2016-01-27 Madison Square Garden, New York City, NY

Scheduled: 19:30 Local Start Time 20:14 / End Time 23:18

Info & Setlist | Venue

32-song set includes the tour premiere of "Candy's Room". "The River" is dedicated to Bruce's sister Ginny and her husband Mickey, who were the inspiration for the song. "Two Hearts" includes "It Takes Two". Bruce messes up the beginning of "I Wanna Marry You", blaming the band before the almost immediate realization that he was responsible - forgetting the "Here She Comes Walkin'" intro. Another gaffe comes during "Shout", when Bruce forgets to introduce Garry during the band introductions!

Intro to “Meet Me in the City”
“Good evening! (crowd cheers)…”

Middle of “Meet Me in the City”
“Hello, snowbound New York! (crowd cheers) did you survive? (crowd cheers) glad to hear it…we’re so glad to be here in your beautiful city tonight (crowd cheers) are you ready to be entertained? (crowd cheers) are you ready to be entertained? (crowd cheers) are you ready to be transformed? (crowd cheers) then let’s go…”

Intro to “The Ties That Bind”
“Thank you! (crowd cheers) good evening, good evening, good evening (crowd cheers) we’re so glad to be here (crowd cheers) oh…gotta say sorry to your friends that we missed them on Sunday night but we’ll make that up to ‘em…this is, uh…kind of special night, “The River” was a record where I was trying to figure out where I fit in in the broader community, I’d made three or four sort of outsider records where I was either part of an outsider community or…”The River” was the first record where I was trying to find my way inside, I’d taken notice of the things that bond people to their lives, work, commitments, families and I wanted to imagine and write about those things and I figured that if I could write about ‘em, maybe I’d get a step closer to realizing them in my own life so that’s what I did, I wanted to make a big record (crowd cheers) that felt like life (crowd cheers) that felt like life or an E Street Band show, I wanted the record to contain fun, dancing, laughter, jokes, good comradeship, love, sex, faith, lonely nights and teardrops (crowd cheers) and I figured that if I could make a record big enough to contain all those things, maybe I’d get a little closer to the answers and the home I was trying to find for myself so tonight I want you to come along with us as we, uh, go down to “The River” (crowd cheers)…”

Intro to “Sherry Darling”
“Alright, New York, some party noises! (crowd cheers)…”

Intro to “Independence Day”
““Independence Day” was the, uh, was the first song that I wrote about fathers and sons, it’s the kind of song you write when you’re young and you’re first startled by your parents’ humanity, you’re shocked to realize that they had their own dreams and their own desires that maybe didn’t pan out so perfectly…and all you can see are the adult compromises that they’ve had to make…and when you’re young you haven’t had to do that yet, I know the idea of it frightened me and all you could see was a world that they seemed locked into…I remember all I could feel was the desire to escape that world…so I had a simple setting for this song, it was just a late night conversation around the kitchen table between two people who were struggling to understand one another…”

Intro to “Hungry Heart”
“Here’s another song about leaving home (chuckles)…”

Intro to “Crush on You”
“Stevie!…my masterpiece!…”

Intro to “I Wanna Marry You”
“I wrote this song as…as a daydream…you know, you’re standing on the corner, watching someone you’ll never meet walk by…and you’re imagining an entire life with this person…what it would be like…what your kids’d look like…where you gonna live…happiness, happiness, happiness (chuckles) of course…the life you’re imagining is the one without the consequences – you know that one (chuckles) it doesn’t exist (chuckles) but, hey, this is a song of youth…of imagining love…and all of its glory, the excitement…and its tentativeness…it’s not the real thing but I had to start someplace …(Max hits the drum and the band starts playing in a different way) we’re gonna try that again (chuckles) even sometimes the tightest band in the world fucks it up (crowd cheers) back to that earlier skit…like I was saying, it’s a song about love (chuckles) in all of its glory…happiness, happiness, happiness…are you ready?…oh, I fucked it up (chuckles)(laughs from the crowd) I was ready to blame others (chuckles) but I fucked it up…because I’m supposed to be doing this…here she comes walking down the street…here she comes walking down the street…she’s looking so fine, she’s looking so sweet…she’s looking so fine, she’s looking so sweet…someday I’m gonna make her mine, I know I will…someday I’m gonna make her mine, I know I will…someday she’s gonna stop instead of walking by…she’s gonna stop instead of walking by, she’s gonna stop instead of walking by, she’s gonna stop instead of walking by…oh, little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl… little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl…little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl…little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl…
my little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl…oh, my little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl…little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl…little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl…(crowd cheers) didn’t wanna leave that out…”

