by Robert Wilkinson
Our musical Saturday introduces our Libra musical birthdays! September 23 was the birthday of three of the greatest musicians who ever lived, and this guy's one of them! We have some great music, so we begin the dance early and it goes late. Today and tonight we’re dancing to the music of a true working class hero!
”The Boss," Bruce Springsteen (September 23, 1949) is one of the brightest lights of the huge musical Libra tribe that includes such greats as John Lennon, Paul Simon, Ray Charles, John Coltrane, Justin Hayward, Jackson Browne, and John Mellencamp. Bruce's tunes grab people all over the world, whether as social conscience or just great music.
I've been hip to Mister Bruce Springsteen and his music since the early 70s and Greetings from Asbury Park, and he puts on one of the most electrifying live shows anyone could even want to see! For your consideration, a happy birthday assemblage of some great performances videos throughout his career.
From the beginning of his career, "Spirit in the Night" - Live in Los Angeles with the E Street Band, 1973.
A more recent version from Sacramento, 2008 of "Spirit In The Night."
Another major hit from his first album, later made a hit again by Manfred Mann and the Earth Band, "Blinded By The Light"
A great acoustic performance of "Blinded By The Light" from Oct 15, 2005 in Madison, Wisconsin.
A ab-fab must see alternate version! I do believe this is the best arrangement I’ve ever heard! "Blinded By The Light" A total dance groove out!
From Phoenix in 1978, a VERY energetic video of the Boss cranking out one of his first and greatest! This is the the song that let the world know he was a musical force majeure! For your enjoyment, the classic "Rosalita."
From the Hammersmith Odeon in London in 1975, a live video of an astonishingly high powered performance of “Hard To Be A Saint In The City.” From the same gig, “Rosalita” and an amazing over the top live performance of the bone chilling epic tale of "Thunder Road." This one’s so quiet it’s almost spooky.
Still at Hammersmith, a great 8 minute solo performance on piano of one of my favorite songs from his first album! Slow, intense, focused. “For You.” We’ll finish this foursome with a great 13 minute slow version from that show of “The E Street Shuffle.”
While I still can’t find a clip with the entire 2 hour and 10 show, I found this link which autoloads each tune! For your enjoyment of the Boss at the beginning of his career, here’s Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live at Hammersmith Odeon in London - 1975
Check this out! Rare footage of "Born To Run" from The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA, on October 25, 1976.
This one’s from 1978 in Houston, and he’s rocking hard at the top of the top! “Hard To Be A Saint In The City” and from the same gig “Tenth Avenue Freezeout”
From 1978, b/w excitement in Passaic, NJ! “Rosalita”
From the same show,
“Backstreets” and THE song that woke a lot of the world up! “Born To Run”
Here’s the video of the entire 3 hour and 5 show on September 20, 1978! Bruce Springsteen Live in Passaic, NJ - 1978
Here’s yet another great performance of "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band in Houston, 1978. At that same gig, the unbelievably powerful call of “The Promised Land.”
Here are two more great performances of "Born to Run," this one from Landover,MD, from November 24th 1980, and this one at Madison Square Garden, New York, from the All Star Benefit for the Homeless Children on December 13, 1987.
From the Capital Center, Landover, MD, on 24 November 1980, on The River tour, four of my favorites! First, we crank up the rock and roll with “You Can Look But You Better Not Touch,” followed by “The Promised Land.” We’ll move through the awesome “Jungleland,” and close this 4 song set with the rousing “Out In The Streets.” And this year I found one which disappeared! For your enjoyment, the strut of “Tenth Avenue Freezeout.”
I found four more from that 1980 River tour, this time in May 1980 at Tempe, AZ! We begin with “Hungry Heart,” get upbeat with “Ramrod,” move with the title track “The River” and close the brief set with “Out In The Streets”
Here’s an unexpected score! It’s 26 videos of that show! Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in Tempe, AZ - 1980
The amazing performance of the ever incredible “Thunder Road” at the 1979 No Nukes concert at MSG has disappeared, so instead, I found the 1978 Houston performance by Bruce and the E Street Band cranking out "Thunder Road" as well as the magnificent 1978 Passaic performance of "Thunder Road."
Another of my favorites! This song gave me two of the best lines I’ve ever passed on to another human being! “Poor man wants to be rich, rich man wants to be king, and the king ain’t satisfied until he rules everything,” and “It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.”
I found his 1979 No Nukes performance of this masterpiece! “Badlands.”
This is pure gold from the Glastonbury 2009 concert. If you want to catch a glimpse of what it’s like at a Bruuuuuuuce concert, check out the crowd, who go wild!! In the first of this 7 song set, the Boss cranks out a fantastic performance of “Badlands.” We’ll now move to a song that’s a declaration of hope and determination to take our destiny into our own hands! “Promised Land.”
From the same gig, the strut of “Out In The Street” and “Glory Days” and “Dancing in the Dark,” then a power performance of “Thunder Road” and we’ll close with “Born To Run” When the crowd roars out the lyrics throughout entire songs, it’s some kind of statement!
("Badlands" and "Promised Land" were the same two he did with Jackson Browne in Central Park at the 1982 Freeze Now! Concert after the march from the UN. A million people clocked in, making it the largest antinuke protest ever. I was a “peacekeeper” assigned to a section at the foot of the stage. When he broke into “Badlands,” a million people roared and stomped their feet and shook the Earth in a once in a lifetime experience!)
Two more from the 1980 Tempe River show, with the Boss delivering big time! "Badlands" and “Thunder Road”
This one’s electrifying! From Bergen, Norway, in 2009, Intro & "Badlands"
From the Summer of 1984, an electrifying 13 minute performance in Toronto of “Rosalita”
From the next chapter in his career, the awesome "No Surrender" by Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band in Washington DC, 11th October 2004.
