"Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" - Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Manchester Etihad Stadium, 25/5/16

Well, another year, another opportunity to see Bruce I couldn't pass up. His "quick jaunt" around the US at the start of the year to get the band together before he finishes a solo record turned into a pretty extensive tour that has now reached Europe (and beyond that will hit the US stadium circuit at the end of the Summer).

Originally the tour was to feature The River in full, but by the time the band came to Europe Bruce had had enough of playing the same songs in the same order for so long and dropped that aspect of the show. Which is fair enough, but you have to question why they made the initial US leg of the tour so extensive, even adding extra dates in some cities. While I was a bit sad to miss out on hearing one of Bruce's albums live in full, I knew the show would be great even without this quirk. In fact there were plenty of other quirks to come...

Manchester had been lovely and sunny these for weeks, so of course come the day of the show it just had to be bloody raining! This was my third Springsteen show and I've been rained on at them all - even in Australia (albeit very briefly). "Wouldn't have it any other way" claimed Bruce upon arrival. I dunno mate, if you'd have seen what it was like before...

The show started a bit late due to chaos on the trams, apparently including some idiot driving onto the tracks in Droylsden (more time waiting in the rain, yay!). There was no playing about in the ball pin when the band came out, however. The opening stretch of songs proved a great reminder of how blistering they are in their stride; the first seven songs were literally non-stop, each carrying on into the next. This stamina and fortitude never ceases to amaze me.

After sandwiching a terrific rendition of rarity "Murder Incorporated" between the more familiar "Atlantic City" and "Badlands" (naturally met with rousing "WO-OAH-OAH-OAH"s), the first half of the show saw a strong focus on chronologically showcasing most songs from the first disc of  The River. "The Ties That Bind"/"Sherry Darling" and "Hungry Heart"/"Out In The Street" were both excellent, sprightly one-two punches just like on the record. "Hungry Heart" of course saw the crowd sing the entire first verse solo, but it also saw Bruce walk RIGHT BY ME! Look how close he got!

Look! Bruce!

In fact, a fan request for "Darkness On The Edge Of Town" aside, the songs running from "Hungry Heart" to "Point Blank" were all played in the exact sequence featured on The River. This captured a large portion of the "party" element of the album while also covering the point where things begin to hit a starker note. The pairing of "I Wanna Marry You" with the title track is a particular bit of genius; the former being "a daydream of a love song" in Bruce's words, an attempt to find "a love without consequence... that's why it's a song of youth"; the latter bringing that daydream crashing down with a tale of love purely through consequence (family legacy, pregnancy, redundancy).

This was hands down my favourite part of the set. Even the lightweight "Crush On You" sounded gritty and great, right at home with many of the headstrong sing alongs also featured. "Point Blank" was augmented with an intro that added a great sense of drama and gave it the feel of something from The Wild, The Innocent... For me, though, the highlight  was definitely "I Wanna Marry You", in large part thanks to the wonderful "Here She Comes Walking" intro that has been reprised for this tour. Roy Bittain's gentle keys are enough to send hearts a-flutter, while the vocal interplay between Bruce and Steven Van Zandt is simply phenomenal, soulful and touching. This is probably my favourite vocal performance from Stevie - it's exactly this kind of material where he is in his element.

It felt kind of odd to cut the overarching feel of The River off at "Point Black" when there were plenty of moments like "Fade Away", "The Price You Pay" or "Wreck On The Highway" that would have brought the poignancy of the tail end of the album to a more natural close. But then again, the weather was miserable, so I think the motivation was to keep the cheerier stuff coming to keep our spirits up. It was definitely "mission accomplished" as far as that was concerned, especially when it came to the whole host of knock about Born In The U.S.A. era anthems littered through the set, such as the crowd pleasing "Working On The Highway" and "Glory Days".

And make no mistake about it, Bruce was in a sure fire crowd pleasing mood here, constantly getting in amongst the audience, making frequent use of the little walkways and platforms they'd set up for him, and seeking out signs in the crowd. He was spoilt for choice too, there were loads. I have to give props to the people with ones for "Tougher Than The Rest" and "Racing In The Street (78)", you guys have taste! Then, when it came to picking a youngster to join in on "Waiting On A Sunny Day", he had to pick the most wonderfully shy little girl with a sign proclaiming it was here "first Brucie concert".

