1990-11-17 Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, CA

Scheduled: 20:00 Local Start Time ??:?? / End Time ??:??

Info & Setlist | Venue

Second Christic Institute benefit concert. World premieres of "The Wish" and "Soul Driver" – both on the guitar. "Tougher Than The Rest" gets its first acoustic try-out on the piano and "State Trooper" is played on the guitar. The rest of the show is quite similar to previous night's show. Final solo piano "Real World" until the 2005 Devils & Dust Tour.

Christic Institute Benefit

Bruce Springsteen

Jackson Browne (Guest)
Bonnie Raitt (Guest)

17.11.90 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Mansion on the Hill´
´´I remember when I was a kid, we lived in a….it was this small house, we lived kind of in the third of it….and, uh, the address was 39 ½….I always remember kids saying ´What´s a half ?´…. and uh….there was, uh….at night my Pop would take me and we´d all ride in the car and uh….we would drive around the town, it was funny we lived there…..always but yet we´d go sightseeing …..and he´d always, you know, drive past , like, the big nice houses and it always seemed like really mystical and I did not understand what those people…. had to with me or my Dad or who we were….”

17.11.90 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Reason to Believe´
´´This is a song about, uh….blind faith and illusions and….I guess everybody, we all live with our illusions, that´s how we get through, through the day most of the time …. and uh, little ones, they can be bad, they can cut down on….your ability to enjoy your life and the big illusions, they can be really dangerous….everybody starts believing those big illusions and ….you end up with the….government that we´ve had for the past decade…..so, uh…..this is a song about the price you pay….”

17.11.90 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Red Headed Woman´
´´Yeah, this is, uh….it´s funny , about 20 years ago Jackson and, and Bonnie and I met, I was playing in Max´s Kansas City, Jackson was playing at the Bitter End and uh …. Bonnie was playing in Cafe Au Go Go and this guy David Blue saw me at Max´s and said ´Hey, kid, come here´ and brought me down to the Bitter End and Jackson had his first record out….at the time I don´t think I had a record out yet….I got up and played and Bonnie came across the street from Cafe Au Go Go and….you know, so….I was telling the folks last night that back when, uh….it was hard to get a job, Bonnie Raitt used to let me open up for her, she said she thought I was cute…..you gotta watch those redheads (?), wow…..you know, Bonnie´s got that sexy thing going and Patti came down tonight and like (?) two redheads together….now,when they both wear their hair up high, they kind of have that Miss Kitty thing going….it´s nice….but uh, anyway….this is, uh….this is to my favorite redheads….if I can remember how to play it….”

17.11.90 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´57 Channels´
´´I was, uh….was reading the paper the other day and I came across a Bob Dylan interview, a woman asked him about this movie that he just put out…. and it was funny ´cause she says ´Bob, this could be the worst movie, you know, rock and roll movie ever made´ and Bob was very nonplussed and says ´Yeah, could be´…(?) and he says ´Yeah, I was trying to, I asked the director what I should do….and he said ´Just be yourself´….and he says ´I was wondering ´Which one ?´´, I knew just what he meant …so this song, this next song is the real me so (chuckles)….wrote about my actual life (chuckles)….alright (?)….just in case you were wondering….”

17.11.90 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´The Wish´
´´Last night I, uh….did a song about my dad….tonight….I´m gonna do something different….I, I had this, I wrote this song quite a while ago….and uh….I never….really recorded it, it´s a song about my mother…and uh….it was a funny thing because, uh…. you have this song and I said ´Gee, in rock music, in rock´n´ roll….ain´t nobody sings about their mother out there´….so I said ´Well, gee, why is that ?´, it´s against all that macho posturing you have to do and stuff….so I said ´Wait a minute, wait, wait, wait a minute´…so, you know, it´s uh….this was a real problem so I wanted to figure it out so I went to see this psychiatrist….it´s a true story….and I told him what the problem was I had this song about my mother and I hadn´t sung it….because of all the macho posturing that I have to do….so he said he understood….he says ´Well, you have to see, you see, all men are afraid of their mothers, they say a boy´s best friend is his mother but really all men are afraid of their mothers´….I had to pay for this, you´re gonna get it for free, right….so, you know, I said ´Well, men are afraid of their mothers ….yeah….that´s why….that´s like when a man and woman, when they get arguing, the woman´s always going : ´Do I look like your mother ?….I´m not your mother….am I supposed to be your mother ?´….you know, that´s why the men are always going like : ´Stop mothering me….ah, my mother used to do that´….that kind of thing….so realising the truth of this thing, I said ´Wait a minute….I´m man enough to sing about my mother´ (chuckles)…I think (chuckles)….I ain´t afraid, you know, only a little bit which is why I´m talking so long before I sing this song…..but uh, I´m gonna leap into the void and the great line of mother lovers : Richard Nixon, Elvis Presley, Merle Haggard and every country and western singer you ever knew (chuckles)….so….Mom, if you´re out there (chuckles)….this better be good…..”

