New for 2024: Audio for 1975; article and review for 1985; new entry for 2023
1972: The Bruce Springsteen Band plays their second of nine shows this month at The Back Door in Richmond, Virginia.
1973: Bruce and the band play their last night at Max’s Kansas City in New York. David Bowie is in attendance to see his friend and headliner, Biff Rose. Although they won’t meet for another year and a half, Bowie becomes a Springsteen fan that night; four months later, he will become the first artist to record a Bruce Springsteen cover.
1975: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play The Main Point in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. The show, broadcast live across the Delaware Valley on WMMR-FM, is (IMHO) one of Bruce’s absolute best performances ever, certainly my all-time favorite concert recording. Bruce plays several songs still under development, including “Thunder Road” (known here as “Wings for Wheels”), “She’s the One,” and “Jungleland,” all of which will be released in final form only six months later. The opening performance of “Incident on 57th Street,” featuring Suki Lahav on violin and a perfectly-timed police siren during the closing bars, is my single favorite Springsteen performance ever.
1981: Bruce appears on the cover of Rolling Stone, in a photograph taken by Annie Leibovitz. That evening, he and the E Street Band bring the River Tour to the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, where they play a tour one-off of (what else?) “Kansas City” in the encores.
1985: On ABC-TV’s news series 20/20, Hugh Downs profiles Bruce. Watch the full segment below.
1992: The New York Daily News reports that Bruce’s management is negotiating with the City of New York and HBO for a free concert event in New York’s Central Park. Although both Shorefire (Bruce’s PR company) and New York City swiftly reject such notions, HBO plays it coy and rumors will continue to swirl nationally for days to come. The concert will never materialize.
1996: Germany’s Radio Eins interviews Bruce for a promotional CD to be released later in the year.
1997: Bruce plays his second of two solo acoustic shows in Brisbane.
2009: Bruce appears on the cover of Rolling Stone as part of the promotional push for Working on a Dream.
2014: The High Hopes Tour moves on to Perth for the first of three nights. These are Bruce’s first ever shows in Perth, and Night One is a barn-burner. The show opens with the E Street Band premiere of “Frankie Fell in Love” and features a marathon “Kitty’s Back.” Also making their tour premieres tonight: “The E Street Shuffle,” “For You,” and “Ramrod.”
2022: At his home in Colts Neck, Bruce interviews Eddie Vedder to promote Eddie’s new album, Earthling.
2023: Bruce and the E Street Band bring their first tour in six years to the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida.
