Intro to “Out in the Street”
“Good evening, Melbourne! (crowd cheers) are you ready to rumble? (crowd cheers)…”
Intro to “Spirit in the Night”
“The E Street Band has come thousands of miles tonight (crowd cheers) across desert plains…across great cities…across island archipelagos…across continent after continent…and across (crowd: “Shark-infested waters”) just to be here tonight (crowd cheers) and I’ve got one question I wanna ask you…and the question we’ve come thousands of miles to ask tonight is…(chuckles)…the question I’ve come thousands of miles to hold a blow-up shark* in your city is…can you feel the spirit? (crowd cheers) can you feel the spirit now? (crowd cheers) can you feel the spirit? (crowd cheers) can you feel the spirit now? (crowd cheers) well, if you can feel the spirit, I want you to answer me with a mighty “Yeah, yeah” – can you feel the spirit? (crowd and band: “Yeah, yeah!”) can you feel the spirit now? (crowd and band: “Yeah, yeah!”) can you feel the spirit? (crowd and band: “Yeah, yeah!”) can you feel the spirit now? (crowd and band: “Yeah, yeah!”)…”
[Someone in the crowd had given Bruce an inflatable shark, according to Backstreets.com.]
Intro to “The River”
“We are battery-powered…aah…there’s a couple on here, though, that one? (crowd cheers) that one? (crowd cheers) the people have spoken (crowd cheers)…”
[According to Backstreets.com, the request sign had “Meeting across” on side and “The River” on the other side and Bruce let the crowd choose which to play.]
Intro to “Pay Me My Money Down”
“Alright…since I’ve been…Down Under, I’ve been trying to learn… the cultural…finepoints of the Australian people (chuckles)…the first night in Sydney I went backstage and I had an Australian friend and, and, uh, we started talking about the show, a great show, everybody had a great time and he said the audience was still sitting down, I said “Yeah, well, so,” he says “You don’t understand, the Australians, you’ve got to tell the Australians to get off their asses” (crowd cheers) I said “Are you sure?”…’cause in the States, like, you know, we think Australians are like, all like wild and crazy, you know, he says “No, no, no, no, they’re, Australians are polite, law-abiding people, you’re gonna have to tell them to get off their asses”…so I said “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know” and, uh…so I go out the next night and I do a little rap and tell people to get off their asses and then I go back and I meet another Australian friend…and she says “No, no, no, let me give you a tip: when you say “asses,” people don’t have a fucking clue what you’re saying (crowd cheers) they don’t understand you, nobody says “asses” here – it’s arses (laughs from the crowd) get off their arses (crowd cheers) their bums, get off their bums”…oh, oh, oh, oh, I got it, I got it, I got it, okay, okay…but, uh, the reason I bring all this up is because about 90 seconds from now your arse is going to send a message to your brain, I don’t have to tell you to get out of your seats because your arse is going to speak to you (crowd cheers) now, when you go home…not yet! no! but 90 seconds from now and when you go home and people are asking what happened at the Bruce Springsteen show, you’re gonna say “My arse spoke to me (laughs from the crowd) it was unusual, a small miracle, actually” (chuckles) alright, who’s got a watch?…are you ready? 90 seconds from…now…”
Intro to “Born in the U.S.A”
“Thank you, Melbourne! (crowd cheers) thank you, thank you…I wanna thank you all for coming out to the show tonight, thank you so much (crowd cheers) oh, I promise it won’t take us so long to get back next time (crowd cheers) oh, we’ve been having just a great time here in Australia, just, uh, what can I say, I appreciate you guys keeping the faith with our music all these years (crowd cheers) means a lot to us, showing us some great nights, this is, uh …in the States we’ve been, we work with different foodbanks each night, been doing it for 30 plus years, I guess, and so we’re fortunate down here in Australia we’re working with Feed Melbourne, Feed Melbourne, each year two million Australians don’t have enough food to eat, Feed Melbourne is an annual initiative to cook and distribute perfectly good food that would otherwise go into the landfill, if you see Feed Melbourne on your way out, they’re good folks on the frontline doing God’s work, assist them (crowd cheers) we did this the other night, we haven’t done it in a while, we had a good time with it so we’re gonna do it again, alright, this is for Feed Melbourne – alright, Roy?…”
Towards th end of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”
“Melbourne! (crowd cheers) Melbourne! (crowd cheers) Melbourne! (crowd cheers) Melbourne! (crowd cheers) Melbourne! (crowd cheers) Melbourne! (crowd cheers) you’ve just seen the hard rocking, pants-dropping, house-shocking, booty-shaking, lovemaking, Viagra-taking, legendary E (crowd: “Street Band!”)…”
After “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”
“Thanks for a great night, we’ll be back Tuesday for another spectacular! (crowd cheers)…”
| Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi. |
