2006-04-30 New Orleans Fairgrounds, New Orleans, LA

Scheduled: ??:?? Local Start Time 17:15 / End Time 19:00

Info & Setlist | Venue

Bruce and the band open the tour with a well received, emotional show at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. The city was still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina, and Bruce's comments about the government handling of the crisis were appreciated by the audience. "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live?" is dedicated to "President Bystander". Horn section is Baron-Manion-Pender-Ramm-Rosenberg-Gayton.

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

Intro to “O Mary Don´t You Weep”
“Alright, it´s our first gig, let´s hope it goes well….”

Intro to “John Henry”
“Good afternoon, everybody….here´s a song, it´s actually a true story….came out of the first (?) a true story of man versus machine, a combat that occured, occured during the building of the eastern railroads in the late 19th century…I´ll be right with you….I´m having a technical problem with my hand….let´s hope that works out too (chuckles)….”

Intro to “Johnny 99”
“See, it´s not just a new band, this is a new belt, you see, it´s….alright, somebody want to tell me what that is? (chuckles)….”

Intro to “Old Dan Tucker”
“Yes, Sir!….oh my Lord….this is an old fiddle tune, made famous around 1843….I think it´s a 150-year-old Bob Dylan song, that´s what it sounds like….the lyrics to so many old folk songs end up being so surreal….alright….”

Intro to “Eyes on the Prize”
“This next song was, uh, originally a….holiness hymn, was known as ´Hands on the Plow´…. it was rewritten in the 1956 by Alice Wine….this is called ´Keep Your Eyes on the Prize´….”

Intro to “My Oklahoma Home”
“Thank you….woo! alright….thank you, this next song, uh….this is a song that was written during the other great American natural disaster in our country´s recent history that separated families, that drove Americans from their homes and left them spread out all across the country, the Oklahoma dustbowl….I like the toughness and the wit in the writing of this song, it´s kind of the sound of laughter through tears, ´Where is my home? It´s blown away´…. (starts playing) am I in the right key? (chuckles)….”

Intro to “Mrs MgGrath”
“Thank you….here´s an Irish…a great Irish anti-war ballad, first published in 1815 in Dublin…”

Intro to “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?”
“Alright….we had a chance to travel around and, uh, around New Orleans yesterday…. from Lake View to the 9th Ward and uh….I think I saw sights I never thought I´d see in an American city….uh….and uh….uh, the, the criminal inaptitude makes you feel furious and this is, uh (crowd yell and applaud) this is, uh….this is what happens when polical cronism cuts the very agencies that are supposed to serve American citizens in times of trial and hardship (crowd applaud) this is what happens when people play political games with other people´s lives….this is a song by a fellow named Blind Alfred Reed, uh, he recorded it the week after the stock market crash that preceded the Great Depression, uh….I kept the first verse and I wrote three more, this is for New Orleans tonight, dedicated, uh….dedicated to, uh, President ´Bystander´….´How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?´….”

Intro to “Jacob´s Ladder”
“Yes, yes, yes….yes, yes, yes, a song based on Jacob´s prophetic dream of escape from bondage….please join me, we are climbing Jacob´s ladder…”

Intro to “We Shall Overcome”
“Let´s climb….let us climb….let us climb….let us climb….this is a song that, uh, kind of was the genesis of our whole little project here, about seven years ago when I was asked to do a song for a Pete Seeger tribute record and, uh….I met most of these fellows playing in the field down on my farm, we had a little fiesta and, uh….it´s sort of a circle, three circles of musicians that´ve been together for a long time, I got my, my lovely wife, Miss Patti….and uh, Lisa and Soozie played on the streets of New York when they were….just little girls (chuckles) only little girls, that´s right, and, uh, of course, we have the horn section, New Jersey-bred, inspired by New Orleans
(chuckles) they played with Southside Johnny and, uh, with our band along the way and then there was the group of musicians that came down and played in New York, played a lot of great roots music, uh, and of course my cousin Frankie, whose dad taught me my first chords on the guitar, he´s playing with us tonight
(chuckles) the lovely Cindy Mizelle and Curtis King, the fabulous Marc Anthony Thompson….from a great band, Chocolate Genius, get your Chocolate Genius-records, please (chuckles)(M.A. Thompson:
´Thank you, Brother´)(chuckles) he´s a hell of a songwriter and a singer and, uh, we´ll introduce everybody later, uh, but it takes too damn long
(chuckles) but this is the song that started, I listened to this song, it´s such a great song, everybody´s known this, it´s spoken for so many….so many people and so many hard times for so long and it´s really, it´s a lovely prayer and, uh, we send this prayer out to you tonight….and this afternoon….”

