How in the world has this one not turned up more often?
“Jumpin’ Jack Flash” isn’t just a great Rolling Stones song, it’s arguably their most popular one. It’s certainly the song they’ve played the most, well into the four-figure range at this point and never absent from a single tour after its 1968 release and #3 peak on the U.S. charts. (It reached #1 in the U.K.)
The late, great Charlie Watts anchored every single one of those 1,100+ performances, and in 2006, film director Martin Scorsese unwaveringly captured one of Watts’ performances for the Stones’ concert film, Shine a Light.
“Jumpin’ Jack Flash” is enshrined in just about every “Greatest” list, including Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (notching in at #125), VH1’s 100 Greatest Rock Songs (#65), Q Magazine’s 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks (#2), and more.
So why hasn’t Bruce ever properly covered it in concert? It’s not as if he hasn’t had the opportunity, either with or without the Stones themselves. But to date, Bruce has only ever performed it three times, and most fans probably wouldn’t even count them as “proper” covers.
That’s understandable for his debut performance, because it was at a London karaoke bar during his World Tour 1993 stop in the U.K. (No audio exists of that, unsurprisingly.)
His second performance came barely a month later–and while it was at a true Springsteen concert at Madison Square Garden, it featured guest artist Terence Trent D’Arby on lead vocals, with Bruce and his new band in support.
Bruce’s third and final “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” performance was also a team-up, in a Berlin club called Cafe Eckstein in the summer of 1995.
In town to record a new version of “Hungry Heart” for an upcoming EP release, Bruce joined his friend Wolfgang Niedecken and his Leopardefellband for six(!) run-throughs of Bruce’s 1981 single. In between takes, Bruce and Wolfgang’s band treated the crowd to a selection of Dylan and Stones covers, the last of which was “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”
By this point in the proceedings, the crowd had been worked up to a frenzy, and while the band’s performance might have been a tad too slow to recreate the magic of the Stones’ original, the audience made up for any lack of energy with genuine enthusiasm.
We can tell, because the performance was captured on video.
It’s been more than a quarter-century since that Cafe Eckstein performance, and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” has yet to re-surface at a Springsteen concert. Don’t count it out for good though… given Bruce’s fondness for the Stones and the song’s immense popularity, we might hear this one again sometime soon.
Jumpin’ Jack Flash
First performed: May 24, 1993 (London, England)
Last performed: July 9, 1995 (Berlin, Germany)
