New for 2025: New entry for 1978, 1979, and 1980; video for 2023
1969: Child plays the Pandemonium in Wanamassa, New Jersey, part of their month-long residency.
1970: Steel Mill holds an invite-only rehearsal show for the local press.
1971: The Green Mermaid coffee house underneath The Upstage in Asbury Park plays host to the “Bruce Springsteen Acoustyc Jam.”
1973: Bruce plays his first-ever show in Georgia, opening for The Beach Boys at the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta. Bruce has undoubtedly grown used to people misspelling his name by now, but this is probably a new variant:
1974: Bruce plays two shows at Charlie’s Place in Cambridge, Massachusetts–his third of four nights at that venue.
1978: At the last minute during a Darkness mixing and overdub session at the Record Plant, Bruce opts to overdub a Big Man sax solo onto “Badlands.” The track will be pressed to acetate the next day.
1979: Bruce and the E Street Band work on “The Ties that Bind” at the Power Station in New York City.
1980: Bruce works on mixing and overdubs for several The River tracks at Clover Studios in Los Angeles.
1981: Bruce plays his first-ever show in Switzerland as the European leg of the River Tour continues in Zurich.
1982: Bruce joins John Eddie and the Front Street Runners on stage for four songs (including Bruce’s first ever performance of “Long Tall Sally“) at Big Man’s West in Red Bank, and then he zips over to The Stone Pony to catch Cats on a Smooth Surface.
1985: The second of five nights at Tokyo’s Yoyogi National Gymnasium.
1993: Jimmy Cliff makes a guest-appearance on “Time Will Tell” at Bruce’s show in Verona, Italy.
1996: The Italian leg of Bruce’s solo acoustic tour continues with a show at Teatro Smeraldo in Milan.
1999: Night Two of the Reunion Tour, a second show in Barcelona, features the first “Rendezvous” in nineteen years and the first E Street Band performance of “Brothers Under the Bridge.”
2003: Sick with a cold, Bruce nevertheless turns in a great performance in Vancouver, BC. Before the show, those of us waiting outside in the pit line could hear the band soundcheck an early version of “Devils & Dust.” Listen below. For more highlights, see my Where the Band Was report for this show.
Audio Player
2005: Bruce rehearses for his upcoming solo acoustic tour at the Paramount Theater in Asbury Park.
2018: Springsteen on Broadway continues its theatrical run at the Walter Kerr Theater in New York City.
2023: At the second of two nights at UBS Arena in Elmont New York, Bruce and the E Street Band tour premiere “Born in the U.S.A.”
