New for 2023: Audio for 2003
1974: Bruce and the E Street Band play at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, and the show is of note for several reasons: first, because it features the debut of Suki Lahav, who will join the tour as a regular player a few shows later. Second, because it features the debut (or at least the earliest known performance) of “She’s the One,” which actually features lyrics from what will become “Backstreets.” Third, the encore is abruptly halted due to the collapse of the front rows of seats–just before Bruce is slated to play what would have been his only performance of “On Broadway.”
1975: Bruce cancels a sold-out show at the University of Maryland when he learns that the venue holds 10,000 people. (At this point in his career, Bruce is violently opposed to playing large venues.) Instead, the Born to Run Tour moves on to Michigan Palace in Detroit, and the Born to Run hype and emerging backlash is starting to get to Bruce. Bruce will recall this as a night on which he didn’t want to perform, but with his band around him and a set list constructed to keep the energy level high, he nevertheless delivers a great show that features his live debut of “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.”
1979: Bruce approves and submits his fifth studio album, The Ties That Bind. The album will be shelved before release, however, with Bruce opting instead to release a double-album called The River. Thirty-six years later, The Ties That Bind will finally see the light of day in the box set The Ties That Bind: The River Collection.
1980: The River Tour gets rolling on Night Two, moving on to Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum, where “The Ties That Bind” and “Independence Day” make their tour debut, along with “Factory.”
2002: Bruce speaks and performs acoustically at the dedication ceremony for a Boston bridge named after an activist friend of Bruce’s, Lenny Zakim.
That night, Bruce plays the Fleet Center, dedicating “My Hometown” to Zakim and closing the show with “Dirty Water,” joined by Peter Wolf.
2003: The Rising Show reaches its end with a third and final show at Shea Stadium, and what a star-studded show it is: Opening with “Code of Silence” and closing with “Blood Brothers” (played for the first time this tour) provides a sentimental callback to the end of the Reunion Tour. In between, Bruce and the band tour premiere “I Wish I Were Blind” (in its first E Street Band performance), “Back in Your Arms,” “Light of Day,” “Highway 61 Revisited” (with Bob Dylan!), and “Quarter to Three” (with Gary U.S. Bonds, Laurie Anderson, Garland Jeffreys, and Willie Nile). An amazing end to a revitalizing tour.
2005: Bruce kicks off the final leg of his solo acoustic Devils & Dust Tour with a Red Cross benefit show at Asbury Park’s Paramount Theater. Bruce opens the show with the tour debut of “Idiot’s Delight,” a Grushecky/Springsteen original, and tour premieres “I Wanna Marry You” (played on ukulele and for the first time in nine years), “Atlantic City,” and a stunning new arrangement for “The Ties That Bind.”
2006: Bruce tour premieres “Growin’ Up” in a brand new arrangement at his Seeger Sessions show in Udine, Italy.
2008: Bruce kicks off a solo mini-tour in support of presidential candidate Barack Obama at a massive rally on the Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia.
2016: Bruce appears at Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon, promoting his new book and meeting fans.
2017: Previews continue for Springsteen on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theater in New York City.
2018: Springsteen on Broadway continues its theatrical run at the Walter Kerr Theater in New York City. Patti is absent tonight, so theatergoers receive “Long Time Comin’” and “This Hard Land” in place of the two Bruce and Patti duets.
