2007-10-17 Madison Square Garden, New York City, NY

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

Info & Setlist | Venue

Last "Brilliant Disguise" of 2007.

17.10.07 New York City, NY, intro to “Radio Nowhere”
“Good evening, New York City (crowd cheers) is there anybody alive out there? (crowd cheers) is there anybody alive out there? (crowd cheers)…”

17.10.07 New York City, NY, intro to “Magic”
“Good evening, New York City (crowd cheers) thank you, thank you, thank you for coming out tonight (crowd cheers)…here’s the title song from our new record…it’s, uh…I wrote it about us being in …Orwellian times…probably would have surprised George Orwell… where what’s true can be made to seem like a lie and what’s a lie can be made to seem true so, uh, this is a song not really about magic, it’s about tricks…”

17.10.07 New York City, NY, intro to “Livin’ in the Future”
“Good evening, everybody (crowd cheers) I’m so glad to be in your beautiful city tonight (crowd cheers) that’s right…this is a song called “Livin’ in the Future” but it’s about what’s happening now… how along with…all the things we love about America like cheeseburgers, the Jersey Shore (crowd cheers) the Bill of Rights, the Constitution (crowd cheers) New York City (louder cheers from the crowd) the Statue of Liberty (crowd cheers) which is technically in New Jersey (?)…football, the New York Giants and the Jets (crowd cheers) they technically play in New Jersey, though…that theme song “New York, New York” (some cheers) sung by a guy from New Jersey (crowd cheers) Clarence “Big Man” Clemons (crowd cheers) it’s about how along with all the things that we love about our home and about who we are, over the past six years unfortunately we’ve had to add to the American picture: rendition, illegal wiretapping, rolling-back of Civil Rights, no Habeas Corpus or right to defend yourself against charges brought against you…these are things that are not only attacks on our Constitution but are attacks on who we are…on our very selves, on our moral authority and our pride when we get to stand up and say “We are the Americans” (crowd cheers) so this is a song about sleeping through all those changes that shouldn’t have happened but have happened here…so tonight we’re gonna try and do something about it…we’re gonna sing about it…that’s a start (chuckles) and the rest is up to us, I guess…come on, Max…”

17.10.07 New York City, NY, intro to “Backstreets” (following “Brilliant Disguise”)
“Miss Patti Scialfa (crowd cheers) that’s right…she’s got a new record out…it’s on sale at the concession stand along with some t-shirts…and a whole new line of E Street Band sex toys (crowd cheers) that’s right…what we use, you can now use in the comfort of your own home…get out there and check it out – it’s hot!…”

17.10.07 New York City, NY, intro to “Girls in Their Summer Clothes”
“Thank you…I see the, uh, (?) stock just plummeting right there, that’s…thanks, gonna send this one out…ooh!…wanna thank everybody for coming out to the show tonight, thank you very much (crowd cheers) thank you, New York City (crowd cheers) yes, yes, you were good neighbors (chuckles) I want to, uh, send this one out the folks tonight from World Hunger Year and the New York City Coalition Against Hunger…they’re friends we’ve worked with for a long time, they’ll be out there in the lobby, they’re in the frontlines doing God’s work…so please help out World Hunger Year and the New York Coalition for the Homeless…oh…alright…I wish they all could be New York City girls (crowd cheers)…”

17.10.07 New York City, NY, intro to “Thundercrack”
“Yeah, very well done, very well done, good singing, New Yorkers (crowd cheers) alright, this was our, this was our show-closer when we first played Max’s Kansas City (crowd cheers) it was a 150-seat room, uh, it was us and the Wailers (chuckles) that was a good bill (chuckles)…”

