Reason to Believe
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- November
- 20
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Caught my third Bruce Springsteen show in five days tonight (I’m aware that I have no life, thanks). Peter Wolf of the J. Geils Band was on hand and came on stage to sing backup on 10th Avenue Freeze Out.
Bruce did three songs from his second record, The Wild, The Innocent and the Street Shuffle. To the delight of those of us who have been following him for years, he did 4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy), E Street Shuffle and Kitty’s Back.
You have to go back over 30 years to the last time he did all three of those songs in the same show.
Overall, Bruce did 32 different songs over the three nights I saw him. There’s a main selection of 15 songs each night and assorted options for the other nine or 10 slots.
The show clearly seemed like a tribute to long-time E Streeter Danny Federici. The guys in the band acknowledged “The Phantom” several times and Bruce touted him to the crowd at one point. At the end, Bruce pushed him to the front of the stage to get some applause.
Rumor has it that Danny could be leaving the tour for health reasons. I hope that is not the case. I had a chance to meet Danny a few years back and he could not have been nicer.
Thanks to all the people who have e-mailed about Bruce. It’s great to know that so many of you good baseball fans also enjoy live music. I’ve had a chance to meet a few of you at the shows and that was fun.
Thanks also to my brother-in-law Dave, who took time out of his schedule to catch all three shows with me. Our next stop will be Eagles-Patriots on Sunday.
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on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 1:29 am by Peter Abraham.
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Chad Jennings
Sam Borden
Josh Thomson
Sylvio!
If you going to three Bruce shows means you have no life, i wonder what that makes me eating a hot pocket on my bed/sofa.
What kind of seats did you have? Me and the girl were in Loge 16.
This was probably my 40th Springsteen show… I’d joke about whether or not that means I have no life, but a) I know the answer to that, and b) most fans my age have already been to a couple of hundred Springsteen shows. I feel like a bandwagoner or something.
Wow, Peter Wolf. There’s a blast from the past. He went out with Faye Dunaway when she was still good looking.
btw, My favorite Springsteen lyric:
Sandy, that waitress I was seeing lost her desire for me.
Spoke to her last night, she said she won’t set herself on fire for me anymore.
Now that’s poetry.
Girardi:
I was in Loge 13, a great seat. I’m closing in on 100 shows. I know people who have seen twice as many. But it’s cheaper than therapy, right?
“Overall, Bruce did 32 different songs over the three nights I saw him. There’s a main selection of 15 songs each night and assorted options for the other nine or 10 slots.”
Billy Joel does that in one night.
i’ve seen springsteen a handful of times. if i had the resources to see him 1,000 times, i would have done so. I’m envious, pete. not a bad way to kick off a vacation. the thing about shows is you’ll never see the same one twice (obviously). so, if you’re a fan of the music, there’s no reason not to see as many shows as you can. the springsteen shows i’ve seen have been among the best concerts i’ve ever attended (though prince, tom waits and pearl jam give him a run for his money).
i’m hoping he comes out to the northwest on the next leg of the tour.
peter wolf actually put out a couple of pretty good solo records after the j geils band. there’s one called sleepless that has the song “nothing but the wheel” (used in the ice storm), which is one of my favorites, especially this time of year.
i’m glad you got to take in a few shows. enjoy the game. life is good for pats fans right now. hell, life is good for any sports fan in the northeast.
Charlie:
Bruce is doing 24 or 25 songs a night. I saw Billy Joel several times during his last tour and that’s about what he did. His last show in NYC was 25 songs, I’m pretty sure.
Bruce did a 29-song show that went nearly four hours to end the 2000 tour. I like seeing Billy Joel, but he’s no Bruce. Bruce also is on his feet the entire time.
Sorry Pete but even though you’re on vacation please post only Yankee news and not stuff like this although its your blog. (in the good times when you were posting updates 7 times a day I didn’t care about posts that are non Baseball related but now after waiting quite a bit for a post from you I just think its not nice to pust up such a stupid post that is clearly non Yankee related and of course when its 6 hours past since Mariano accepted the Yankees 3 year $45M offer and even this you didn’t post, so who really cares about the show you watched?).
Honest Guy:
My blog, my posts. I’m on vacation, so I’m not going to be posting 7 times a day. I also posted about Mo earlier. You need me to confirm every piece of news?
As for non-baseball posts, I always get a lot of e-mails about them. Some of us have other interests.
kasey,
How was the tour?