Here's Bruce doing "I'm Goin' Down" live in Camp Nou, Barcelona, 20th July 2008.
Two more great performances of the same song! Here's "I'm Goin' Down"live in Kansas City, 1984, and "I'm Goin' Down" in Frankfurt on 7 March, 2009.
He usually does this song solo on the piano, so this footage from the Wrecking Ball tour is a real treat! The audio is from Buffalo in 2009. This song rocks (and yes, in his early days a few of his tunes sounded like they were written by Lucky Wilbury!) “For You.”
As long time fans know, Bruce has deep feelings about our country and all that's right and wrong about it. Here he is doing the legendary Woody Guthrie song once proposed as the "true" national anthem for the US, "This Land is your Land" live at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, CA on September 30, 1985. I also found Bruce and another American icon and champion of the working class, Pete Seeger, doing "This Land is Your Land" at Obama's Inaugural fete.
A while back I did a post on "Chimes of Freedom," one of the most remarkable songs ever written by America’s bard, Bob Dylan. Here is an amazingly powerful performance by the Boss of this paean to freedom in East Germany in 1988 before the fall of the Berlin Wall! “Chimes of Freedom in East Berlin”
From the same tour, here’s Bruce in Copenhagen in 1988 offering us "Chimes of Freedom."
At some point, please take a moment to reread my post linked above, since I posted the lyrics, and after all, the Chimes of Freedom are flashing for all of us.
A brief detour into Elston Gunn land! Here’s the original 7 minute studio version by Bob Dylan of “Chimes of Freedom.” Here’s his 6 minute live performance at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival of “Chimes of Freedom.” And here’s a great duet between Zimmie and Joan Baez of "Chimes of Freedom"
Bruce once said, "blind faith in your leaders will get you killed." I found an unbelievable video of Bruce Springsteen doing "War" in 1985 at the LA Colliseum, and posted it, along with the lyrics, back in 2007 during a global protest of the Iraq war. Since that video has been cut short for some reason, I found the entire performance which I linked below.
I saw him perform this way back when, and it still grabs me by the throat. This is a message for everyone who needs to remember that in fact, "blind faith in anything will get you killed." For your eye opening enjoyment, here's the entire performance of the musical juggernaut, "WAR"
Here's another great performance which you should check out! Bruce performing "War!" live, along with the man who originally did it, Edwin Starr! And from “the Rising” tour, yet another performance of the ever-amazing and powerful "War!"
Here’s Edwin live in Stuttgart belting it out! “War!”
Here are a few more great tunes written by others, done by Bruce:
"Blowin' In The Wind/Bad Moon Rising"
"Who'll Stop The Rain" live in Stockholm 2009.
From the same concert, we move back into three of my favorite songs written by the Boss:
"No Surrender" & "Badlands" & "Night"
Here's more of his hits!
"Glory Days" from Dave Letterman's last night on NBC.
Here's ”Youngstown” done live in Youngstown.
The song he says Patti Smith "stole" from him, in that she definitely made it a major hit on her own before Bruce's version, the awesome "Because the Night" from a 2007 European performance.
Here's his rocking version of the Gary U.S. Bonds mega-hit at the 1979 “No Nukes” show! "A Quarter To Three." From that same legendary gig, a romping version of ”Sherry Darling”
I found a few clips of Bruce with various friends doing other people's songs. These are some great performances, so check them out!
First, U2 & Bruce Springsteen live at the 2009 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame doing "I still haven't found what I'm looking for."
Here’s another great live video by these two doing this song at Madison Square Garden in 2009! Bono waxes philosophical about rock and roll, so listen to what he says.... Bruce Springsteen and U2 performing “I still haven’t found what I’m Looking For”
Speaking of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions, here’s Bruce and Axl Rose at the 1994 ceremony inducting John Lennon as a solo artist performing John’s song "Come Together."
Here’s an awesome performance by Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen in Asbury Park in 2003, two guys from Jersey offering up "It's My Life."
Here's an extraordinary concert! Live in London in the Summer of 2013, Born in the USA - Live in London 2013
I found it again! Here’s his show In Munich on a rainy, cold May night in 2013! Born in the USA - Live in Munich 2013
An amazing live performance in Newark in 2018 of two of the greatest. For your amazement, over 40 years after he wrote them, these are still two of the most powerful songs ever written! It always blows my mind when the audience literally sings every single word to a tune. Have fun and know you’re viewing a legend. ”Thunder Road” and “Badlands”
We close this Happy Birthday celebration with concert videos from 1978 and 1980 in Landover, Maryland. This one is a young man at his peak during his Saturn Return and just after! Last year I had part 1 as an entire clip, but this year it’s disappeared, so I found some individual clips of that part of the performance. For your enjoyment,
“Darkness on the Edge of Town”
“She’s the One” (with “Gloria” and “Not Fade Away”)
For our first encore, we’ll fast forward 7 years to another full show, with a different set list than he was playing in 1978! For your enjoyment, from Paris in June 1985, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live in Paris
For our second encore, Bruce joins Neil Young in 2004 at the Vote for Change show in Minneapolis, grinding out Neil’s harrowing view of our modern world! Here in all its grunge rock glory, “Rockin’ In The Free World”
We’ll close with another from that show, one of my favorite tunes of all time, "All Along The Watchtower." Dylan wrote it, Hendrix did the definitive version, and Neil and the Boss keep it alive!
Thanks for being the voice of the working people all these years. I was once told that very few good things come from New Jersey, and that you were definitely one of them (along with Jon Stewart and a few more!) You've proved that true over the years. Thanks for the incredible tunes over the past 50 years! May you have many more as you rock through your 70s!
Copyright © 2024 Robert Wilkinson
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