17.10.07 New York City, NY, middle of “American Land”
“Miss Patti Scialfa (crowd cheers) Garry W. Tallent (crowd cheers) Steve “Silvio” Van Zandt (crowd cheers) Sister Soozie Tyrell (crowd cheers) the Mighty Max Weinberg (crowd cheers) Professor Roy Bittan (crowd cheers) Danny Federici (crowd cheers) Mr. Nils Lofgren (crowd cheers) and Clarence “Big Man” Clemons (crowd cheers) New York City! (crowd cheers) you’ve just seen the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, earth-shocking, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, earth-quaking, love-making, educating, liberating, Viagra-taking, history-making, legendary (crowd: “E Street Band!”) that’s right!…”

Compiled by Johanna Pirttijärvi

Springsteen Leaves Garden Audience Euphoric

The Madison Square Garden crowd joyfully sang along with Bruce Springsteen, not for the first or last time, on Wednesday night, as he reached the chorus of “Lonesome Day”: “It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, yeah.” That’s what the sound of the E Street Band always says, surging past every bit of disillusionment, loss, bewilderment and bitterness in the verses that the fans also know.

The sheer vitality of Mr. Springsteen, 58, belting an entire set of showstoppers straight from the gut and working the stage with his longtime band, provides all the hope the lyrics struggle to find. He’s as serious as any public figure alive, but he leaves audiences euphoric — a paradox that only grows more profound as he endures.

The music Mr. Springsteen makes with the E Street Band is grounded in the invincible sound of the pop he grew up on, particularly Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound. It echoes the glory days of early rock ’n’ roll and an America that, after World War II and before Vietnam, was prosperous, confident and outwardly unified. His favorite chord progressions hark back to doo-wop; so do the saxophone tags of Clarence Clemons. There’s camaraderie in the music and among the musicians; the video screens above the stage would constantly intercut close-ups of the band members with their boss.

Even when those old chords carry lyrics that are far more troubled than girl-group love songs, and even when songs expand into anthems and suites (like “Thundercrack,” the encore Mr. Springsteen revived from his barnstorming live shows in the early 1970s), the music itself harbors no doubts, no second thoughts.

Yet for decades Mr. Springsteen has sung about a world that grinds down dreams and betrays the promise of America. More than six years into the second Bush administration, he is open about his political anger. He introduced “Magic,” the title song from his new album, with a comment about our “Orwellian times,” when “what’s true can be made to seem like a lie and what’s lying can be made to seem true.” Playing the jovial M.C. while the band vamped the intro to another song from the album, “Livin’ in the Future,” he started out naming “things that we love about America, like cheeseburgers, the Jersey Shore, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution,” and went on to warn about the “rolling back of civil rights” and “sleeping through all those changes that shouldn’t have happened here.”

Concentrating on songs from “Magic” (Columbia),the set built into something like an extended argument about the meaning of home. Except for “Brilliant Disguise,” a song about a troubled marriage that Mr. Springsteen sang in harmony with his wife, Patti Scialfa, there were few old hits before the encores. Instead Mr. Springsteen brought back songs like “Adam Raised a Cain” and “The Promised Land.”

Most of the arrangements followed their recorded versions, with a vivid exception: “Reason to Believe,” a quiet song from “Nebraska” remade as a harmonica-huffing John Lee Hooker-style blues boogie, tapping the blues for its alchemy of hard luck into pleasure.

The set’s homestretch was an emotional seesaw: a new ballad, “Devil’s Arcade,” for a soldier wounded in a desert war, and then “The Rising,” nothing less than an incantatory ritual of mourning and redemption. “Last to Die” and “Long Walk Home” contemplated the current morass.

Then “Badlands” vowed to push through it, with the colossal beat of Max Weinberg’s drums and Gary Tallent’s bass, the chime-topped keyboard chords of Roy Bittan and Danny Federici, Mr. Clemons’s saxophone, Soozie Tyrell’s fiddle and the triple-barreled guitar strumming of Nils Lofgren, Steve Van Zandt and Mr. Springsteen.

When the band paused, the audience sang at top volume: all burdens, all misgivings were cast off once again.

^{By Jon Pareles via The New York Times.}