Intro to “Open All Night”
“Come on, Charles….come on, girls….from the streets of New York City via New Jersey….”

Intro to “Pay Me My Money Down”
“Alright, let´s bring it in….thank you so much…for your hospitality….alright, we need help down here, ´Pay Me My Money Down´….yeah, how´s my tempo?….”

Intro to “My City of Ruins”
“A little gesture left over from the rock shows, you know what I mean? (chuckles)….thank you, New Orleans….yes….this is memorable (chuckles)….this is a song I originally wrote for my adopted hometown, Asbury Park, which, uh, is going through its own, its own very difficult times and (?) parts of it look a lot like parts of New Orleans right now….and, uh, but it´s working hard….it´s working hard….so I wanna sing this and dedicate it to, uh, the people and the city of New Orleans tonight….”

Intro to “Buffalo Gals”
“We don´t have to go home yet (?) we got a few more….this is a song my grandmother sang to me when I was a little baby, this one and Darktown Strutters' Ball…if you know the words….follow the bouncing ball (chuckles)….”

Intro to “When the Saints Go Marching In”
“Well, that sun ain´t quite set yet….one more, this ought to do it….I never seen a drum set come apart like that (chuckles) and roll dangerously close to the crowd, that was incredible, thank you, Marc, you saved me millions in lawsuits (chuckles)….let me see if I´m in tune…. or, as we say, close enough for folk music….I´m not in tune (chuckles)….I might not be close enough for folk music (chuckles)(tries tuning his guitar) we need a professional…that´s right, it´s pathetic - I´ve long ago forgotten how to tune my own guitar - how folksy can I be?…. nah, I still know how to tune (chuckles) I came across this, I was stumbling through this book of folk songs that I had tucked away in my, in a room that I write in and I came across this song, which I know has always had a special place in New Orleans´ history and, and it was sort of one of those things where ´Gee, I don´t know, how do you do that one? that´s, that´s kind of impossible to do,´ uh, ´cause we know there´s about, you know, a hundred people around town gonna do it better than us, you know, so, but I came across these two verses that were the first and the middle verse that I, I´d never heard before and uh….so, uh, I wanna say it´s an honor to share this stage tonight with greats like Allen Toussaint and, uh, and my good friend Elvis….and besides being….you know, besides being such a genius, he´s, also he´s just one of the most lovely and gracious men I´ve ever met, he´s so, he´s so incredible and, uh…. we, we started this project kind of just fooling around and loosely and so much of the roots of the music that we play here tonight was born right here in this great mother-city of American music….so we wanna thank you for your warm reception and for taking us in, every place we went around town, people greeted us and thanked us for being here and, uh, I came here with my wife when we first started fooling around (chuckles) nobody found us either (chuckles) we used to sneak up and down, hit all those little bars and oh man (chuckles) so, uh, coming back with my 15-year-old, 14 year-old son and daughter and 12-year-old son and daughter was, uh, bracing, it was bracing (chuckles) but uh, it´s always been a sweet city for us and we, uh, you have all our prayers and our support in….in helping your lovely city so….anyway, this one´s from, uh, New Jersey to New Orleans 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.}

Brothers and Sisters Don’t You Cry, There’ll Be Better Times By and By

Some things are meant to be. That Bruce Springsteen’s immersion into roots music, The Seeger Sessions, was released just six days before he and the band of the same name appeared at the first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival post-Hurricane Katrina had to be an act of benevolent fate. Rarely has the subject matter and style of a particular set of music felt so apropos to a moment.

Often it is the confluence of occasion and performance that distinguishes a great show from an all-timer and on those grounds, Jazz Fest 2006 has come to be considered one for the ages. “This…felt even above and beyond Springsteen’s high performance standards,” wrote LA Times critic Randy Lewis in his contemporary review, “a concert infused with the shout-out jubilation of an unfettered hootenanny.”

Reverent reflections on Bruce’s Jazz Fest performance have continued ever since. “I am not alone in ranking that show as quite likely the best, and certainly most emotional, musical experience of my life,” wrote New Orleans Times-Picyune critic Keith Spera in 2012.

