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Scheduled: 14:00 Local Start Time: 19:28 / End Time: 22:41
Info & Setlist | Venue
Bruce and band return to the Hard Rock Calling Festival in Hyde Park with a fine show and a farcical conclusion. The positives first - an exquisite "Thunder Road" opens, sung with just the accompaniment of Roy Bittan on piano. This same arrangement was regularly heard on the Born To Run Tour, with Bruce specifically noting this was the first thing he played at his first show in London (at the Hammersmith Odeon in November 1975). A sign requested "Take 'Em As They Come" makes it only tour appearance, last played 2003 in Copenhagen. Tom Morello guests on several numbers, including "Death To My Hometown" and "The Ghost Of Tom Joad", and John Fogerty joins for "The Promised Land".
The final guest for the evening is Paul McCartney, and together they play the tour's only "I Saw Her Standing There" followed by a raucous "Twist and Shout" (including "La Bamba"). Unfortunately, despite only being a few minutes over the 10.30pm curfew the concert organisers choose to cut the sound at the conclusion of "Twist And Shout", and as a result Bruce is unable to play a final song, nor is he able to say his farewells to the crowd. Instead he sings one chorus of an a cappella, unamplified "Goodnight Irene" and leaves the stage. As a result, this is the first show of the tour to not include "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out." Steve took to Twitter following the show to express his disappointment and anger, while Bruce commented "I wasn't aware the plug had been pulled, and people couldn't hear what I was singing. Afterwards I said to Paul, 'I can understand them pulling the plug on me, but you? Aren't you a knight?'". Paul McCartney remembers: "Bruce, sort of, got in touch and said, 'Do you wanna get up? We'd like you to get up'. I said, 'Well, I don't know, I'll just come along to the show', so we're in the side of the show in the wings, and he says 'Are you gonna get up, man?', I said 'I don't know, maybe'. Then his roadie says 'I've got a bass for you, I've got a guitar, it's all tuned, it's ready to go'. I go 'Oh, you're REALLY ready!'. So they're all really ready to go, so, what have they rehearsed? He said 'Twist And Shout' and 'I Saw Her Standing There'. So at last minute, I sort of have to say, 'Yeah, I'll do it', so I go on, and it's great, they really have rehearsed it, and I'm the only one who sort of doesn't know it, even though I wrote the bloody thing. So then they go to 'Twist And Shout', and I'm singing it, and someone had whispered 'We haven't got any time, we can't do it', but it was so nice, Bruce is going 'Yeah, come on, man' and Bruce is you know, he's a do-er, a go-getter, so I was happy. 'Yeah!'. We're rocking away, all our monitors stayed on, so we weren't really aware that the plug had been pulled on the audience, that you see on the YouTube later, it's all gone dead. And he is singing, he's gonna then go back and sing ' Good Night Irene', which I think was all dead, but we had a laugh again. You've gotta have a laugh, it would just be so terrifying if you didn't, so we just had a laugh afterwards, I was just apologetic like 'I'm sorry, man, only in Britain!'. It's the only place… You can't imagine in New York somewhere like that, them pulling the plug, and it got everyone of course, so that was the big story. Everyone in America was going to me 'Is it true, man? They pulled the plug on you and Springsteen?!', and I'm saying 'Yeah, well, you know, just some guy. Some bloody jobsworth…'"
"My City Of Ruins" includes a snippet of "Sad Mood". Bruce revises the introduction to "Shackled And Drawn" - "hey, hey, I'm calling / working while the rain is falling." Final tour performance for "Empty Sky". European debut of "I Saw Her Standing There" and first ever performance in England of "Take 'Em As They Come". Patti Scialfa is not present.
Hard Rock Calling Festival
- Bruce Springsteen
- The E Street Band
- Charles Giordano
- Soozie Tyrell
- The E Street Choir
- The E Street Horns
- John Fogerty (Guest)
- Paul McCartney (Guest)
- Tom Morello (Guest)
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