2014-02-26 Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Scheduled: 19:30 Local Start Time: 20:09 / End Time: 23:52

Info & Setlist | Venue

Last show in Australia and Bruce pulls out all the stops with a thirty-song, three-hour-43-minute set. Three tour premieres open the show starting with the first ever Springsteen rendition of the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive". The Gibbs emigrated to Australia and settled near Brisbane in the late 1950s. "It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City", "Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street?" and "Growin' Up", including an intro story about growing up and superheroes, follow, all audibled. Following thereafter are sign request performances of "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)", "Sherry Darling", "Save My Love", and only the 26th performance of "Fade Away", played "for Steve". Bruce allowed the crowd to decide how to continue, more signs or something special. They selected the latter, and it was indeed something special - a complete album performance of The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle for only the second time. The Cooper + Koo string section (Natalya Bing, Nadia Buck, Yena Choi, Susannah Clark, Sally Cooper, Francesca Hiew, Airlie Koo, and Caitlin Lacy, all on violin) joins the band for "Stayin' Alive" and "New York City Serenade". By comparison the rest of the set is standard fare, apart from Eddie Vedder guesting on "Highway To Hell". The acoustic "Thunder Road" brings Springsteen's Australian Tour to a conclusion. Only tour appearances for "It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City", "Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street", "Fade Away", "Wild Billy's Circus Story", "Incident On 57th Street", and "New York City Serenade", plus the final tour versions of "4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" and "Kitty's Back". First ever performances in Australia for "Stayin' Alive", "It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City", "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)", "Fade Away", "Wild Billy's Circus Story", and "New York City Serenade". Over the fifteen shows in South Africa and Australia Bruce and the band played a total of 126 songs. Patti Scialfa is not present.

Intro to “Stayin’ Alive”
“Hello, Brisbane! (crowd cheers) greetings (crowd cheers) it’s our last night in Australia, I want to thank you all, thank the whole country for treating us so kindly (crowd cheers) we’ve had an epic time here, thank you (crowd cheers) so this for you guys (crowd cheers)…”

Intro to “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City”
“Good evening! (crowd cheers) give me some light!…give me some light!…Cooper and Koo String Section! (crowd cheers) Cooper and Koo String Section! (crowd cheers) thank you, ladies!…yes, yes, yes, where is my guitar?…”

Intro to “Growin’ Up”
“Yeah! (crowd cheers) this is to Eddie!…alright…take it, Roy…so you’re thirteen…your face is covered in acne…you’re sitting in your room…haven’t had any sex yet…except for the good old…Mr. Trusty …”Mr. Trusty, how’d you like a date tonight?” “Okay!” (laughs from the crowd)…that’s right…that’s right…and…all you can do is… dream and imagine and try and find some way out of your box, this box you’re in, that there’s no door, there’s no window, so you’re reading your comic books, “I’m, I’m, uh…Superman!…if I could fly, if I could fly…Batman…if I had all those gadgets, yeah, if I just had some tricks…the Flash!…if I was just fast, so fast those fuckers would never catch me…if I was, uh…the Human Torch, I’d just sear all those motherfuckers when they give me that old bullshit…or best yet, just the Incredible Hulk…all I’d have to do is get mad and green!…but, uh…that only gets you so far ‘cause you’re not gonna be Superman and fly away, not gonna be the Flash…you’re not gonna burst into flames…though I heard that is a scientific possibility…uh…not gonna have all those gadgets…I’m…I’m a late adapter, I’m like, I’m just figuring out my iPhone, you know (laughs from the crowd) if I was Batman, I just wouldn’t know how to work all that shit and I never wanted to read any instructions, I hate fucking instructions (crowd cheers) so I can’t be Batman, I wouldn’t know how to use a fucking Batmobile!…so…you sit, you wait…you listen…to all those strange messages that are being sent over the airwaves…all that stuff in the mornings that your Mom and Pop think is just a bunch of shit coming out of that little box on top of the refrigerator and suddenly they seep into your brain…and into your bones and into your heart and finally they reach your balls… that’s when you’re desperate…’cause that’s what it’s gonna take (chuckles) that’s what it’s gonna take…then you wake up one morning…I stood stonelike at midnight…”

Intro to “Spirit in the Night”
“Alright…stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive, not so easy to do, not so easy to do…you come home at the end of those days where it feels like the world sucked all the spirit out of you…stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive, how do you stay alive?…how do you stay alive?…so…the E Street Band (crowd cheers) the mighty E Street Band! (crowd cheers) has come thousands of miles tonight…across (crowd: “Shark-infested waters!”) to help you answer that question!…how do you stay alive…inside?…we’ve come thousands of miles tonight to ask you just one question, there’s only one way you keep the fire burning, there’s only one way, there’s only one, and what I wanna know 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) 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) if you can feel the spirit, I want you to answer me with a mighty “Yeah, yeah”…can you feel the spirit? (band and crowd: “Yeah, yeah”) can you feel the spirit now? (band and crowd: “Yeah, yeah”)
can you feel the spirit? (band and crowd: “Yeah, yeah”) can you feel the spirit now? (band and crowd: “Yeah, yeah”)…”