17.11.90 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´Nebraska´
´´This is, uh….this is a song about….disconnection and isolation and….I think….it seems harder, it´s harder to stay connected to things, it seems like it´s a lot of….it´s a lot of work, you know, uh….most of my life, it´s funny that….uh, I´ve always had, uh, I´ve always been fighting between feeling really isolated and….looking to make some connection or some….find some community to belong to or something….I guess that´s why I picked up the guitar initially….in the beginning….and uh….don´t know if I´ve, well, I haven´t done it, I haven´t done it (chuckles), I spend enormous periods of time feeling very isolated, you know….and uh….I guess this is a song about what happens when that side of you gets really set loose….and you don´t feel the connections and you don´t feel what sense….laws make or, or morality makes….and you´re gone….”

17.11.90 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´When the Lights Go Out´
´´Wanna do this for Danny Sheridan…and the people of the Christic Institute who…. watch what´s going on when the lights go out….”

17.11.90 Los Angeles, CA, intro to ´My Hometown´
´´Thanks, uh….I have my, have my kid down here tonight (cheers)…hey, let´s roll him out, you know (chuckles)….you know, oh, I was telling the folks last night….you know, about going through the thing of having a baby, going through lamaze and…. you know, you´re waiting and you´re waiting and uh….you know, Patti started getting the contractions and….and so, uh….they, first they were short and then they were longer and then they were shorter and uh….you call the doctor and he says, you know, ´Wait, wait, you know, don´t , don´t come down here´….and, uh so we´re waiting and we rented some movies, you know….and we walked around Beverly Hills for a while (chuckles)….and, uh, uh, finally, you know, we go to the hospital and I´m, you know, thinking : ´Ok, I don´t wanna faint, that´s my main concern´…that´s disgusting, right (chuckles) Patti, oh, (?) I don´t wanna faint (chuckles)(?)….anyway we get there and it´s night and….and it was nice and the baby came pretty quick….and I stood down there looking at him….took him home and it was amazing because I seen the first time he cried and I caught, caught his first tear on the tip of my finger….and seen his first smile and cleaned his first shit….all those things I think you keep on doing, I guess (chuckles)…but uh….I don´t know, anyway…´Tremors´, we watched ´Tremors´…to spiritually prepare us for the occasion (chuckles)….but uh, here´s….here´s to you and all your kids and….God bless them….kid´s, like, he´s a little franchise on, on future and uh, I guess that´s a part of what this song´s about….”

Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi

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Bruce Springsteen Returns: Joins Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne For Christic Benefit

When everybody starts believing those big illusions,” said Bruce Springsteen from the stage of the Shrine Auditorium, in Los Angeles, “you end up with a government like the one we’ve had for the past decade.” The occasion was the second of two benefit concerts given by Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne on November 16th and 17th for the Christic Institute, an organization that is pursuing a lawsuit against a group of United States-sponsored covert operatives for allegedly bombing a press conference in Nicaragua in 1984. The song Springsteen was introducing was “Reason to Believe,” from Nebraska, and the specific illusion he referred to was the American government’s belief in its inalienable right to police the world and shape the destiny of other sovereign nations.

Springsteen’s endorsement of the Christic Institute and its conviction that an ongoing conspiracy of government officials and former military and intelligence officers has played a major role in American foreign policy over the past three decades represents a far more radical stance than he has ever before taken. In his characteristic fashion, however, Springsteen managed to put a human face on the array of complex, far-ranging political issues the Christic Institute lawsuit addresses. His two masterful solo acoustic sets – his first live appearances since the close of the Amnesty International Human Rights Now! world tour in October of 1988 – were breathtakingly moving explorations of how self-deceit, romantic illusions and fantasies of control corrupt the bedroom and the boardroom, personal as well as political affairs, and poison human experience. With remarkable emotional sophistication, Springsteen was able to dramatize both the damage such illusions inflict and the difficulty and pain involved in giving them up for a real world that is far from a utopia.

The first evening’s show was more taut and gripping, if less relaxed, than the second. Walking out of the wings to center stage without an introduction, his hair grown long and swept back, Springsteen was clearly tense. Strumming an acoustic guitar, he mentioned not having “done this in a while” and told the audience, “If you’re moved to clap along, don’t – it’ll mess me up.” He then set the tone for the night with a stark, intense – and simply spectacular – reading of “Brilliant Disguise,” a song about the virtual impossibility of understanding your own emotions, let alone another person’s. His singing strong and supple, Springsteen incited howls of excitement with the subtlest gestures, such as sliding his voice into a fragile falsetto on certain line endings. “Is it me, baby, or just a brilliant disguise?” Springsteen nearly whispered to the crowd of 6200 people witnessing his return to the public eye. The question seemed far from innocent a little later when, after a fan screamed, “We love you, Bruce,” Springsteen responded, without a shred of irony, “But you don’t really know me.”

A modified arrangement of “Darkness on the Edge of Town” was somewhat less successful – it would work far more effectively the next night – but a haunted “Mansion on the Hill,” with Springsteen providing a plaintive harmonica solo, proved riveting. The singer bemoaned how “over the past decade the country’s been sold an illusion of itself” and praised the Christic Institute for “trying to make us grow up” by way of leading into “Reason to Believe,” which he souped up with a chilling slide-guitar part.