Peek-a-Bruce

It wasn't as if the set was lacking in poignancy or deftness once the material from The River ran dry either (I know, I'll get my coat...). As a huge Darkness... fan I was delighted that "The Promised Land" made an appearance, as well as a rendition of "Because The Night" where Nils Lofgren played like a man possessed, including undertaking a huge 360 degree spinning solo a man with his hips really shouldn't be able to pull off. Meanwhile, images of dearly missed saxophonist Clarence Clemons and organist Dan Federici during "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" drew a truly touching groundswell of affection from the audience, and a fan requested performance of "Backstreets" was absolutely spellbinding.

The ultimate piece of fan interaction, however, came much earlier on in the set. In a real Springsteen & I moment, some dude dressed as Santa Claus was spotted in the crowd. I suppose they got the day of the month right at least. "Is it like a perverted attempt at a request of some sort? Damn." quipped Bruce. So, as you do, Bruce invited him on stage ("He can't be shy, he's got the Santa suit on") for the band's version of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town". Santa himself would hilariously fluff Clarence's "better be good for goodness sake" lines (he got the pitch right, he just couldn't keep time to save his life). This really did happen! I have video evidence and everything.

Anyway, as has become a tradition of sorts at Bruce's shows, after seemingly closing the show with a cracking cover of The Isley Brothers' "Shout" and a joyous performance of "Bobby Jean", Bruce lingered on stage for one last acoustic number to properly wind things down for the night after nearly 3 hours 20 minutes of hard rocking, pants dropping, booty shaking, history making and (allegedly) Viagra taking. With the rueful, reflective "This Hard Land" rounding the show off, it was time to join the near 50 minute queue for the tram home (get this, if you were lucky, they'd even find a DOUBLE CARRIAGE service to cope with the thousands leaving the show, how revolutionary). The long wait for the journey home couldn't dull the feeling I get having spent another truly wonderful night in the company of a once in a lifetime artist.
You might say it was like all my Christmas' came at once...

Setlist

1. Atlantic City
2. Murder Incorporated
3. Badlands
4. The Ties That Bind
5. Sherry Darling
6. Two Hearts
7. No Surrender
8. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
9. Hungry Heart
10. Out in the Street
11. Darkness on the Edge of Town
12. Crush on You
13. You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)
14. I Wanna Marry You
15. The River
16. Point Blank
17. Johnny 99
18. Darlington County
19. Working on the Highway
20. The Promised Land
21. Waitin' on a Sunny Day
22. Because the Night
23. The Rising
24. Thunder Road

Encore:

25. Backstreets
26. Born to Run
27. Glory Days
28. Dancing in the Dark
29. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
30. Shout
31. Bobby Jean

Encore 2:

32. This Hard Land

Rockin' All Over The World: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Hunter Valley, AUSTRALIA 23/2/14

So as you've probably been able to guess from previous entries I have a massive obsession with +Bruce Springsteen. One of my dreams resulting from that obsession has been to see Bruce at a show overseas.
Luckily enough, I was invited to a conference in New South Wales while Bruce was on tour there and so yesterday I was able to fulfil said dream and see Bruce in, of all places, a winery in Australia!

As if acknowledging the unusual venue, Bruce came out with perhaps the oddest start to one of his shows I've ever seen, as he monologued over a samba beat, talking about waking up in a strange land with lots of strange creatures ("Koalas! Wallabies! Kangaroos"): a land "where all the women are beautiful... all the men are handsome... and all the children are good students". This was interspersed amongst a version of "Spill The Wine" by War.

Just relaxing on stage, as you do.

After admitting he had no clue what the fuck he was on about, Bruce then kicked off the set proper with "My Love Will Not Let You Down", which set the tone of the evening perfectly and was a terrific display of the E Street Band's firepower on lead guitar - bigger now more than ever as Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello joined Nils Lofgren, Steve Van Zant and of course Bruce himself.

Morello was Springsteen's muse for his most recent studio album, High Hopes, released in January, so of course several songs from the album featured in the set. The title track had a really strong showing, while "Just Like Fire Would" naturally drew many singalongs from the crowd, what with it being originally by Aussie punks The Saints. The album's arrangement of "The Ghost Of Tom Joad" also proved captivating as Bruce and Morello duetted and perfectly complimented each other to bring out the drama of the song. I could have done without the part in Morello's solo where everything all went a bit Dragonforce, but Tom's guitar work was still visually impressive.

