1999-08-09 Continental Airlines Arena, East Rutherford, NJ

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

Info & Setlist | Venue

Tour debut and only tour performance for "Frankie", last played in April 1976. Show includes Steve Eitelberg guesting on congas on a rare "Spirit In The Night". Eitelberg owns clothing stores in Deal and Long Branch and has known Springsteen for over thirty years. Bruce introduces him as "my personal haberdasher". "Darkness On The Edge Of Town" has only opened one other known show, on September 15, 1978 in New York City. "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" includes "It's All Right" and "Take Me To The River". "Light Of Day" includes "I've Been Everywhere".

Steve Eitelberg (Guest)

Middle of "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out"
´´(sings ´Take Me to the River´) Well, now….I´ve got a story….when I was a young man…..I walked as a little child and…..like a child is frightened to go through the forest to reach his home on the other side….so as a young man I stood before those dark trees, frightened to move on to the other side….and then I saw a light in the woods and I ventured into the woods a small piece and there was a gypsy sitting out in front of an air-stream trailer….with a six-pack of beer on ice and a crystal ball ….and I said ´Gypsy !….I want to find my way home but I´m frightened to go through the forest´ and she said ´That´s ´cause you´re alone !….you can´t get through this world by yourself….you need a band, Kid´ (chuckles) so she looked into the crystal ball…and she said ´You need some help, you need some intelligence…. you need Professor Roy Bittan on the piano….you need some friendship, Stevie Van Zandt on the guitar….you need some foundation, Garry Tallent on the bass….you need some rhythm and mightiness, Mighty Max Weinberg on the drums….you need some heart and some spirit, Nils Lofgren on the guitar….you need some mystery, Phantom Dan Federici on the organ…..you need some sweet harmony and some love and sexual healing….Miss Patti Scialfa on the guitar and vocals….and you need, you need some brotherhood….you need some soul….do I have to say his name ?….do I have to say his name ?….do I have to say his name ?….say who ?….say who ?….say who ?….say who ?….say who ?….say who ?….say who ?….say who ?….say who ?… say who ?….”

Intro to "Frankie"
´´This is for you aficianados out there….”

Middle of "Light of Day"
´´Mahwah to see you, Ma !….but everywhere I´ve gone I´ve seen people lost in confusion, lost in loneliness, lost in bitterness, well, we´re here tonight on a search-and-rescue mission, we´re coming to get you, if you´ve been downhearted, disspirited, disgusted, dispossessed, Koczinskyed, (?), Stravinskyed, Lewinskyed, we´re coming to get you….we´re gonna resuscitate, re-educate, reconfiscate, resexualate, reindoctrinate, reliberate you with the power and the promise, with the power and the promise, foolishness, the majesty, the mystery, with the ministry of rock and roll !….I want you ready, boys….let me tell you I cannot, I cannot, I cannot, I cannot promise you life everlasting but I can promise you life….once more, but I can promise you life….right now !….and all you´ve got to do is raise your hand and say ´I´….”

Intro to "Spirit in the Night"
´´Thank you….(?)….joining us on congas, my personal haberdasher, from the great state of New Jersey, Steve Eitelberg….I owe him some money on some suits so he´s gonna play here tonight….”

^{Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi.}

^{© 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.}

Tear the Roof off Jungleland

Where are all my Negroes at? Why aren’t there more Black people out here screaming Bruuuuce like Dolly Earshatterer to the rear of my right lobe? Could it possibly be because The Boss’s ascendancy roughly coincided with the landing of The Mothership and the rise of another hellified Jersey band by the name of Parliament-Funkadelic? But Springsteen? Man, I didn’t know, fool that I sometimes be. Wasn’t like folk hadn’t tried to tell a brother— Nelson George proclaiming Bruuuce The Hardest Working Man Since James Brown and whatnot, moreso than The Artist even.

