For all of the hundreds of covers Bruce has performed in concert, there are probably thousands he’s only soundchecked.
Most of those will only ever be known to the fortunate few who were in the room working at the time, but every once in a while one escapes into the wild. We’ve featured some of those soundcheck escapees on this blog before, but they’re almost always distant and muddy recordings due to the circumstances under which they were captured.
Rarely, though, we get a genuine gem: a song Bruce never covered in concert, is only known to have soundchecked once, and was captured in crystal clear quality.
Today’s entry is one of those gems, and it hails from Bruce’s 2005 solo acoustic tour.
The subject dates back long before that–back to Dominic Behan’s 1960 cautionary ballad, “The Patriot Game.”
“The Patriot Game” is the story of a young IRA volunteer who lay dying, reflecting on his involvement in a deadly conflict, and how the love of one’s land–that “terrible thing… makes us all part of the patriot game.”
It’s a somber, sobering tale that’s been covered many times since Behan’s original performance and inspired Bob Dylan’s anti-war song, “With God on Our Side” (and almost certainly influenced the Grammy-winning “Brothers in Arms” by Dire Straits).
What brought the song to Bruce’s mind on May 17, 2005? I can’t answer that one. But it was the first song he soundchecked that afternoon as he sat at the pump organ he’d introduced to the stage only two weeks before.
The pump organ was the perfect accompaniment for Behan’s dirge, and while Bruce may have been singing to an empty room, his vocals were yearning and earnest. The solitude in which he sang only served to underscore the song’s emotional impact.
It was probably too obscure to make the main set, but Bruce’s performance of “The Patriot Game” is one of the strongest and most affecting covers he never officially performed.
The Patriot Game
First performed: May 17, 2005 (Upper Darby, PA) – soundcheck only
Last performed: May 17, 2005 (Upper Darby, PA) – soundcheck only