In my opinion though, "Heaven's Wall" was the best track to feature from High Hopes and was one of the highlights of the set, with the audience obliging to the "Raise your hand" requests in the chorus. The song really created a great carnival atmosphere, and truly brought to light the recent additions to the E Street Band's rhythm and percussion for this tour. To cap things off, every chorus ended with some brilliant guitar showdowns, as Bruce and Steve teamed to try and top the pair of Tom and Nils (hilariously, Bruce revealed that on the record, the solo showdowns are just Tom facing off against himself!)

The other guitarists in the group all got individual moments to get their licks in too. "Seeds", a live favourite from the Born In The USA tour, was very much Nils' baby, and his riffs gave the song a great menacing feel. On the flip side, Bruce's original right hand man, "Little Steven" Van Zant was amazing when revelling in the pantomime of "Ramrod" and showed that he is still second to none in terms of chemistry with the Boss. Equally hilarious was the routine at the song's end, with virtually the entire band bar Roy, Max and the organist lined up on stage, backs to the audience and shaking their tail-feathers for as long as possible. Bruce lasted the longest, naturally.

Despite being in such elite company in terms of guitarists, Bruce himself didn't shy away from doing lots of the leg work on guitar. Always an underrated axe-man, his solos during "Human Touch" were really what drove that song home in a rare outing.

In fact, the entire set was filled with eclectic delights. If "My Love Will Not Let You Down" had me in raptures, I completely and utterly lost my shit when Bruce grabbed a sign from the audience reading "Rosalita" - if there was one song I was determined to see the band play live it was that, so to hear it in all its glory was a huge bit of wish fulfilment on my part. "Radio Nowhere" was a welcome additon to the set, while "Brilliant Disguise" was also another brilliant surprise (OK, I'll get my coat...) that not even a false start or the tiny shower that broke out during it could ruin. It was as if someone decided seeing Bruce in Australia performing something from Tunnel Of Love wasn't surreal enough for me - it had to be raining too.

The biggest unexpected delight in the set for me though, was "Johnny 99", completely reinvented from its stark Nebraska origins into something more akin to a tragi-comedy played with almost a knowing wink, which allowed the E Street horns to really shine on this one - as they had previously in the set on "Seeds" and would do again on the ramshackle "Pay Me My Money Down". Soozie Tyrell was also simply fantastic in this song, her epicness prompting questions of "Who's that buzzard?" from the bloke next to me in a proper culture clash moment. Safe to say I made damn sure he knew who she was when he asked - Soozie for me is one of the band's secret weapons.

Littering the set with such left field gems, it almost felt like Bruce was teasing us throughout the night. I'd read reports of him playing classic albums in full during the Melbourne and Sydney legs of the tour, so to see him collecting fan signs so early, and to then reach an hour into the gig without anything from Born To Run, Darkness On The Edge Of Town or Born In The USA left me highly suspicious. Alas, my suspicions didn't come to pass, but we did get a few tracks from said albums eventually. "I'm Goin' Down" was a real triumph, even if it was preceded by an intro from Bruce that had me convinced he had a bout of heatstroke - his murmurs of "I'm still the same guy" and such did eventually make sense when the song kicked in. Meanwhile, "Badlands" drew the main set to a close.

After the worlds shortest encore break, the band re-emerged to ease us back to life with a beautiful rendition of "4th July Asbury Park (Sandy)" dedicated to much missed organist Dan Federici. Many in the audience cozied up to each other on that one, it was the perfect end of summer song.

Things really kicked into high gear with an excellent one-two punch of "Born In The USA" and "Born To Run", the former in particular going down a storm. Further chaos ensued once "Dancing In The Dark" kicked in, as several ladies in the audience were invited onstage to dance with the band member they indicated they desired with their signs ("Can I tango with Tom?"). The most adorable of which was a girl with a sign reading "I'm only 15 but can I still dance?". Naturally Bruce allowed her to join in, and even gave her his acoustic guitar to strum on during the closing breakdown before the "Hey baby!"s kicked in - others had to make do playing air guitar. Sax-man Jake Clemons was a particular delight during this song, playing his solo one handed whilst do-see-doing with one of the girls invited to dance.

The band's set proper closing with a barn-storming rendition of John Fogerty's "Rockin' All Over The World" - during which we got the famous E Street role call (that really reminded you how MASSIVE the band is now) and FIREWORKS which, hilariously, Bruce couldn't see. This was not before Steve once again attacked Bruce with his wet sponge, of course.

