I just returned from the San Francisco Bruce show. The CA audience is quite different from NJ/NY, but not so different from CT or RI. (Yes, I have now seen the Boss in 5 states, but who is counting?). According to fans who attended last night's show in the same place (see previous blog entry), tonight's show was far better. Who knows why - tonight's was the first to go on sale, then last night's was added later? Regardless, it was certainly fun to see the boys (and 2 girls) rocking like they were in their thirties. Much fun. The new stuff is good, not all of it is worth keeping in his live repertoire, but definitely fun to hear live.For those of you interested in setlists (Daniela and Eric, Mike Sue and kids, Needle'rents...) :
October 26, 2007
Oakland, California
Oracle Arena
Radio Nowhere { lyrics } (good, but fast)
No Surrender { lyrics } (fast)
Lonesome Day { lyrics }
Gypsy Biker { lyrics } (eh)
Magic { lyrics } (good)
Reason To Believe { lyrics } - (fabulous version similar to Devils/Dust live version)
Two Hearts { lyrics } (Tour Premiere)
She's The One { lyrics } (awesome)
Livin' In The Future { lyrics }
The Promised Land { lyrics } (awesome)
Tunnel Of Love { lyrics } (really good version, first time i've really really liked this song)
Racing In The Street { lyrics } (Tour Premiere) (terrific)
Working On The Highway { lyrics } (Tour Premiere) (so much fun!)
Devil's Arcade { lyrics } (eh)
The Rising { lyrics } (great)
Last To Die { lyrics } (eh)
Long Walk Home { lyrics } (good)
Badlands { lyrics } (great)
---
Girls In Their Summer Clothes { lyrics } (very nice)
Thundercrack { lyrics } (fun)
Born To Run { lyrics } (going through the motions)
Dancing In The Dark { lyrics } (eh)
American Land (click for a video from the Seeger Sessions in Dublin 2006) { lyrics } (very entertaining)
A review from Backstreets.com:
October 26 / Oakland, CA / Oracle Arena
Notes: This was originally the only Bay Area show on the schedule, so it's been long-sold out, and the energy in the place was high -- even before the show started, with spontaneous cheers arising before the lights went down. As one fan puts it, "Church was back in session tonight... another great show, but this time with the appropriate feedback from the crowd!" Six songs not played the night before, including "Tunnel of Love" and the debut of "Working on the Highway," both of which were setlisted but not played on night one; plus as the tour premieres of "Two Hearts" (complete with the "It Takes Two" outro) and "Racing in the Street." "Working" was a whole lot of fun, feeling fresh and recalling more its closing slot on the '92/93 tour than its place as a semi-disappointing post-"Tenth" wildcard on the reunion tour. It's good to see Bruce remember that he's got other songs in the canon that can do the job of "Darlington" (and of course this is still just the top of the iceberg). "Racing in the Street" brought the energy level down a bit -- "I've seen 'Racing' build at the end to have crowd coming to its feet," says another fan, "but it didn't do that tonight" -- but it was still absolutely gorgeous.
The only one that didn't go over, sadly, was "Thundercrack." Bruce introduced it by mentioning The Matrix, where he played with Steel Mill when he was just 19... but since he played relatively few West Coast shows in the early '70s, there just wasn't that much familiarity with this song. After his cue to sing along at the beginning was met with bewilderment by the crowd, Bruce said, "That was terrible!" But of course after the song builds, and from there goes into "Born to Run," "Dancing in the Dark," and "American Land," any terribleness on anyone's part was soon forgotten.
6 comments:
Wow, I had no idea you were such a Bruce connoisseur. Glad you saw the better of the two shows, whatever the reason. From being in plays (yes, my local theater productions and Bruce Springsteen's concerts are directly comparable), I know that sometimes certain performances just WORK and some don't for no good reason -- I'm sure this is true for just about anything. I guess as a ticket-buyer you just have to hope you get lucky!
YAY! I'm glad the crowd was more into this one!!! Eric was telling me about 'Thundercrack' the other day...
Here's one I don't get, really: Dancin' in the Dark. It's just no where near one of the greatest Bruce songs. But everyone knows it? I dunno.
I'm so impressed you linked all those lyrics!
Oh, I keep forgetting a detail and editing the blog. BUT, here's something I noticed for the first time... As I've not seen a stadium show for a few years, I had not thought about the no-smoking in stadium law, which is delightful. But this means fewer lighters are around. In the minutes between the set and the encore, instead of lighters, people opened up their cell phones and the stadium was aglow with the light of thousands of cell phones. To me, this was a sign of our times. In addition, the two people who showed up 5 songs late should be shot - they spent the whole set obnoxiously bumping into me and on their PDAs taking pictures, IM'ing, and recording various parts of the show - also a sign of the times. ("I me mine" - and "I must announce every detail to each of my friends" instead of just enjoying the moment.) Bruce plays Born to Run as a crowd pleaser, Dancing in the Dark I'm not sure. As for the lyrics, I stole the set list plus lyrics from his website - I can't take any of the credit! Can't wait to hear your impressions of the ST. Paul show.
Yes, when we saw The Police stadium show (same place where we will see Bruce next week- where the Minnesota hockey team plays) there was some cell phone as lighter displays. Funny, no? And not quite the same. Oh well! I dunno about these people that arrive late, I always wanna kill them too...I mean, do they have OTHER plans that prevent them from getting there on time??? Sometimes being late just can't be helped. But in that case one should be abjectly sorry instead of obnoxious. Hmmm, I'm not opinionated about this at all, am I?
I'm glad you got to see the show... that makes up for everything ;)
We were lucky enough to get "Thunder Road" as our encore... I think the second show is usually better because performers tend to be a little more experimental with their set lists.... I'm pretty sure I heard that somewhere.
Awesome show. Awesome review. Awesome. As for song choices, that would be a great parlor game for any of our favorites: say Bruce or Bob or the Beatles or the Kinks or whoever are slated to play your bar mitzvah - what do you request?!
Rock on.
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