Alright sorry. (i just didn’t know that you gonna answer me). by the way I think we (Yankees) are in deep trouble just for example our starting rotation: Wang isn’t an Ace although he won 19 games twice. Hughes isn’t as good as advertized. Chamberlain you never know if he’ll get used to be back as a starter. Kennedy we just don’t know and Mussina we all know. so is this really our starting rotation? Wang, Hughes, Chamberlain, Mussina, Kennedy? and who’s our bullpen? Villon? Viscaino? Farnsworth??? and even Mariano isn’t as good anymore so we’ll have the same old problem to use the offence on a 6 runs rate per game, yeah it might work and we can still win 94 games with offence and once in a while a great start from someone BUT until the postseason when we face guys who are called “Pitchers” and are making some Pitches and all of are sudden we wonder what happened to our offence? and where’s our pitching? sub total we need to aquire this offseason Joahn Santana, Francisco Cordero, etc. if not we will see us soon in another quick exit from an ALDS.
I agree Honest guy I have one question to the Yankees: why you clever guys can’t realize that PITCHING wins you ballgames? why have you to sign for big money offence offence and offence? what would have happened if me play Betemit, Cairo and Andy Phillips at 3rd for the next 10 years and use the A-Rod $275M to aquire Johan Santana Carlos Zambrano and Jake Peavy don’t you think we can win more games with them than with A-Rod? com’mon stop sending big money on stupid offence and go after some Pitching.
You mean there’s two people out there who don’t know how to spell “offense”? And did both Honest Fan and Disappointed Fan use Babel Fish to translate text into English?
Spelling List:
-offense
-advertised
-disappointed
-Villone
-Vizcaino
-Johan
Spelling test on Friday.
Any Deadhead will tell you going on tour is not about *not* having a life, it’s living life to its fullest. Damn, I miss Jerry… I attended 200 shows? I saw 20 shows a year for 5 years straight after I moved to California. The Dead made it easy playing Oakland, Mt View, and Sacramento about 16 times a year the there’s the obligatory road trip to Eugene, Vegas, Phoenix or Denver.
I saw Bruce a couple of times, once in Germany when he played for 4 hours.
Pete,
Here’s my favorite Bruce memory.I’ll never forget it because it was one of those once in a lifetime experiences. In 1972, just before Bruce hit the music scene in a big way, he was the opening act for John Mayall at the Curry Hicks Cage at UMass.
The Cage, basketball home to Julius Erving, got rocked to the rafters by Bruce and the boys. He did 2 encores because the crowd was going absolutely crazy for this guy we had read about in Rolling Stone as the possible second coming of Dylan. I’ve been to dozens of great shows since ‘70 and it was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had musically.
The crowd was STILL buzzing when Mayall came out. He opened with a slow blues number on piano. By the second song he scolded the crowd to “Shut up and listen!” !
Non Baseball Posts are always cool. And I’m not even a Springsteen fan.
Peter, some people just don’t understand the concept of A Blog.
Keep up the awesome work!
I envy you Onkel Bob. Being a fellow Deadhead, however, my time on tour started in 89-90, and as you know ended alot sooner than I/we all wanted. You are right though, live music is a way of life, from places like Toad’s Place to The Garden to large stadium shows, you can never have a bad time, some bad nights on stage but never a bad time.
Pete, great to see you having fun on your vacation, being single allows you to do what most of us heads use to love to do take a few weeks or in the past a few months/years to do what we like.
Drive 4-5 –
I bet that was that last time anyone asked Bruce and the E-Streeters to open for them!
The first time I saw Bruce was at Seton Hall University in 1975 or early ‘76. My boyfriend at the time was a student there. Before going to the concert, “Tenth Avenue Freezeout” was getting A LOT of airplay and, frankly, I hated the song. But, being the good girlfriend, I went to the concert. I was converted!!! The most amazing live performance I’ve ever seen.
Pete -
One of the reasons I like this blog is the tangents it goes on. Love the Yankees, of course, but it’s nice to know that the people you’re spending blog time with have other interests and like to share them. So keep on regaling us with stories of Bruce or whatever else strikes your fancy. It breaks the monotony of the fantasy trade talks, for one. To those of you who don’t like it, just scroll past.
In today’s Ledger, they wrote that the Yankees have an interest in security Jenks from the White Sox in a trade as a possible set-up guy for Mariano. They didn’t speculate who they would trade for him, except to say that if the WS did not sign Hunter for centerfield, they may be open to Melky or Damon.
I’ve always been curious about those who follow certain singers/musicians on their road trips.
Are those fans – you? – singers/musicians yourself?
Or, is it just a ’show’ to you?
Vader:
Thanks for the Toad’s Place reference. One of the best small venues I’ve ever been at.
Annie:
It is more about being part of a tribe or a family.
That may sound sappy, or a bit Hippiesh, but is true all the same.
Music is probably the best uniter I have ever experenced.
Even more so than the NYY!