With the rest of the band leaving the stage, Bruce lingered to finish off with a pair of acoustic songs. The first, the beautiful "I Wish I Were Blind", was requested by a man in the audience. Bruce asked if hed had a bad break-up, as that's why guys usually request that one but apparently not. "Oh, so you just asked for it as a fan of art?", quipped Bruce. What was staggering was hearing how great Bruce's voice was at this stage of the night, and with no band behind him he had to fill the venue all by himself. It was a challenge he more than rose to, and the rendition of "Thunder Road" which brought the evening to an end was almost beyond belief. If I hadn't recorded this video  I might have thought I was dreaming.



This night really was a dream scenario for me. The set - a little shorter than most, but then again Bruce did have two support acts this time - was perfectly pitched and further proof if needed that Bruce would be a dead cert to appear on that mythical Mount Rushmore of rock n roll. This was my second time seeing Bruce and the E Street Band. On this basis, I doubt it will be my last.


 

Setlist

1. Spill The Wine
2. My Love Will Not Let You Down
3. Death To My Hometown
4. Seeds
5. Out In The Street
6. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
7. High Hopes
8. Just Like Fire Would
9. Johnny 99
10. Heaven's Wall
11. Brilliant Disguise
12. Human Touch
13. I'm Goin' Down
14. Pay Me My Money Down
15. Shackled And Drawn
16. Radio Nowhere
17. The Rising
18. The Ghost Of Tom Joad
19. Badlands
    
    Encore 1
20. 4th July, Asbury Park (Sandy)
21. Born In The USA
22. Born To Run
23. Ramrod
24. Dancing In The Dark
25. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
26. Rockin' All Over The World
    
    Encore 2
27. I Wish I Were Blind
28. Thunder Road

Waitin' On A Sunny Day: Springsteen at the Etihad 22/6/12

So this was it. As excited as I was to be seeing Pearl Jam, this was the gig I had been obsessing over the most: my chance to see the hard rockin', heart stoppin', pants droppin', booty shakin', Viagra takin', earth quakin', history makin', legendary E Street Band.

I'd spent an inordinate amount of time before the gig listening to the bootlegs of Bruce's tour (check out maury6811 on Youtube, he uploads tonnes) and so I was excited beyond words for this gig.

My excitement was tempered a little bit on the day by two things: 1) the awful weather arriving at the venue which I was stood in waiting for the doors to open (thankfully this cleared up for the most part when the show started) and 2) the blue wristband bullshit.

Basically you couldn't get right near the front of the stage unless you had arrived at the venue at ridiculous o' clock in the morning and collected a blue wristband from the event staff, the idea being you were rewarded for waiting by getting near the stage. This was of no consolation to myself and the thousands of us who got to the venue about an hour before doors opened, completely unaware that this was going on.
So I wasn't at the very front of the crowd (so Bruce wouldn't be walking past me on the walkways they'd built), but I got as far to the front of the crowd as I could and managed to get a very good view of centre stage.

So I'll end my rant there and get to the gig.

As soon as the band came out - Bruce taking to the stage last to omnipresent cries of "Brooooooooce!" from the audience - and we got that oh-so familiar count-in ("one-two-three-fouwwah!") followed by Professor Roy Bittan tinkling the ivories for the opening to "Badlands", all my misgivings about the weather and the blue wristbands were forgotten and I felt completely at home.

There are three rules of thumb one may note about Springsteen gigs.
The first is when in Europe, he'll play more stuff from "Born In The USA" than usual (I'm aware of the irony). This was the case here, with "No Surrender" being a particularly nice surprise early on, and later on the encore included probably the best version of "Dancing In The Dark" I've heard the band do, Jake Clemons' (nephew of the late great Clarence "Big Man" Clemons) sax solo in particular being fantastic.

We were also treated to a great bit of audience interaction during the latter: one girl in the crowd had a sign asking to dance with Jake, so Bruce pulled her out of the crowd to grant her wish. Not to be outdone, however, Bruce hilariously found himself a young woman in a Union Jack onesie to dance with himself.

The second rule one tends to find is that when in Britain, Bruce will play more songs from "The River" than usual. Once again this proved true. Watching the screens behind the band on stage, you could see women in tears during the band's rendition of the title track. On the other end of the scale, Bruce and Steve's chatter during "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)" drew lots of laughs.

Bruce: "It's on channels 92 to 100, I've seen it! They have numbers scrolling along the bottom!" 
Steve: "Oh you better not look."
Bruce: "Oh You can look!"
Steve: "You better not even look!"
Bruce: "You can look. You can call in!! But you caaaaaaan't touch."

