Middle of “Meet Me in the City”
“Good evening, Albany! (crowd cheers) how we doing 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) alright, then let me hear you scream (crowd cheers)…”
Intro to “The Ties That Bind”
“Good evening, good evening! (crowd cheers) thank you, thank you for coming out tonight, thank you, we appreciate it (crowd cheers)
“The River” (crowd cheers) “The River” was my coming-of-age record…before “The River” I was a part of this little, outsider street community (crowd cheers) and, uh, “Greetings from Asbury Park” and “The Wild and the Innocent,” they were outsider records…but “The River” was the first record where I was trying to figure out how to get inside…by the time I got there I’d taken notice of the things that bond people to their lives, their work, commitments, their families and I wanted to imagine and I wanted to write about those things, I figured if I could write about ‘em, I’d get a little closer to realizing them in my own life so that’s what I did, I wanted to make a big record, we originally handed in a single album, took it back, it just didn’t feel big enough, I wanted to make a record that felt like life, that felt like an E Street Band show (crowd cheers) I wanted the record to contain fun, dancing, laughter, jokes, good comradeship, love, sex, faith, lonely nights and, of course, teardrops 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 I was looking for and the home I was trying to find so tonight…come along with us (crowd cheers) as we go down to “The River” (crowd cheers)…”
Intro to “Sherry Darling”
“Albany, party noises! (crowd cheers) party noises! (crowd cheers) …”
Intro to “Independence Day”
“”Independence Day” (crowd cheers) “Independence Day” was the first song 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 find that they had their own dreams, their own desires, their own hopes that maybe didn’t pan out exactly as they had in mind…and all you can see are their adult compromises…and you’re too young to realize the blessings that come with those compromises…so those compromises, all they do is frighten you…and the world that they seem locked into frightens you…and your desire to escape, to find something bigger or just something else…just stays with you and stays with you and stays with you until something happens…so I had a simple setting for this song, it was just, it was just a late night conversation around the kitchen table between two people…that love each other struggling to understand one another…”
Intro to “Hungry Heart”
“Here’s another song about leaving home…”
Intro to “I Wanna Marry You”
“It’s a young man’s song…it’s a daydream…standing on the corner watching someone…you’ll never meet walk on by…and you stand there and you imagine an entire life with this person…where you gonna live…what your nights will be like…kids…it’s nothing but bliss …sweetness…and every kiss is that first kiss…who remembers their first kiss? (crowd cheers)(chuckles) ahaa!…everybody remembers their first kiss…I remember all my first kisses (crowd cheers) of course…but like I say, it’s a song of youth…and of a life without consequences…that’s the one that doesn’t exist…you young people can ask the old people next to you about that (chuckles) still good, though! (chuckles) this is about imagining love…dreaming of love in all of its glory and its tentativeness…it’s not the real thing but everybody’s gotta start someplace…Sometimes at night when I lie in bed…I still see her face running round my head…sometimes at night when I lie in bed…I still see her face running round my head… 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 so fine, she’s 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…my 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…my little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl…my 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…little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl…(crowd cheers) well, let’s catch up to her…”
Intro to “Cadillac Ranch”
“Alright, this is a funeral song, we’re gonna take you down to the Cadillac Ranch! (crowd cheers) Albany, scream! (crowd cheers)…”
Intro to “Stolen Car”
“This was the first song I wrote about men and women…that gets down to the nitty-gritty of it (chuckles) was my prototype for everything I wrote on “Tunnel of Love,” asked the question that if you lose your love, do you lose yourself…this is “Stolen Car” (crowd cheers)…”
Intro to “Ramrod”
“Where’s my long lost honey? I wanna ramrod with you (crowd cheers)…”
Towards the end of “Wreck on the Highway”
“Well, the subtext of “The River” was time…time slipping away and how once you enter that adult life, the clock starts ticking…and you realize you have a limited amount of time…to do your work, to raise your family…and to try and do something good…(music stops) (crowd cheers) That’s “The River!” (crowd cheers)…”
Middle of “Backstreets”
“Till the end…just me and you, baby…just me and you, darling…till the end…till the end…till the end…till the end…”
Intro to “Be True”
“Yes, yes, thank you…alright, this was a song that was on the original “River” album…uh, it was a good one but it got tossed into trash somewhere along the way (chuckles) like many do…anyway, gonna send this one out to…all our special friends out there (chuckles) (crowd cheers) come on, Steve!…”
Intro to “Born to Run”
“Thank you! (crowd cheers) thank you, Albany (crowd cheers) we have some friends in the house tonight, folks from the Regional Foodbank of Northeastern New York (crowd cheers) the Regional Foodbank of Northeastern New York is the only organization of its kind in this area, from Plattsburgh to Newburgh in urban, rural and suburban communities, the Foodbank feeds the hungry by distributing donated food to those in need, if you see them on your way out, they’re good folks out on the frontlines doing God’s work, they’re the Regional Foodbank of Northeastern New York! (crowd cheers) this is for them!…”
Intro to “Shout”
“Where was I?…oh yeah…You make me wanna shout…”
Middle of “Shout”
“Soozie Tyrell on the vocals and guitar and fiddle (crowd cheers) Charlie Giordano on the organ (crowd cheers) Nils Lofgren on the guitar (crowd cheers) Jake Clemons on the saxophone (crowd cheers) the Mighty Max Weinberg on the drums (crowd cheers) Professor Roy Bittan on the piano (crowd cheers) Garry W. Tallent on the bass (crowd cheers) Little Steven Van Zandt on the guitar (crowd cheers) Albany! (crowd cheers) Albany! (crowd cheers) Al-bany! (crowd cheers) you’ve just seen the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, Earth-shocking, hard rocking, booty-shaking, earth-quaking, lovemaking, Viagra-taking, history-making, legendary E (crowd: “Street Band!”)…
(…) Thank you, Albany, for coming out tonight and seeing us (crowd cheers) thanks for being a great crowd (crowd cheers) now all I got to say is…ssshh…all I got to say is…that’s good…that’s good too…alright…this is going out to my man in the checkered shirt, that’s right, you, brother…I see you every night…come backstage after the show, give him a round of applause (crowd cheers) that’s right (crowd cheers) that cat’s here every fucking night (chuckles) that’s him, that’s him (?) you’re not a relative or related, alright (chuckles) alright…we got one last thing to say and that’s…A little bit louder…”
[According to Backstreets.com, the man in the checkered shirt was Steven Strauss, who had indeed attended every show of the tour by this night.]
After “Shout”
“Thank you (crowd cheers) we love you, thanks for a great night (crowd cheers)…”
| Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi. |
