1997-05-18 Palais Des Congrès Acropolis, Nice, France

Scheduled: 20:30 Local Start Time ??:?? / End Time ??:??

Info & Setlist | Venue

First 1997 performance of "It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City" and tour premiere of "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)", dedicated to Elvis Costello (who is in attendance). Final "It's The Little Things That Count" of the tour; it will not be played again until the Doubletake benefits of 2003. First ever performance in France of "It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City".

Bruce Springsteen

Intro to "Straight Time"
´´Thank you, this is a song about a fellow who gets out of prison and uh….is trying to find his way back into his family and back into his (someone yells) yeah, I´m gonna need quiet if I´m gonna be able to sing tonight….someone can translate for me (chuckles) anyway, everybody´s struggled with a little straight time…..´´

Intro to "Highway 29"
´´Thank you….here´s a song about the price of insight (?)….´´

Intro to "Murder Incorporated"
´´In the States we got a….part of our population whose lives and dreams are considered expandable….we got murder incorporated…..´´

Intro to "It´s Hard to Be a Saint in the City"
´´Alright, voici un chanson pour mes vieux amis (chuckles)….´´

Intro to "It´s the Little Things That Count"
´´I was in this, uh….in this little bar outside of a city that I can´t name and uh (?)(chuckles) but uh, I stopped in, uh….I´d gotten lost on the way to a friend of mine´s house and I stopped at a little bar to practise my new-found maturity and call ´em and let ´em know that I was gonna be late….I go into this little bar on the corner and I don´t have any change and I ask the bartender for change and he says….´Well, we don´t give any change around here´….(?) ´Do you mean, uh, that nobody in the bar gives change or the whole community got together and said ´Fuck ´em, no more change´ ?´ (?) but anyway, there´s a waitress watching this and she comes over and goes like this and she´s got a quarter, you know, and I go to the payphone and I put the quarter in and dial the number but it seems I´m just a little bit outside the area code and I need 50 cents…..so I said ´Gee, you know, this is a 50-cent call´, she says ´Oh, that´s too bad but, uh, give me a ride home and I´ll give you another quarter´….(?) (some people start clapping) no, not necessary, just working in here so….´´

Intro to "Red Headed Woman"
´´Yeah, alright, speaking of tongues….I said speaking of tongues (chuckles) let me get this right because the other night, uh, I think I said are there any women with red horses in the house, I don´t wanna (chuckles) I don´t wanna get that wrong again, it´s not ´chevaux´, it´s ´cheveux´ (chuckles)(says the phrase in French)(chuckles) I guess I didn´t get it right (chuckles)….this is a song about cunnilingus, a sexual act very popular in the United States (cheers) thank you, thank you very much…..uh, not much to say about it, probably invented right here (?)(chuckles) according to the pay-channel on my hotel TV (chuckles)….´´

Intro to "Two Hearts"
´´(?)(chuckles)….thank you, my friend, for the correction (chuckles) uh, this is for my red headed woman…..
(….) Two hearts are better….(some guy: ´Than one´)….I can do it (chuckles)….´´

Intro to "Brothers Under the Bridge"
´´Here´s a song….I wrote for the Tom Joad-record and uh (?)….uh, in the mid-80´s, there was a group of homeless Vietnam Veterans that, uh, set up a camp in the San Gabriel mountains ….and uh, to get off the streets of L.A….uh, this is a song about….one of them, uh, San Gabriels is a mountain range in-between the Mojave desert and the San Fernando Valley and this is a song about one of them who had a grown daughter that he´d never seen and she growed up and 20 years later she comes looking for her dad, this is called ´Brothers Under the Bridges´….´´

Intro to "Dry Lightning"
´´Thank you, alright, this….this is a song about men, hommes, uh, women….femmes….love, l´amour….sex, sex….(?) I don´t know, tres difficile….(?)….ok, this is a song about one of those relationships where, uh, you almost made it, had, had a lot of good things going on, might´ve made it (?) if you weren´t so busy fucking it up all the time (chuckles) but uh…. anyway, I didn´t write about men and women for….about 30 years….wrote about, uh, men in the cars, that worked out pretty well for me so I stuck at that for a while….then I wrote about the men in the cars looking at the women….had a good run with that one too….then I wrote about the men and the women in the cars….but not talking that much…..that went pretty, that went down pretty well also….so then I took the men and the women out of the cars….that´s where I fucked up (chuckles) anyway, this is one of those relationships that almost made it but in l´amour, ´almost´ never counts, this is called ´Dry Lightning´….´´

Intro to "Long Time Comin'"
´´Alright, this is a song, this is a new song, it´s a happy song….I don´t like to write those much any more….haven´t had a lot of luck with them….uh, I´ve found in general the public doesn´t like them so, uh….and they come back later and they bite you in the ass and….and you know, ´Take that, Mister Happy Song Writer !´ (chuckles) but this is a song that I wrote in spite of myself, what can I say, and uh….uh, I guess it´s a song about sort of having, having a chance to not do unto others as has been done unto you (chuckles) that´s a good lesson to learn, how to not do unto others as has been done unto you…..and when you have your kids and, uh, your, uh, family, you get a chance to put that into practise and I guess that´s what this is about….so wishing you happiness (chuckles)…..´´