Intro to “High Hopes”
“(intro music starts)…Somehow I got somebody’s cell phone in all of that (chuckles) (crowd cheers) if you’re missing your cell phone (chuckles) wait…take it down…”Press the lock key to use in-call functions” (laughs from the crowd) what’s the lock key?…(?)… try us again in a little while – we’ll give it to the guys downstairs… that’s a first! (chuckles)(laughs from the crowd) it was in my back pocket, I don’t know how it got there (chuckles) I didn’t feel a thing…”

Intro to “Save My Love”
“Very obscure…this was a song that was meant, meant to go on, uh, let me think…I think it was “Darkness on the Edge of Town”…it was too happy, it was just too fucking happy…you were too happy! …you couldn’t get on the record, you were too fucking happy…”

Intro to “Fade Away”
“Alright…well, we had a lot of different plans for tonight but none of them are happening so we’re just following the signs (crowd cheers) this is Steve’s favorite song, I gotta do this for him at least once a tour so alright…gentlemen…after we do this, I’ll ask you if you want to, I got an idea, we can either do it or we can just keep going away with our…(chuckles) Steve says it’s a hell of a show, we ought to keep going (chuckles)…”

Intro to “The E Street Shuffle”
“For Little Steven (crowd cheers) soul man brother! (crowd cheers) alright…I don’t know, it’s kind of late and here’s what we were gonna do, at one time we were thinking of playing “The Wild and the Innocent” from top to bottom (crowd cheers) but it might be too late for that, maybe we ought to just follow the signs…alright, and I don’t know how many of you folks are really that familiar with that record, that was (crowd cheers) well, you suckers are, you know, but (chuckles) I don’t know, we could do just the second side here…no?…I don’t know…alright…Steve, I’m gonna check, check with the audience, uh, we can either follow the signs and do whatever comes into our heads or “The Wild and the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle” top to bottom (crowd cheers) let me hear yay for “The Wild and the Innocent” (crowd cheers) yay for whatever the fuck comes into our heads (crowd cheers) E Street Shuffle time (crowd cheers)…alright, I don’t know who else runs their show exactly like this, I know (chuckles) we don’t do it every night – just mostly (chuckles) alright…go on, boys (chuckles) ready? (chuckles) alright, here we go, we’re gonna take, take you back to where we were born, baby! (crowd cheers) this is where the band comes from (crowd cheers) we’re gonna take you back to the streets of Asbury Park! (crowd cheers) circa 1974 (crowd cheers) when there were nothing but crazy motherfuckers out there (crowd cheers) boys!…”

Intro to “Wild Billy’s Circus Story”
“Hey, Clark…who’s playing this?…oh my God! (?)…before we had horn players…Garry Tallent played the tuba (chuckles) (crowd cheers) this has never happened on the Australian continent before, I guarantee…here we go, boys…”

After “New York City Serenade”
“Let’s hear it for Cooper and Koo, stand up, ladies! Take a bow! (crowd cheers) thank you, thank you so much, they came in this afternoon and learned all that – and “Stayin’ Alive” (chuckles) thank you, come on down (crowd cheers) that’s only in Australia! (crowd cheers)…”

Intro to “Glory Days”
“It’s too late to stop now! (crowd cheers)…”

Middle of “Glory Days”
“This is it, Steve, our last night in Australia…this is our last chance, Steve (Steve: “Say it ain’t so!”) to do one more (?) just one more, just one more…(?)…E Street Band (?)…”

Intro to “Highway to Hell”
“Thank you, Australia! (crowd cheers) thank you, Brisbane! (crowd cheers) we got some folks from the Oz Harvest of Brisbane in the hall tonight – give me a guitar, please – the Oz Harvest of Brisbane …they are, they believe that good food should not go to waste, they rescue excess food that would otherwise be thrown out and discarded and they distribute it to struggling citizens here in the Brisbane area and your neighbors and your friends, please if you get a chance, please support the Oz Harvest of Brisbane if you see them on the way out (crowd cheers) I don’t know, uh, how to explain what’s happened for us here in Australia over the past two years, we came down last year, we hadn’t been here in a decade and we could feel the bottom of the Earth was moving for us or something, something was going on (crowd cheers) something was going on and, uh, so I’m glad we had a chance to come back this year and I want to thank all of you, I believe Brisbane was our first show last year and, uh, we know right, we knew right from then that we were gonna have a good time and, uh, please thank everybody across the country from Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne… everybody that greeted us with such warmth and so much intensity and, uh, it’s just been wonderful two seasons for us down here, we thank you for your warm welcome, we’ll be back to give you our very best (crowd cheers) boys, you’re gonna start this thing, man, go ahead…yeah, come on up, if you’re ready to sing some (?) alright, Eddie Vedder gonna come up and sing this one with us (crowd cheers) I thought he was gonna be gone, we kept him out real late (chuckles) (crowd cheers) we kept him out late…start it out…”