The set took an amusing turn when Springsteen – obviously in a 2 Live Bruce mood – hauled out a song he’d written the night before called “Redheaded Woman,” which he dedicated to “my two favorite redheads”: Bonnie Raitt and, of course, Patti Scialfa. “Well, now, listen up, stud, your life’s been wasted,” Springsteen wailed over a propulsive rockabilly beat, “till you been down on your knees and tasted a redheaded woman.” In “57 Channels,” another funny new song with a rockabilly feel, Springsteen described shooting out his television Elvis style because “there’s fifty-seven channels, man, and nothing on.”

The fun halted with a heart-stopping version of “My Father’s House,” which Springsteen prefaced with a wrenching description of how, “three or four times a week,” late at night, by himself, he used to drive past the houses in which he grew up with his parents. Concerned, he consulted a psychiatrist, who explained that “something went wrong” in those houses, something broke down, and that Springsteen was driven to return to the scene in a desperate, compulsive effort to “make it right.” “But,” the psychiatrist concluded, “you can’t.” The song ends: “My father’s house shines hard and bright/It stands like a beacon calling me in the night/Calling and calling so cold and alone/Shining across this dark highway where our sins lie unatoned.”

The degree to which Springsteen’s tangled feelings about his parents have been reactivated – possibly by his having a child of his own – was evident the following night, when he replaced “My Father’s House” with “The Wish,” a poignant song about his mother. “If pa’s eyes were windows into a world so deadly and true,” he sang, accompanying himself on guitar. “You couldn’t stop me from looking, but you kept me from crawling through.” While Springsteen’s struggle with his tormented feelings about his father fuels his greatest art – “My Father’s House” is, significantly, a far more compelling song than “The Wish” – his feelings about his mother account for the sweeter, more vulnerable aspects of his personality.

On Friday night, Springsteen moved over to the piano after “My Father’s House” for “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.” Despite the raw energy of Springsteen’s R&B-flavored rendition, that song – along with the spellbinding, introspective version of “Thunder Road” he performed later, also at the piano – essentially served as an elegy for the E Street Band. Hearing Springsteen belt out a line like “When the change was made uptown/And the Big Man joined the band” as he sat alone on the large, dark stage was a powerful moment. “I’m all alone, I’m on my own,” he sang. “And I can’t find my way home.”

Brilliant, spare versions of “Atlantic City” and “Nebraska” framed Friday night’s biggest surprise: the rarely performed “Wild Billy’s Circus Story,” from The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. A new song called “When the Lights Go Out” – about deception, corruption of spirit and the darker elements within us – followed “Nebraska.” “Thunder Road” – which Springsteen stopped midsong because he forgot the lyrics, shaking his head and saying, “I knew this would happen” – came next, and a stunning, mournful “My Hometown,” performed on piano, closed the set proper.

For his encore, Springsteen played a new song at the piano, a stirring ballad called “Real World,” which he co-wrote with E Street Band pianist Roy Bittan and dedicated on Saturday night to Patti Scialfa, who was backstage with their new baby, Evan James. A bracing, hymnlike love song, “Real World” is about abandoning fairy-tale fantasies and accepting the limits and delights of the possible. “Ain’t no church bells ringing, ain’t no flags unfurled,” sang the man whose storybook marriage ended bitterly and whose most popular tour became an orgy of flag-waving. “Just me, you and the love we’re bringing into the real world.”

Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt – whose opening sets were strong but, unfortunately, entirely overwhelmed by Springsteen’s performance – then joined Springsteen for a rousing cover of Bob Dylan‘s “Highway 61 Revisited.” The trio alternated lead vocals and harmonized on the choruses. Browne’s driving acoustic rhythm guitar – Springsteen played harmonica and Raitt rattled a tambourine – turned Dylan’s blackly humorous tale of profit frenzy and war fever into an insinuating boogie workout With Browne playing piano, Springsteen playing acoustic guitar and Bonnie Raitt playing slide guitar, the night ended with a feeling rendition of Ry Cooder‘s “Across the Borderline.” A song about Central and South American immigrants who come to Texas to find a “broken promised land,” it provided a touching multicultural complement to the domestic dislocation of Springsteen’s “My Hometown.”

On Saturday night, in addition to substituting “The Wish” for “My Father’s House,” Springsteen deleted “Wild Billy’s Circus Story” and “Atlantic City” and added “State Trooper,” a stately, dignified reading of “Tougher Than the Rest” and a new song called “Soul Driver.” Taken together, the two shows – beginning with a “Brilliant Disguise” and ending in the “Real World” – demonstrated that Springsteen’s ability to seize the moment onstage and make palpable the meaning of potent emotional and social issues has not at all diminished. He continues to look deep inside himself and find a world there, a world we can enter to learn a bit about how a life proceeds, to learn a bit about ourselves and our own world.

“I built a shrine in my heart/It wasn’t pretty to see/Made out of fool’s gold, memory and tears cried,” Springsteen sang in “Real World.” “Well, now I’m heading over the rise.” It’s a necessary trip, and with as much conviction as ever, he’s taking us along with him.

^{By Anthony DeCurtis via Rolling Stone.}

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