Intro to “The River”
“Wanna sing this tonight for my sister, she’s here (crowd cheers) and I wrote this song for her, it’s for my sister and her husband Mickey

Intro to “Cadillac Ranch”
“Let’s go down to the Cadillac Ranch (crowd cheers) are you with me? (crowd cheers) then let me hear you scream (crowd cheers)…”

Intro to “Stolen Car”
“This was, uh…one of the first songs I wrote about men and women …asked the question if you…if you lose connections, do you lose yourself…”

Intro to “Ramrod”
“Alright, let’s roadhouse! (crowd cheers)(music starts) come on!… shake your booty…get up out your chair…”

Towards the end of “Wreck on the Highway”
“The subtext of “The River” was…was time…time slipping away… and how once you enter that…adult world, the clock starts ticking and you realize that you got a limited amount of time…to do your work, to raise your family, to try and do something good…(music stops)(crowd cheers) that’s “The River!” (crowd cheers)…”

Intro to “She’s the One”
“Alright, we’re gonna carry on for a while now (crowd cheers)…”

Intro to “Born to Run”
“Thank you, thank you (crowd cheers) we got…we got some friends in the house tonight from WhyHunger, Harry Chapin started WhyHunger here in New York City in 1975 with the goal of ending hunger, WhyHunger provides fresh, nutritious food to families, veterans, seniors in need, works to address the social issues that cause hunger in our community, if you see them out there tonight, support WhyHunger in their effort to end hunger all over the world (crowd cheers) they’re on the frontlines doing God’s work, alright (crowd cheers) gentlemen!…one, two…”

Intro to “Shout”
“New York City! (crowd cheers) New York City! (crowd cheers) New York City! (crowd cheers)…”

Middle of “Shout”
“A little softer…yeah…we’re stage-surfing up here tonight, you’ve got the whole room moving…we got Sister Soozie Tyrell on the fiddle, guitar and vocals (crowd cheers) Nils Lofgren (crowd cheers) Charlie Giordano (crowd cheers) Jake Clemons (crowd cheers) the Mighty Max Weinberg (crowd cheers) Professor Roy Bittan (crowd cheers) Miss Patti Scialfa (crowd cheers) Little Steven Van Zandt (crowd cheers) New York! (crowd cheers) New York! (crowd cheers) New York! (crowd cheers) New York! (crowd cheers) New York! (crowd cheers) New York! (crowd cheers) I want you to go home tonight, I want you to go into your house, I want you to wake up your family, I want you to get ‘em out of their bed in the pyjamas, I want you to go next door, I want you to ring your neighbors’ bell, I want you to wake up the entire neighborhood and I want you to tell ‘em that you, that you have just seen, have just seen, have just seen the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, earth-shocking, hard rocking, booty-shaking, earth-quaking, love-making, Viagra-taking, history-making, testifying, death-defying, legendary E (crowd: “Street Band!”)…”

After “Shout”
“Thank you, New York (crowd cheers) the mighty E Street Band! (crowd cheers) thank you! (crowd cheers) in the back! (crowd cheers) thanks for a great night, everybody, God bless (crowd cheers)…”

^{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.}

Bruce Springsteen, Keeping an Eye on the Clock, at Madison Square Garden

“The subtext to ‘The River’ was time,” Bruce Springsteen said as the E Street Band played a slow, shimmering vamp. “Time slipping away. And once you enter that adult world, the clock starts ticking and you’ve got a limited amount of time to do your work, to raise your family, to try and do something good.”

That was Mr. Springsteen’s postscript to the opening two-hour stretch of his concert at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night: a complete performance of his 1980 double album, “The River,” prefaced by “Meet Me in the City,” one of the many outtakes from the album issued last year in the boxed set “The Ties That Bind: The River Collection.” He’s performing the whole album throughout his current tour.