But to finally see Springsteen live is to become some kind of believer. First, because he’s truly unruly and got That Thang, which one might roughly translate as the ability to enchant, delight, and power-fuck a crowd for two and a half hours as he did at the Meadowlands Saturday night. Second, because he’s not taking indifference for an answer and you’d have to be dead to not respond to his shock tactics. From his humble and introspective MTV/VH1 sound bites you wouldn’t necessarily know Springsteen was such a stage hogg, dogg. A shameless ham with an ego the size of Bill Gates’s money tree who lives to leave an already hysterical crowd limp or speaking in tongues.

Like David Bowie is the last rock star, guardian of that music’s aristocratic high castle, Springsteen is the last real rock and roller, final embodiment of that working-class music hero whose name and fame got built from hometown roots on up. Twenty-five years beyond superstardom Bowie and Springsteen still impress because they both still take it to the stage like they’re hungry for your love. To see Springsteen in a Jersey arena is to see Springsteen under a revival tent. It’s in fact where his blue-collar creed connects up with his all-American Confidence Man Carny Barker Televangelist shtick. So that you get band introductions being delivered as prophecy (“And the gypsy woman said you need looooove in your life! Introducing Patty Scialfa, ladies and gentlemen! And she said you need rhythm! Max Weinberg!”) and the man’s patented grandstanding on top of Roy Bittan’s grand piano being made into a forum for crowd-incitement that would give Robert Duvall’s Apostle a run for his money, or maybe even the Muhammad Ali of What’s-My-Name fame. Springsteen’s rapport with his folks staggers not only for the degree of adulation present, but for his ability to move them from vulgarity to deep thought in a heartbeat.

Growing up in public is an American commonplace, but few in popular music have ever managed to make being a fully grown man as charming to the national sensibility as living fast, decaying young, and dragging about a needle-pocked corpse. If Springsteen now stands for anything besides a fucking good time at the opera it’s the notion that you can keep the fire under That Thing lit well into middle-aged domesticity without plying the Pan card à la Mr. Jagger or ho’ing your relic status on the oldies circuit à la Mr. Berry.

And while the New Jersey bar band aesthetic is not my first choice for fun, there’s no denying the roughneck transcendence of the form achieved by Bruuuuce and the E Street Band— via a skintight and impassioned deployment of dynamics, and those wicked slambang segues that never fail to blow your head back vertical take-off stylee. Springsteen, Lofgren, and Van Zandt make guitar solos matter again by virtue of the sheer violence with which they attack their axes, and by virtue of how their leads leap out like sputtering dynamite sticks. And Bittan’s recombination of Tin Pan Alley Chopinisms with the right foot and left knee of Jerry Lee Lewis is an erotic thrill all its own.

Hearing Clarence Clemons blow brings to mind Ornette Coleman’s comment about the tenor saxophone being the definitive voice of African American musicality and masculinity. There is something about the Clemons/ Springsteen bond I suspect conjures up the ghost of Martin Luther King in the audience, judging from the instantaneous howls of delight whenever the Big Man drapes them with his bluesy
warm blanket. Proof that Black don’t crack: Clemons actually looks more cherubic now than he did 15 years ago, less mean and raunchy and more living in the light.

The set list included a hella songs I didn’t know and some of the few I do— no “Born in the U.S.A.” or “Streets of Philadelphia,” which all my sista-friends tell me is their favorite Bruuuce ever. Since I accepted my editor’s offer of a fool’s mission to write about some cat I’d barely paid attention to in 30 years of record buying, all I can offer by way of apology is that I’m now catching up on my homework.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play Continental Airlines Arena August 11 and 12, completing their 15-show run.