Intro to "Sinaloa Cowboys"
´´Thank you very much, this is Kevin Buell….my compadre and the only member of the Tom Joad-orchestra (chuckles) it´s a little lonely out there but, uh, these next four songs are set in the Southwestern part of the United States, uh…..about six years ago, I was on a trip out there with some friends of mine and I was in this little Arizona town and, uh, I like to go off the interstates and I like to take these little state and county roads and was in one of these four-corner desert towns where there´s a gas-station and a motel and a grocery store and a bar, of course, all the necessities for human life to, to do well out there (chuckles) and I was in one of those motels, I like to say, where you can lay down at the end of your bed and if you open the door, reach out and touch your motorvehicle in the parking lot (chuckles) but, uh, it was late at night and these two Mexican men came in from the west, they were driving a (?) truck and one was a young kid, one was a guy about my age, I guess and he told me, you know, he looked at our motorcycles and started talking about….his younger brother who died in a motorcycle accident…..so about six years later, I was writing this song on the Central California drug trade, about two brothers and, uh…..his voice was in my head so I dedicate this to him every night, my mysterious friend, wherever he might be, this is called ´Sinaloa Cowboys´….´´

Intro to "The Line"
´´Thank you, this next, this next song is set on the San Diego-Tijuana border, you get a lot of young guys in southern California that come out of the army and they go to work for the California border patrol, a confusing job….it´s an issue that was badly abused in the last Ameican election, there´s always been people coming across our southern border and doing jobs that nobody wants to do, for a pay that nobody wants to take, at the behest of American businesses and in return they´d, uh, their kids´d get some medical care and a chance at a better education but, uh, this is a song about a young border patrolman….who´s trying to figure out where that line really is down there…..this is called ´The Line´….´´

Intro to "Balboa Park"
´´Thank you, this is a, uh….song about kids, I think once you have your own kids, you become extra-sensitive to anything, anything about children, I always say that kids got this window into the grace that´s in the world and they, uh, bring that with ´em and that´s the birthright of every child is that, that place and sort of the parents´ job, I guess, is kind of to let them live in that and protect them until they´re old enough to protect themselves….this is a song about kids that don´t have anybody to do that for ´em and that grace gets violated and, uh, they´re lost and on their own like you and I (?) would be at that age….they come across the border from, uh, Tijuana, across the Tijuana river and onto the streets of San Diego and, uh, end up in this place called Balboa Park….´´

Intro to "Across the Border"
´´I grew up….in a house where there wasn´t a whole lot of, I grew up in a house where there wasn´t a whole lot of talk about culture or, or the place that culture was supposed to play in your life, wasn´t a lot of talk about books or films or….and, uh, the first thing I remember that had a real impact on me was the Top 40 radio, when I was a little boy, my mother was still a young girl and she liked that rock and roll music and she´d have the radio on in the kitchen every morning when we came down for breakfast and I started to, as I sat there in my little Catholic school uniform, my green tie and my green pants, I started to feel like I was hearing a secret message that, uh….´There´s a party going on´, all those records seemed to be saying, ´and you´re missing it, little boy´, you know (chuckles) ´Don´t go to school !´ (chuckles) but uh (chuckles) but, uh, those records really filled me with, they were the first thing that really gave me a sense, that was able, that was able to reach into me in a sense that there was a world beyond my little town, that there were other lives to be led beyond the lives that my friends and my family had lived and, and for a long time all that beauty and all the sex and all that fun and, and the soulfulness of those records sustained me, they still do….when I got to my late 20´s and a friend of mine showed me John Ford´s Grapes of Wrath and I went out and I got the Steinbeck novel and there was something in that film and in the book that affected me the way that those records did and I´ve returned to it many, many times for inspiration….it was something in that idea of somebody risking something for an idea that was bigger than they were, a story of a man who was educating himself and trying to save himself and, and then in turn trying to salvage his community….it was a heroic idea, an old-fashioned, uh…..it was a heroic idea so this is a song about the hope that people carry when there´s no longer any reason to hope, it´s about ….that element of hope that makes us human, I guess, and, uh, how in the end people fall back on hope and love and faith and family ´cause that´s all that there is….so I wanna do this for you tonight, I hope I get this right (speaks French)….´´

Intro to "You Can Look"
´´Alright, this is a song I´m going to do tonight because Elvis* is in the building, baby !…..´´
(* Elvis Costello was in the audience)

Intro to "This Hard Land"
´´Thank you very much…..this is a song about, uh….brotherhood and sisterhood and faith and trying to put together the kind of….community you wanna live in….alright….here we go….´´

