Story 1978-06-03 Uniondale, NY
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03.06.78 Uniondale, NY, intro to “For You”
“This is a song I wrote back in, I guess, in 1971 (crowd cheers) I was, uh…I was living in this drugstore, oops, living on top of this drug-store in Asbury Park (crowd cheers) and, uh…and I didn’t have a band, I was playing by myself, I was doing some gigs…at old Gaslight Cafe and Max’s Kansas City by myself (crowd cheers) and uh, I remember I was breaking up with this girlfriend and I went away for a week and I came back and she’d painted all the walls to my room black…that’s not true…I made that, I made that up (?)(chuckles) actually she’d painted ‘em all blue…”

03.06.78 Uniondale, NY, intro to “The Promised Land”
“Gonna do some new stuff for you from the new album (crowd cheers) this is called “Promised Land”…”
“I’m gonna do the next two songs for a friend of mine* tonight… from a cycle shop in Westwood Town and Country Cycle (?)…he’s the only friend I got that don’t know what a (ukulele?) is (?)…this is called “Racing in the Street”…”
[*Matt DiLea, “good friend and biking buddy,” who is pictured with Bruce on pp. 243 in “Songs.” He was the one who drove cross-country with Bruce in 1982, among other things, and whom Bruce called “one of my best friends in the whole world” in Albany on November 15, 2007. His two brothers are also Bruce’s friends – his brother Tony took the “Songs”-picture. Bruce has dedicated “Thunder Road” and “Racing in the Street” to him quite a number of times since 1976. He also appears in the video of "Better Days" with - I presume - his brothers. Matty DiLea managed a New Jersey band called Pegasus in the Seventies.]

03.06.78 Uniondale, NY, intro to “Paradise by the C”
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Big Man, Clarence Clemons (crowd cheers)…”

03.06.78 Uniondale, NY, intro to “Fire”
“This is a song, I wrote a song on Robert Gordon’s second album (crowd cheers)…”

03.06.78 Uniondale, NY, middle of “Growin’ Up”
“I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd, when they said “Come down,” I threw up…oooh, growin’ up…threw up on my shoes…
(…) There I was about…six years ago…the Big Man took me down to this bar in Manasquan, New Jersey (crowd cheers) and Bo Diddley was playing out on the coast…and we finally got in, I’d never got drunk before…so the Big Man’s feeding me these shots of Tequila all night long (crowd cheers) and we’re having a good time and…I remember at the end of the night, remember I met that girl I went to high school with…and I went home with her and the Big Man came home with a girlfriend of his…except out on this Highway 33 she threw us out of the car ’cause we weren’t listening to the words of this song that was on the radio…so it’s about three or four in the morning and we’re standing on the highway…figuring how we were gonna get back home…and just as we were standing there…shooting down the highway at about two hundred miles an hour – BAM!…’bout ten feet off the ground….was this green flying saucer that had on the side “Big Daddy Don Garlitz - Born to Lose” …so it stopped about a mile down the road, came back…said he was lost and wanted to know which way it was to the New Jersey Turnpike (crowd cheers) might have been…might have been the Pennsylvania Turnpike (crowd boos) now that I think it was the New Jersey Turnpike (crowd cheers) so we were no dummies (chuckles) we said ”Ok, Mister spaceman, you want directions, what are you gonna do for us? we need a ride back home,” he said ”I tell you what, I give you guys one wish each…or one big one for the both of youse” so we got together and started thinking and we said “Ok”…thought about a million dollars, no, it’s not…thought about (someone in the audience screams out a suggestion) no, no (chuckles)…throw this guy out (chuckles)…so we said ”Ok, Mister spaceman, what we want…is we wanna be…we wanna be…movie stars” (crowd cheers) he said ”Oh, would you settle for rock’n’roll?” (crowd cheers)…”

03.06.78 Uniondale, NY, middle of “Backstreets”
“Till the end…And I remember…you standing on the corner… looking so fine…in that pretty blue dress…the one that your baby bought you…that pretty blue dress…and your sad, sad, sad eyes… oh, your sad eyes…they were so lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely…you were my little girl…I remember you were my little girl…oh, how you cried…how them sad eyes cried now…how many times…oh, how many times…did I see them crying, did I hold you in my arms…I’d see them crying, hold you in my arms… hold you in my arms…the way that they lied…baby, don’t they lie …they can tell such pretty li-li-li-li-lies…they can tell such pretty li-li-li-li-li-li-lies…they tell such li-li-li-li-lies…oh, baby…don’t you know I bought them…you could dress them up…baby, you know I’d bought them each and every one…each and every one…baby, I wanna know why…baby, I wanna know why…baby, I wanna know why…you got – I wanna know why…baby, you got my heart and soul…you got my heart and soul…you got my heart and soul…”

03.06.78 Uniondale, NY, intro to “Rosalita”
“Wherever you are…Rosie, come out tonight (crowd cheers)…
(…) On the piano, Professor Roy Bittan (crowd cheers) on the guitar, Miami Steve Van Zandt (crowd cheers) on the bass guitar, Mr. Garry W. Tallent (crowd cheers) on the drums, the Mighty Max (crowd cheers) on the organ, Phantom Dan Federici (crowd cheers) (Dan’s solo leads the band into a snippet of “Mickey’s Monkey”) on the saxophone, the Big Man, Clarence Clemons (crowd cheers)…
(…) Riding to kung fu you, sock it to you, I wanna be your man… someday (Clarence: “we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny”) (crowd cheers)…This is his last chance, tell him, Rosie, I ain’t no freak…’cause I got my picture on the cover of Time and Newsweek (crowd cheers)…”

03.06.78 Uniondale, NY, intro to “The Promise”
“Here’s a song that, uh…that I wrote it was the first song I wrote, I guess after I wrote “Born to Run”…this is called…called “The Promise”…”

03.06.78 Uniondale, NY, intro to “Born to Run”
“I wanna thank everybody for coming down here tonight (crowd cheers) I know you waited in line for tickets for a long time and I wanna, I wanna let you know that I…it’s really appreciated the way you supported the band over the past three years, I wanna thank you all very much (crowd cheers)(?)…”

03.06.78 Uniondale, NY, intro to “Sandy”
“I promised these guys, these guys met me at the hotel six o’clock this morning, they were waiting outside…and I promised them I’d do this song, we haven’t done this song since last year, I might not remember all the words, I might have to hum some of them, so …this for these guys from the casino…(?) bus, did you bring the whole bus up here?…alright…this is for everybody from the coast…”

03.06.78 Uniondale, NY, intro to “Quarter to Three” (following “Sandy”)
“That’s for you guys (crowd cheers)…here’s another we used to do last tour…(?)…”

Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi

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