^{By Greg Tate via The Village Voice on August 10, 1999.}

Joining Bruce's Conga Line

How a Jersey clothing store owner ended up on stage with The Boss

Introducing his first encore at The Continental Airlines Arena Monday night, Bruce Springsteen announced he was going to bring a special guest onstage. All over the arena, minds raced.Who could it be? A local hero like Southside Johnny or Jon Bon Jovi? A fellow rock superstar, such as Mick Jagger or Bono? Steve Eitelberg walked out and took his place behind a set of conga drums. Eitelberg, introduced by The Boss as "my haberdasher," played congas on "Spirit in the Night," then disappeared like one of the spirits in the night. Springsteen had been singing about. He joined the band for only that song, and probably never have an opportunity to repeat the experience. But he's not complaining. "It was the thrill of my life," says Eitelberg, 53, a clothing store owner and friend of Springsteen who has never played in a nightclub before, let alone a sold-out arena. "I couldn't believe it. People were asking me for autographs. A lady came up to me and said, Can I take a picture of you with my daughter?"

Eitelberg, who lives in West Long Branch and owns the Steev 19 stores in Deal and Long Branch, has known Springsteen for more than 30 years, since the days when Springsteen was a struggling Shore-area musician. The two have been more like acquaintances than friends for most of that time, with Springsteen sometimes buying clothes from Eitelberg. But they have grown closer in recent years." If he wasn't the king of rock 'n' roll, and he was just a regular Joe,I would still be blessed to have him as a friend," says Eitelberg, who adds that when his late wife, Lynne, became ill with cancer several years ago, "he did some incredible things for her, like having her to the performances here at the Paramount" (his 1996 acoustic shows at Asbury Park's Paramount Theatre). "She was second row center, and he sang to her all night. She was really ill at the time. The last few days she was conscious, on life support, he was in her room, stroking her, singing to her." Lynne passed away in 1997, and since then, says Eitelberg, "on a particular day of the year-I won't say what day-he comes into my (Deal) store and gets drunk with me." The last time that happened, Springsteen, who knew that Eitelberg had taken up conga playing as a hobby over the last few years, made a surprising promise. He looked at me and said, "You know what you're gonna do?" and I said,"What?" He said, "You're gonna play congas with me and my band at the Meadowlands." Eitelberg didn't believe it, but Springsteen put it in writing immediately on a hastily scrawled contract. The next few times the men saw each other, though, Springsteen didn't mention it, so Eitelberg assumed he had been kidding around.

Then, one day this March, Springsteen walked into the Deal store and asked Eitelberg had he been practicing. I said, "What?," Eitelberg remembers. He said, "The congas, man, what's wrong with you?" Springsteen said he really wanted Eitelberg to play at one of the Meadowlands shows. "Now I'm flipping," says Eitelberg. I said,"You weren't kidding with me?" He said,"No, I don't say anything I don't mean." Springsteen had originally told Eitelberg he could do whatever song he wanted, but now he said he had decided which one it would be. "You're gonna do 'Spirit in the Night,' so start practicing," Eitelberg remembers Springsteen saying. After the European leg of the tour ended in June, Springsteen visited the store again, and asked again if Eitelberg had been practicing. The haberdasher said he was having a hard time getting his part down. So Springsteen walked into the store's back room, where Eitelberg kept some drums, and showed it to him. Springsteen reiterated the offer when the two saw each other at a party on July 15, the opening night of the 15-show stand (which ended Thursday), but it wasn't until last weekend that Eitelberg was told he would be joining the band Monday night, and that there would be tickets for family members and store employees. Eitelberg rehearsed with the band for the first time at sound check that afternoon, and wasn't nervous when it came time for him to take the stage. Bruce kept saying,"I can't wait to see your knees in front of 20,000 people." I couldn't believe it, but I wasn't nervous. The guys in the band made me feel real comfortable." Springsteen told the crowd he buys all his suits from Eitelberg, a statement the haberdasher found puzzling. "He doesn't wear suits," he says with a laugh. "He buys anything that looks old and used. But he has great taste in clothes. I must say, no matter what's going on (in fashion). He knows Armani and Versace. He's pretty up on it.

^{By Jay Lustig via The Star-Ledger on August 14, 1999.}

Links: