that can feel the spirit in them out there tonight ? (cheers)….that´s good because…..what I want to know is…. do we have any rough, tough, New York City men out there tonight ? (cheers) do we have any macho New Jersey men out there tonight ? (cheers) because I've known men that would swim rivers….that would climb mountains…..that would wrestle with the beasts of the jungle, that´s right….but there was one thing that they was afraid of….do you wanna know what that one thing was ?….huh ?….I´m talking about L-U-V, I'm talking about love…..love scared them to death….when they got next to love…..when they felt love in their hearts, they ran home to their mommies like little babies….am I talking about you ?….now, do we have any brave, courageous, New York City women out there tonight ? (cheers) do we have any sweet, sexy, liberated, New Jersey women out there tonight ? (cheers) because, girls, I´m talking to you too….I´ve known women that would jump out of an airplane at 30,000 feet …. but when they got next to love, when they found that man….that touched them down deep in their hearts…..when they found that object of their desire and emotion….they ran home…. now I´m not just down here pointing a finger tonight….because I´ve got a confession of my own to make…..and what I wanna say is I have sinned !….and I don´t need no Jim Baker, no Pat Robertson, no Jimmy Swaggert to forgive me…..them boys can kiss my ass, baby….and that Jerry Falwell, he can kiss my ass twice…..both cheeks…..´cause I ain´t afraid of man-made things….but what I´ve got to confess to is…..that´s right….I´m a coward…..when it comes to love…..´´

16.05.88 New York City, NY, intro to ´Part Man Part Monkey´
´´Now, there´s those that believe we descended from Adam and Eve…..and there´s those that, uh…..well, let me explain this to you…..´´

16.05.88 New York City, NY, middle of ´Light of Day´
´´On the piano, Professor Roy Bittan….on the drums, the Mighty Max Weinberg….on the guitar and vocals, Miss Patti Scialfa….on the guitar, the great Nils Lofgren…..on the bass, Mr.Garry W.Tallent….on the organ, Phantom Dan Federici….back on the horns we´ve got…. (?) the Horns of Love….and last but not least….the man that you´ve been waiting for to replace Mayor Collins….the greatest man in the history of western civilization….and the handsomest man this town´s ever seen, Clarence ´Big Man´ Clemons on the saxophone…..´´

16.05.88 New York City, NY, intro to ´Born to Run´
´´Thanks…..I was sitting at home before we come out on the road thinking what I wanted to come out and sing about and…..talk to you about…..I knew I wanted to come out and sing a new song…..that´s my job….and then I thought about some other things that I wanted to do that would fit in….with what we were trying to say….and uh, I guess this next song, I´ve been singing for about 15 years…..I wrote it when I was 24 years old….and I guess it surprises me about how much I knew about what I wanted and what I was after because the questions that I asked myself in this song, I´ve been chasing down the answers to ever since…..I don´t know if you ever really find those answers…..but uh, when I wrote it, I thought I was writing about, writing about a guy and a girl who wanted to get in the car, keep on running and never come back…..yeah….that was a nice, uh, nice romantic idea…..I loved it…..but as you get a little older and as I sang this song through the years, I realised that I´d put all these people in all these cars and I was gonna have to figure out someplace for ´em to go….just in order to, uh, find out where I was going…..and I guess I felt that that individual freedom, separated from, from community or other people or your friends ends up feeling pretty empty and meaningless…..so I guess that guy and that girl, they were out there searching, searching for some connection….which I feel basically is what I´m doing here tonight….the money ain´t bad either (chuckles) but you gotta have that other thing (chuckles) so, uh…..this song has kept me pretty good company on my search….in trying to figure out what home is, where it is, how to get to it, how to hold on to it….I hope it´s kept you good company on your search and I´d like to sing it for you tonight….wishing, uh, wishing all of you love, home and happiness….. ”

Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi

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Springsteen at the Garden

''There comes a time when you've got to take the past and put it behind you,'' Bruce Springsteen said at Madison Square Garden last night during the opening show of his ''Tunnel of Love Express Tour.'' Mr. Springsteen's reflection was part of a monologue that introduced a powerful, hard-edged new rock song, ''Spare Parts,'' about young love, pregnancy and abandonment, but his words also evoked the transitional position in which America's quintessential rock hero finds himself.

Mr. Springsteen is no longer a romantic rock-and-roll cutup striking rebel poses and evoking a world of youthful fuel-injected passion. Now 38 and married, and having left the New Jersey shore for a home in New York City, he is an adult who maintains a kid's enthusiasm for rock while trying to make grown-up sense out of relationships and the social order.

As the wonderful new songs in the ''Tunnel of Love'' album demonstrate, Mr. Springsteen has entered a new phase. These songs are the first in which he takes a hard look at the reality of personal relationships, sorting through all the ambiguities of love - commitment and fear, security and boredom, sexual selfishness and emotional generosity. He finds the terrain perilous and unpredictable, yet manages to remain affirmative, in much the same way that ''Born in the U.S.A.'' scrutinized ordinary lives caught in the vise of social upheaval, yet managed to sound optimistic. Mr. Springsteen is, as he once wrote, a believer in ''The Promised Land.''

Mr. Springsteen's gift is his ability to translate all of these ambiguities into basic, non-analytical argot that speaks as much to the body and the emotions as to the mind. In concert, he has also figured out how to string songs into extended journeys that take on a cumulative power as the evening proceeds. His ''Tunnel of Love Express Tour,'' which is to play four more Garden shows, all of them sold out, might be described as a serious carnival ride from confusion into jubilation.

Last night's first set, which opened with the new album's title song, tunneled into the heart of darkness and reached depths of anguished frustration in ''Seeds'' and ''Roulette,'' the howling laments of working men victimized by social change. The second set, which included such Springsteen classics as ''I'm On Fire,'' ''Born to Run,'' ''Dancing in the Dark'' and ''Hungry Heart,'' was more upbeat, with Mr. Springsteen poking fun at television evangelists and delivering rollicking renditions of ''Glory Days'' and ''Rosalita'' - raucous, punchy songs with a nostalgic clout.

The locomotive-driven arrangements by Mr. Springsteen and members of the E Street Band, augmented by a roaring five-man horn section, skillfully underscored the songs' deeper themes without ever seeming fussy. The keyboard textures on ''Tunnel of Love'' and other songs walk a perfect tightrope between churchy seriousness and carnival sleaze, and the jackhammer rhythms of ''Roulette'' evoke both patriotic zeal and murderous fantasy.

Drawing just the right shadings was Mr. Springsteen's magnificent performance, almost operatic in its oratorical power and at the same time a ferociously joyful roar of exuberant freedom. While he's onstage, Mr. Springsteen reconciles seemingly unreconcilable concepts: a sober awareness of social and erotic realities and a boundless faith in life.

^{By Stephen Holden via The New York Times.}

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Springsteen at the Garden