Intro to “Meet Me in the City”
“Good evening (crowd cheers)…”
Middle of “Meet Me in the City”
“Oklahoma City! (crowd cheers) we’re so glad to be with you 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) come on, Max…”
Intro to “The Ties That Bind”
“Good evening (crowd cheers) good evening, good evening (crowd cheers) yes, yes…”The River” (crowd cheers) “The River”…”The River” was my coming-of-age record, it was a record where I was trying to figure out where I fit in, the records I’d made before that were kind of, uh, outsider records, we were all living in a marginal community on the streets of Asbury Park (crowd cheers) but by the time I got to ”The River” I’d taken notice of the things that bond people to their lives, their work, their commitments, their families and I wanted to imagine and I wanted to write about those things, figuring if I could write about ‘em, I might get a little closer to having them in my own life so that’s what I did…and, uh, we’d always heard that yeah, the records were good, the records were good but they weren’t like the show, weren’t like the show so when we made “The River” we tried to make a record that felt like an E Street Band show (crowd cheers) or felt like life, I wanted the record to contain, I wanted it to have fun and dancing and laughter and jokes and good comradeship and love and sex and faith and lonely nights and of course teardrops and I figured that if I could make a record big enough to hold those things, maybe I’d get a little closer to the answers and the home I was trying to find…so come with us as we go back down to “The River” tonight (crowd cheers)…”
Intro to “Sherry Darling”
“Let’s hear some party noises, Oklahoma! (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 shocked by your parents’ humanity…you realize that they might have had their own dreams and their own desires that…might’ve not panned out exactly as they thought they might…and all you can see when you’re that age are the adult compromises that they had to make…and you’re still too young to understand the blessings that come with compromise…so all you can see is this…tiny world closing in, closing in, closing in… till it feels like it’s squeezing the life out of everything and all you can feel like is how you wanna get away…well, I had a very simple setting for this song, it was just a late night conversation around the kitchen table…between two people who loved each other but were struggling to understand one another…”
Intro to “Hungry Heart”
“Alright, a shout-out: happy birthday, Jean!…”
Intro to “Crush on You”
“Oklahoma City (crowd cheers) I got a crush on you!…”
Intro to “I Wanna Marry You”
“Yes, new and improved… do we have any lovers out there tonight? (crowd cheers) gotta be some lovers out there – isn’t Oklahoma for lovers and (crowd cheers) the big wide open spaces and the…do we have any cowgirls out there? (women cheer) let me hear the cowgirls (women cheer) cowboys (men cheer) very manly (chuckles)…very good…well, this is a love song…but it’s a song about a dream of love…before we have the real thing, we have countless, countless, countless dreams of love…you know, that’s the love without consequences, without…responsibilities, without commitments…it’s the kind that doesn’t exist…but, hey, this is a song of youth at a moment when everything seems possible…it’s a song of love and all of its young glory and tentativeness, not quite the real thing but…you gotta start someplace…Sometimes at night when I lie in bed…I still see your face running round my head… sometimes at night when I lie in bed…I still see your 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 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…oh, little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl…little girl, little girl, little girl, little girl…oh, my girl, my girl, my girl, my girl, my girl, my girl, my girl… oh, my girl, my girl, my girl, my girl…little girl, little girl, little girl…
(crowd cheers)…”
Intro to “Cadillac Ranch”
“Alright, I want you to bury me down at the Cadillac Ranch (crowd cheers)(intro music starts) shake that booty…”
Intro to “Fade Away”
“A little bit of soul music for you…”
Intro to “Stolen Car”
“This is one of the first songs I wrote about men and women…that kind of got down to the nitty-gritty of it…was the blueprint for the songs I’d write later on the “Tunnel of Love,” this is “Stolen Car”…”
Intro to “Ramrod”
“Alright, let’s take it down to the roadhouse right now…”
Towards the end of “Wreck on the Highway”
“Well, “The River” was about time…time slipping away…and how once you enter the adult life and you choose your work and you choose your partner, the clock starts ticking…and you walk alongside of not only the people you’ve chosen to live your life with but you walk alongside of your own mortality…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…to try and do something good…(music stops)(crowd cheers) thank you, that’s “The River!” (crowd cheers) thank you very much, thank you very much (crowd cheers)…”
Intro to “Born to Run”
“Thank you, thank you (crowd cheers) thank you for coming out tonight (crowd cheers) woo!…we got some friends in the hall, folks from the Regional Foodbank of Oklahoma (crowd cheers) the Regional Foodbank of Oklahoma fights hunger and feeds hope by distributing food and other products to those in need, they envision a hunger-free Oklahoma where everybody has access to what they need, they’re the Regional Foodbank of Oklahoma, they’re your neighbors out on the frontline doing good work, if you see them on your way out, if you could give them a hand, that’d be good (crowd cheers) so…this is for them, alright…”
Intro to “Shout”
“E-flat…yeah…I’m feeling real good now…I’m feeling so good now… something make me wanna holler…yeah…I said I’m feeling so good now, I’m feeling so good now…I said yeah…”
Middle of “Shout”
“Sister Soozie Tyrell on the guitar and vocals (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) Mr. Garry W. Tallent on the bass (crowd cheers) and last but not least…Little Steven Van Zandt (crowd cheers) I got a message…I got a message …I got a message…I got a message…I got a message…I got a message…I got a message…I got a message…Oklahoma! (crowd cheers) Oklahoma! (crowd cheers) Oklahoma! (crowd cheers) I want you to go home tonight and then tomorrow I want you to tell everybody that you see that you’ve just witnessed the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, Earth-shocking, hard rocking, booty-shaking, Earth-quaking, love-making, Viagra-taking, history-making, legendary E (crowd: “Street Band!”)…”
Intro to “Bobby Jean”
“One more for Oklahoma City (crowd cheers)…”
After “Bobby Jean”
“Oklahoma City (crowd cheers) the E Street Band loves you (crowd cheers) thank you, thanks for a great night (crowd cheers)…”
| Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi. |