On a personal note I was just delighted they played "Out In The Street".
 

The final rule is that you can tell how much faith Bruce has in his new album by how prominent the songs from the album are in the set. So it seems that Bruce is pretty chuffed with "Wrecking Ball" (which he has every right to be) on the evidence of this night.

It might be in part down to the fact that the title track and "Land Of Hope And Dreams" have been played live years before the record was released, but with the likes of the Irish jig of "Death To My Hometown", the sombre, resilient "Jack Of All Trades" (which got a big cheer for the line "if I had me a gun, I'd find the bastards and shoot 'em on sight" in reference to the bankers) and the rousing "We Are Alive" I never felt robbed out of one of one of the older classics when he played the new stuff.

One more thing you need to understand about Bruce is this: the man is inhuman! The stamina he has is just incredible. This gig went 3 and a quarter hours, and they played it all pretty much straight with little or no breaks. The gap between the band leaving stage for the end of the main set and walking back on for the encore was barely a minute. AND THE MAN IS 63!!! Just incredible.

In my favourite bit of the gig, after "Dancing In The Dark", Bruce feigned exhaustion and lay down on the stage hugging his guitar like a pillow. This leads to Steve stalking Bruce with a wringing wet sponge to revive him. The looks on both their faces during this exchange were just hilarious! "Ah Manchester, you tired me out already!" claimed Bruce.

Still, there was time during "My City Of Ruins" to conduct the band roll call and say hello. There's nothing like an E Street Band roll call, it's both humorous (he informed us wife Patti was back home "keepin' the kids outta them drugs" and that any red-headed English women should keep back because he misses her!) and spirited, touching upon the much missed organist Dan Federci and saxophonist Clarence Clemons ("if you're here, and we're here, then they're here").
He also informed us he'd learnt a lot since last visiting Manchester: "I've learnt that there are TWO football teams in Manchester! And one of them has just... eh, I'm not going into it."

I was also unbelievably lucky to be seeing the band on a night when they played so many of my favourites. "Spirit In The Night", my favourite song from his debut, stands out in my mind in particular. Being there to hear that song was like a religious experience.
Seeing "Atlantic City" make an appearance was a very pleasant surprise, with Soozie Tyrell's violin becoming the focus of the song instead of Bruce's harmonica like on the record. So when they immediately followed that up by playing the '78 version of "Prove It All Night", with Roy and Bruce playing the extended intro, I was ecstatic.

The biggest surprise though was the appearance of "Save My Love" and "The Promise" in the set, which left me a very happy bunny indeed since I got into Bruce because of "The Promise" as I've mentioned in an earlier entry.

By the end of the show, with the band's infamous version of "Twist And Shout" (referred to as "the stadium-breaker" after a crack was discovered in a venue in Sweden after the band played the song there) ringing out through the stadium, I was wishing the night didn't have to end, I could listen to the band play all day long. They'd probably be able to play that long at a stretch too!
Alas, the show had to end at some point. At the finale's end one of the blokes I was stood with shook my hand and congratulated me on my first Springsteen gig, which felt like a bit of a right of passage. Here's hoping it won't be the last Springsteen gig I go to!


At this point, I shall bid you adieu, and leave you with the full set from the show.
See you soon!

Setlist

1. Badlands
2. No Surrender
3. We Take Care Of Our Own
4. Wrecking Ball
5. Death to My Hometown
6. My City of Ruins
7. Spirit in the Night
8. The E Street Shuffle
9. Jack of All Trades
10. Atlantic City
11. Prove It All Night (78 Intro)
12. Two Hearts
13. You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)
14. Darlington County
15. Shackled and Drawn
16. Waitin' on a Sunny Day
17. Save My Love
18. The Promise
19. The River
20. The Rising
21. Out in the Street
22. Land of Hope and Dreams
    Encore:
23. We Are Alive
24. Thunder Road
25. Born to Run
26. Bobby Jean
27. Cadillac Ranch
28. Dancing in the Dark
29. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
30. Twist and Shout

Playlist (courtesy of maury6811)

IT'S BOSS TIME!

Long time no blog. Good reason though, been kept very busy with research, reports and outreach work - the joys of being a masters student!
Still, it's nearly Christmas so I'll finally have a proper break from work.