Time means even more now, 36 years after “The River” was released. The time Mr. Springsteen spent onstage: an intermissionless three hours as he followed “The River” with one can-you-top-this song after another. The time that Mr. Springsteen has led the E Street Band, which got its start in 1972, still includes its original bass player (Garry Tallent) and has now gone through generational changes, with Jake Clemons taking over on saxophone after the death of his uncle Clarence Clemons in 2011. (At the end of the show, Mr. Springsteen invariably praises the band with a carnival-barker string of adjectives that now includes “death-defying.”) The time that Mr. Springsteen’s loyal fans have had to absorb his albums, revisiting their joys and lessons as their own lives play out, perhaps marveling that Mr. Springsteen is still filling arenas.

“The River” has held up. For Mr. Springsteen, “The River” was a pivotal album — the distillation of a lengthy recording process and long deliberation. Released when he was 31, the album opens, pointedly, with “The Ties That Bind.” As Mr. Springsteen explained onstage, “The River” strove to address the connections, responsibilities and compromises of adult life, from the fleeting pleasures of a night out dancing to the commitments of marriage and parenthood. The album also changed Mr. Springsteen’s approach to songwriting; it newly compressed and streamlined his storytelling style. And the album’s 20-song sequence carefully juxtaposed its ups and downs, with pensive ballads like “The River” itself and boisterous, cowbell-thumping rockers like “Crush on You.”

On the album, and now live, each song responds to the one before it — sometimes by extension, sometimes by contrast — in a flux of resilience and resignation, impulses and consequences. The songs themselves hold dualities; “Cadillac Ranch,” the album’s most irresistibly twangy stomp and holler, praises cars yet contemplates death. Time is also folded into the music of “The River,” which was made in the 1970s with a history of rock and roots — the Byrds, Chuck Berry, Phil Spector, doo-wop, Bob Dylan, Otis Redding, the Rolling Stones, Roy Orbison, Woody Guthrie — threaded through its songs.

Onstage, Mr. Springsteen was committed as always to connecting with the audience and the band, clowning with the guitarist Steve Van Zandt and sometimes sharing a single microphone with up to four band members, leaning in and out for call-and-response vocals. He often stepped onto a platform where people up front could reach his legs, and he walked onto and around the arena floor for handshakes, high-fives and selfies. During “Hungry Heart,” the hit single from “The River,” he not only led the joyful singalong but also fell back on upstretched arms to crowd-surf up to the stage.

Mr. Springsteen spoke in depth about a few songs, introducing “I Wanna Marry You” as “a song of imagining love in all its excitement and its tentativeness,” then sharing an eerie, extended vocal introduction to the song, his voice overlapping with Mr. Van Zandt’s.

“The River” ends in mourning and persistence, with “Wreck on the Highway,” a song narrated by an onlooker who wonders about the dead man’s girlfriend or family and those who will have to bring the bad news: time ended for the man in the wreck, time stretches ahead for those connected to him.

But Mr. Springsteen wouldn’t leave a concert on that doleful note. Moments later, the band was barreling through a string of songs about lust, love and romance: the pealing arpeggios and Bo Diddley beat of “She’s the One”; the galloping momentum of “Candy’s Room”; the anthemic surge of “Because the Night” with a leaping, swooping guitar solo played by Nils Lofgren as he hopped and twirled on one foot; and the updated girl-group pop, with troubled thoughts, of “Brilliant Disguise,” which ended with Mr. Springsteen embracing his wife (and backup singer), Patti Scialfa.

The concert’s only 21st-century songs were “Wrecking Ball” from 2009 — Mr. Springsteen’s funny, far-reaching personification of a soon-to-be demolished Giants Stadium — and “The Rising,” a post-Sept. 11 song that plays out as a ritual of redemption. Then came the final, full-throttle, standing-ovation, shout-along final sprint: “Thunder Road,” “Born to Run,” “Dancing in the Dark,” “Rosalita” and — signaling show’s end — “Shout.” They were, besides being unstoppable, songs that have what the succinct verse-chorus-verse songs of “The River” had set aside: elaborate structures, virtuoso instrumental passages, key changes. But they are also songs that have connected Mr. Springsteen and his fans through the decades, defying time once again.

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

Links