Spera’s opinion is shared by none other than Springsteen himself, who wrote in Born to Run, “There was one show in America that stood out as not only one of the finest but one of the most meaningful of my work life: New Orleans.”

With such heady endorsements, Jazz Fest 2006 fully merits inclusion as the latest release in the archival download series. For those not lucky enough to witness the show in person, the official recording also represents a fresh opportunity to re-experience the performance, previously only available via audience recording.

The sound here, mixed from multi-tracks by Jon Altschiller, is full-bodied and warm, with a wide-stereo mix that gives space to all 20 or so players and singers on stage, and just the right amount of crowd response to capture the full bilateral experience.

“Alright, this is our first gig, let’s hope it goes well,” Bruce says at the top, summing up a spirit that’s equal parts purpose and looseness.

The former comes from being in New Orleans, post Katrina, a subject Bruce addresses head-on, notably in his intro to “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?,” reflecting on the devastation he witnessed while touring the city the day before the show and calling out the failure of government officials, from then President Bush on down, to address the situation. He goes so far as to dedicate the song to “President Bystander.”

The looseness is there by design in the very act of assembling and bringing this seemingly unwieldy number of accomplished players to the stage to play timeless folk and protest music (save for a few reworkings of Bruce’s own songs) for the first time on the road, as Jazz Fest also doubled as opening night of the Seeger Sessions tour.

The result is a Springsteen performance that’s fully in the moment and delightfully off the cuff. One minute he’s solemnly addressing the difficult times many in the Jazz Fest audience were experiencing, the next he’s mocking his own inability to tune a guitar or having an amusing wardrobe malfunction with his belt.

The music follows the same recipe for catharsis. “We Shall Overcome” is majestic and poignant, “Eyes On the Prize” elegiac and “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?” triumphant, each brilliantly arranged to showcase the capabilities of the band. Elsewhere singalong songs like “Buffalo Gals” and “Pay Me My Money Down” offer rollicking fun and feel right at home on the Jazz Fest stage. As Springsteen himself wrote in Born to Run: “I finally had a band that I felt would contextually fit Jazz Fest and might be able to pull the weight of that position.”

Of the Seeger-ized originals played here, “Open All Night,” reimagined as a big-band rave-up, is the standout, but another of Bruce’s own compositions, written with this kind of band already in mind, provided the night’s emotional crescendo.

“This is a song I originally wrote for my adopted hometown, Asbury Park,” Springsteen says introducing “My City of Ruins.” “Parts of it look a lot like parts of New Orleans right now….so I wanna sing this and dedicate it to the people and the city of New Orleans tonight.”

The fitting question the song asks, “How will I begin again?”, and the empowering answer, “Come on, rise up,” struck a deep chord with many in attendance. Wrote Spera in his original Times-Picyune review, “Thousands lifted their hands to the sky. I wept, my wife wept. And we were not alone.”

Throughout the set, lyric after lyric from the Seeger Sessions material feels penned for the New Orleans audience. “What happened to you poor folks just ain’t fair,” Springsteen declares in “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?,” while “O Mary Don’t You Weep” prophesies, “Brothers and sisters don’t you cry, there’ll be good times by and by.” Hearing such words of acknowledgement and hope sung out in such a musically engaging performance translates wonderfully in the Jazz Fest 2006 recording.

Perhaps the LA Times’ Randy Lewis summed it up best: “One concert, of course, cannot even begin to undo such monumental destruction as Katrina left, but Springsteen seemed to understand that even a moment of renewal can make a huge difference.” Amen to that.

^{By Erik Flannigan via Nugs.net.}

Austin Rogers	Probably the best Springsteen concert I have ever seen. You can't explain how incredible that show really was. You have all of these people crying and praying around you while Springsteen is right in the middle of "My City of Ruins". All I can say is you missed one hell of a show.
Teddy Rice	I have seen a lot of Bruce shows in the past 7 years, but I have NEVER seen anything like what happened at JazzFest this past weekend. It was easily the most emotional show I've ever witnessed, with people crying all around me and Bruce at his very best with an incredibly tight, rollicking Seeger band. It was perfect music at the perfect time.

Brucebase Wiki

Site Navigation

Brothers and Sisters Don’t You Cry, There’ll Be Better Times By and By