So, apart from being hard at work with maths, what's been new with me? Well I've been snapping up tickets to see two of my favourite artists ever (or in my Dad's words "more American crap") next summer - Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen - much to my wallet's chagrin I'm sure.
I'll get to Pearl Jam later, mostly because I'm still miffed that standing tickets sold out in the presales. They've apparently put another date on, but that's no consolation seeing as I've already bought my seated ticket. To think this was the same band that actually made a stand against Ticketmaster's monopoly in the mid 90s.

Anyway, Bruce. So I'm a very late-comer to his music. I first got into him last November, when he released "The Promise", a huge collection of material recorded in the late 70s during the "Darkness on the Edge of Town" sessions that didn't make the cut. I was mesmerised by this album as soon as I heard it and couldn't fathom how he had the discipline to not use the material on the Darkness on the Edge of Town album. There was such a range of material on there. But then I saw the documentary on the making of the album and understood the vision he wanted for the album. Plus it reminds me of Christmas, because of the production on songs like "Someday (We'll Be Together)" and "The Little Things (My Baby Does)", and also because of an excellent little gig he did in a New Jersey carousel to promote the album that featured a great cover of "Blue Christmas".

Consequently this got me into "Darkness on the Edge of Town" which could possibly be considered one of the greatest albums of all time. Released in 1978, it was arguably his most career defining record, coming off the breakthrough success he had with "Born To Run", it not only proved that Bruce wasn't just a "flash in the pan", it also showed he had the song-writing steel to transcend mainstream success and write a genre defining record that would last the test of time.

Gone (for the most part) was the sprawling, free form style of "Born To Run" and in it's place was a disciplined, uncompromising power. While "Born To Run" was about escapism and the follies of youth ("We gotta get out while we're young"), "Darkness" was about standing your ground to face what life throws at you and giving everything you have in return ("Tonight I'll be on that hill, 'cause I can't stop. I'll be on that hill with everything I got."). Or as Springsteen himself put it "Tough music for folks in tough circumstances".

In Lehmann's terms then, it's an album about growing up and facing your responsibilities, and having come across it at a time when I felt like I had a lot of growing up to do, it's an album that's very dear to my heart.

This was a very unconventional rock album: while there are some great guitar riffs such as those on "Adam Raised a Cain" and "Candy's Room", the majority of the record is driven my Roy Bittan's piano, Danny Federici's organ and of course the saxophone of Clarence Clemons (see "Badlands", "The Promised Land" and "Prove It All Night").

The undoubted highlight though is "Racing in the Street". Bruce had already established himself as a songwriter with a unique knack for narrative with songs like "Mary Queen of Arkansas", "Incident on 57th Street" and "Thunder Road", but "Racing in the Street" is, for me, Springsteen's masterpiece.
There were many versions of this song floating around when Bruce was making "Darkness", and he faced a dilemma over which version to include (an excellent alternative version is on "The Promise"). That was until producer Jon Landau chimed in with "I like the one with the girl", to which guitarist (and Bruce's best friend) Stevie Van Zandt agreed "Yeah, I like the one with the girl too." So that was what he went with. It was a decision that paid off, and the best song he's ever written. The final verse in particular, is a complete triumph of narrative and emotion:

"I met her on the strip three years ago,
In a Camaro with this dude from L.A.
I blew that Camaro off my back and drove that little girl away.
But now there's wrinkles around my baby's eyes,
And she cries herself to sleep at night.
When I come home the house is dark,
She sighs "Baby, did you make it all right?"
She sits on the porch of her daddy's house,
But all her pretty dreams are torn.
She stares off alone into the night,
With the eyes of one who hates for just being born.
For all the shut down strangers and hot rod angels
Rumbling through this promised land.
Tonight my baby and me we're gonna ride to the sea,
And wash these sins off our hands

Tonight tonight the highway's bright
Out of our way mister you best keep.
'Cause summer's here and the time is right
For goin' racin' in the street."

I've got all my limbs crossed he plays that song in Manchester, I know he doesn't play it too often.
I'll also be interested to see how the band cope without Clarence, who in another matter close to my heart sadly passed away earlier this year from a severe stroke. It's no coincidence that Bruce is leaning on the Big man's back on that iconic sleeve of "Born To Run": Clarence's sax was such an integral part of the E Street Band, and made Bruce's music stand out in the crowd.

I'm still incredibly excited though. Bruce's music's been such a huge part of my life this past year I just couldn't turn down the chance to see him live.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll ramble again soon!