Middle of “Highway to Hell”
“Australia! (crowd cheers) Australia! (crowd cheers) Australia! (crowd cheers) Australia! (crowd cheers) you’ve just seen the hard rocking, pants-dropping, Earth-shocking, booty-shaking, lovemaking, Viagra-taking, history-making, legendary (crowd: “E Street Band!”)…

Intro to “Thunder Road”
“Once again – woo! – thank you so much…woah…damn…we had a chance to, uh, I guess we went south down along the coast yesterday and, uh, I’ve been here before but I never got down, way, way past Surfer’s Paradise, way down, I forget the name, where was I? (yelling from the crowd) I was somewhere around there (chuckles) but it was so beautiful, it was like right where they got that wave that like you can surf for like a half a mile or something, it’s unbelievable…don’t tell ‘em anybody about this shit down here, people will be coming, I’m telling you, keep it a secret …damn…it was that nice, it was just paradise…woo…well…last but not least, the thunder for Down Under (crowd cheers)…”

After “Thunder Road”
“Australia…the E Street Band loves you (crowd cheers)…”

^{Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi.}

Geoff

"Fantastic, epic 3hr40min show to end the Aussie tour. Started off with a song from the local Gibb boys complete with funky wah-wah guitar from Morello (or maybe it was Nils). Then tore into the killer sequence of Saint/82nd St/Growin'/Spirit. Everyone having fun and loose, in a great mood after a day at the beach. After a few crowd songs Bruce conducts an audience poll as to whether we will go with more signs or stick to the plan, which is a start-to-finish Wild, Innocent, E Street Shuffle. Huge crowd response ensures it is the latter. I am in raptures, with Kitty on top of my hope-they-play list (along with Thundercrack, which was a long shot I guess). I'm wondering how this can get any better as the last moments of NYC Serenade are fading away (He's singing …singing ….) The 8 ladies in long black dresses forming the string section deserve a mention, looking beautiful and soaring over the vocals.
From this high point (for me) it is back to more fun and audience participation. Steve (who was so missed on the 2013 Aussie tour) and Bruce doing slapstick and pulling faces on Darlington and Glory Days. It was 11pm (the scheduled finish time) before BTR kicked in, with the house lights and PA volume on full bikkie. But the night was far from over. A yell and a wave to the Prof and we were into Bobby Jean. With everyone exhausted, 3 more full on band songs followed, until finally at 11.45, Bruce played a simple finale, Thunder Road on acoustic.
Overall, my 5th BS&tESB over 29 years was a wonderful experience. AND Bruce says he will be BACK AGAIN
Other random notes:
Again the trend from this tour of doing songs by local bands continued. Actually, it started last year in Brisbane on the first show of the tour with the first ever "Just Like Fire Would".
Tom Joad has turned into a mini guitar epic of its own since Tom Morello was roped in last year (Miami Steve was in Norway doing Lillehammer). Unfortunately, we missed out on Nils' feature spot on "Youngstown".
It seemed to really be a 50:50 proposition that Bruce would stick to the Wild/Innocent plan. He seemed to be having too much fun with crowd songs and realised the show was going to be VERY long if he stuck to plan. Perhaps the string section waiting in the wings was the clincher. How sad it would have been for them to miss out. Never mind, the end result was stunning.

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Bruce Springsteen Covers ‘Stayin’ Alive,’ Leads Massive Group Twerk

Bruce Springsteen opened up his final show in Australia with an epic rendition of an all-time classic about finding the strength to keep on keepin’ on in this cruel world: not “Jungleland,” not “Prove It All Night,” not even “Thunder Road,” but the Bee Gees‘ “Stayin’ Alive.” Check out a quality fan-shot video of the performance above, which finds Springsteen strumming a simple acoustic progression alongside a crisp trumpet solo before delivering the track’s familiar first line in his classic, gruff bellow that’s still just as sharp as Barry Gibb’s falsetto.

The E Street Band slides into bustling disco boogie, complete with soaring back-up singers, a striking string section and a revolving door of solos from the horn section. Tom Morello even shows off on the fretboard with some of the most blistering, head-spinning guitar work ever heard on a Bee Gees track.

The Brisbane show was a marathon, even by Springsteen’s standards, clocking in at around four hours, as Billboard reports. Along with the “Stayin’ Alive” cover, Springsteen also welcomed Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder for a rendition of AC/DC‘s “Highway to Hell,” played his 1973 album, The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle in its entirety and even led the crowd and the E Street Band in a giant group twerk.

Springsteen’s been paying tribute to artists from down under throughout his tour in Australia and New Zealand, covering not just the Bee Gees (who grew up outside of Brisbane), but AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” and INXS’s “Don’t Change.”

The singer just released his latest studio effort, High Hopes, and will be back in the United States this spring for a tour kicking off April 8th in Cincinnati, Ohio. On April 19th, Springsteen will also put out a new 12″ vinyl EP called American Beauty with four new cuts for Record Store Day, three of which were recorded during the High Hopes sessions with producer Ron Aniello.

^{By Joe Blistein via Rolling Stone.}

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