Intro to "Growin´Up"
´´I´ll do this especially for my young fans tonight…..´´

Intro to "Galveston Bay"
´´Thank you….this is, I need (some people are yelling) sssh, aah, merci (chuckles) this is a, uh, song that, uh….it´s the last song I wrote for the Tom Joad-record, it´s a song based on an incident that happened in the Gulf Coast of Texas in the mid-80´s….where, uh, at the end of the Vietnam War, there were a lot of Vietnamese immigrants that settled in the Gulf Coast of Texas and went into the fishing industry and there was a lot of tension between the Vietnamese fishermen and the Texas fishermen….so this is a song about, uh…..it matters what choices you make, this is called ´Galveston Bay´….´´

^{Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi.}

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One Minute You’re Right There, And Something Slips

Every Springsteen tour starts with a vision and an underlying narrative. What story is our favorite artist telling through his setlist and presentation? Over time, setlists typically evolve and tours explore new themes, keeping things fresh but sometimes departing significantly from the initial concept.

Springsteen’s solo-acoustic tour for The Ghost of Tom Joad was unwavering in conserving its original vision. Beyond special nights in Freehold and Asbury Park, from the earliest shows in late 1995 through final gigs in the spring of 1997, the core songs from the album served as the spine of the show, while Bruce’s performances stayed steely and steady. Nice, France, a stop from the tail-end of the Joad tour and the first Archive release from 1997, presents an opportunity to reassess this compelling commitment from the little-heard fifth leg.

I had the good fortune to see a couple of the early shows on the Joad tour, at the Wiltern in Los Angeles on November 26 and 27, 1995. With the exception of the final encore (and album closer) “My Best Was Never Good Enough,” Bruce performed the same songs from Joad at the LA shows as he would in Nice, more than 120 performances later. “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “Murder Incorporated,” “Born in the U.S.A.,” and “This Hard Land” are also intact. Adding “Brothers Under the Bridge,” which debuted the second night at the Wiltern, 13 songs remained in the set, anchoring the tale and tone of this special solo outing.

Which isn’t to say those songs are played exactly as they were in the fall of 1995. The Nice performance is unmistakably honed after a year and a half on the road without a band. Case in point: Springsteen’s guitar playing feels less muscular but more masterly. Because the arrangements largely remain faithful, the differences are subtle, but a song like “Murder Incorporated” has evolved from stark noir to more of a beautifully sung cautionary tale, with Bruce’s guitar weaving an unsettling rhythmic bed that lulls us into submission.

“Straight Time,” “Highway 29,” and the title track play truer to form, but there’s extra weariness in the tone of the protagonists that makes their stories resonate all the more. Heard through a post-Western Stars filter, “Highway 29” feels like a progenitor to that recent mastework, especially its title track. Truest of all is the four-pack that served as the lyrical denouement for show. Nice gets sublime readings of “Sinaloa Cowboys,” “The Line,” “Balboa Park,” and “Across The Border,” and the verb is accurate for these near novellas.

On Broadway, Springsteen set up familiar songs with stories and vice versa, but this storytelling sequence is more like an author reading to an unfamiliar audience. As such, Bruce’s performances of the material place a premium on the vivid details that make the narrative spark to life. For a performer who has earned the position of having his audiences eat out of the palm of his hand, brokering this type of connection with more demanding material must have been a fascinating challenge. Admiration for how he pulls it off night after night is well earned.

Other Joad tour stalwarts are also in top form in Nice. The 12-string reinvention of “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” debuted at the Christic shows in 1990, still sends shivers up the spine. “Brothers Under the Bridge” is perhaps the most underappreciated entry among Springsteen’s Vietnam Veterans material. The song was still unreleased when Bruce performed it on the Joad tour (it eventually came out on Tracks in 1998). The final line, “One minute you’re right there, and something slips,” remains one of the most haunting in the canon.

Nice would also see the final tour performance of “It’s the Little Things That Count.” Bruce revisited the song a couple of times at the Somerville, MA solo shows in 2003, but it has been unheard ever since. The song was written for Joad and later considered for Devils & Dust, but it remains officially unreleased in studio form. Gotta love the transition from “Little Things” to “Red Headed Woman”: “Speaking of tongues…”

Of course Joad tour setlists were not totally rigid. Nice finds Springsteen in something of a nostalgic mood, pulling the kindred “Growin’ Up” and “Saint in the City” into the set, connecting the Joad era to Springsteen’s last turn as a solo artist in 1972. He also takes “You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)” out for an entertaining spin in its tour debut. “Working on the Highway” is good fun, too, exposing the Born in the U.S.A. song’s Nebraska roots — listen for Bruce hitting a particularly impressive high note at the end of “cruel cruel worrrrrld.”

The final reinvention of the night comes with “The Promised Land.” As evidenced by his use of Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream” to close shows on his next solo tour in 2005, Springsteen is attracted to mesmeric arrangements. The transformation of “The Promised Land” could be the most radical of all his reinterpretations and merits reappreciation for sheer performance beauty and vocal control. We’re transfixed until that final percussive thwack breaks the trance of a spellbinding evening and a tour that stayed true to itself from the first show to the last.

^{By Erik Flannigan via Nugs.net.}

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One Minute You’re Right There, And Something Slips