** Obviously, I meant “securing” Jenks, not “security” Jenks. Yuck.
Peter,
I am starting to think that you get paid in Springsteen concert tickets and CDs. Am I wrong?
Peter,
.
Funny you mention that song. That is the song that got my kids interested in Bruce. Growing up in New Jersey it was easy to know him and love him. Now out here in Columbus my kids just have me to introduce them. They don’t have a chance
Enjoy your vacation!
Pete,
I’ve been to 57 Springsteen shows in my life, but I think I’m jealous of you right now.
Sounds like a killer show Pete. Thanks for the report. Those old songs bring back some memories! Asbury Park!!!
Bruce Rules! Looking forward to the yet to be announced stadium tour next summer.
Don’t understand how you get the tickets unless (1) you know someone who works at Ticketmaster or (2) they pay you more than I thought and you are buying them on the secondary market.
Reality Check,
You can buy reasonable tix in the aftermarket.
Craigslist often has people offering tix for reasonable prices. You can also check out the ticket exchange at backstreets.com, where fans sell extra tix for face value. If you go there, be sure to make a donation, as the site is great and it costs them quite a bit to maintain it (they just upgraded their servers).
Damn, pete, 100 shows. I’ve got a dozen so far; not sure I”ll ever get to a hundred. You have to share your best show experience at some point.
Enjoy the vacation.
Reality Check:
Tickets aren’t that hard to get off TicketMaster: just keep hitting refresh until it lets you in.
Plus, you can get tickets in the secondary market from backstreets.com (in the case of Springsteen)or from other fan cites, etc.
Sports and Music! I knew I liked you Peter, cause you have the same passions that I do. Nice job on the 3 night Bruce run. I REALLY hope he brings the band out here to Portland. Keep up the good work and Go Yanks! – Frank from Portland
I know where Pete is coming from.
Although I’m not a huge Springsteen fan, I am a fan of Van Morrison (who was/is a big influence on Springsteen).
I’ve been to 50 Van Morrison concerts and more to come. I know people that have seen him hundreds of times.
“And did both Honest Fan and Disappointed Fan use Babel Fish to translate text into English?”
it’s pretty obvious they are the same poster.
> I was in Loge 13, a great seat. I’m closing in on 100 shows.
> I know people who have seen twice as many.
> But it’s cheaper than therapy, right?
True that (I guess, never been to that kinda doctor). But therapy it was. The reunion tour came at just the right time for me when I was in a really bad place. The whole “preacher schtick” he was doing worked wonders on me. The downside was that I became readdicted (I’d been a Bruce fan since I was about 14 (1982), but due to age, no finances, living in rural NY, and then them breaking up, I’d never been to a show) and had to keep getting my “Bruce fix” every chance I got from that point on. Since ‘04 I’ve since learned to, heh, live without *needing* Bruce… But there’s no denying that I credit him for helping to “save my life” (probably way too overly melodramatic, but that’s how it felt at the time). He and I may have very different politics, but I won’t let that taint what his music has done for me.
And if I think about it any more, I’m gonna cry that last night we may have witnessed Danny’s last show with the band…
The Springsteen concert in Albany last week was my first Bruce show.. clearly I am way behind most of you as this is the first tour they’ve done since I really got into their music (bought The Greatest Hits CD on a whim and it was love at first listen). I took two friends and my father, none of whom were huge fans going into the show, but left loving Bruce and the E Streeters. I always thought Born to Run would be the best song to hear live, but Badlands blows it away! I can’t wait to see them again… any chance they could play Yankee Stadium the way they played Fenway in 2003?
Some of us have more interests than you can imagine, Peter….(I help organise an international air event in Europe, for example).
The problem is that some of us don’t even CARE for rock music!
Petter;
Let me know when he starts doing “Point Blank” again, willya?
Sorry! New keyboard!
(Yeah, that’s it!)
If you want just Yankees news people then just don’t read the entries like this one. You can skip it. It’s that simple.
Pete, I only wish I had ‘no life’ like yourself and was able to see Springsteen so often. The first time I ever saw Springsteen was in 1973 at the Carlton Theatre (now called the Count Basie) in Red Bank, NJ. That was the first concert I ever went to. The band that night were GREAT. My wife and I went to see him in Boston last night (Section 15). I’ve seen him and the band about 15 times. When I leave his concerts I never feel cheated and always have a smile. Thanks for all your work on this blog Pete. It is very much appreciated.
There was talk about Bruce playing Yankee Stadium on the last tour, but apparently either the stadium infrastructure wasn’t set up for a concert well or the Yankees didn’t want 10,000 people on the field. He played several shows at Shea, though, to end the tour.
I’ve seen Bruce 25 times now, including the two Philly shows last month. Wish I could see more but living in Florida only means 2-3 opportunities a tour unless I travel, and there’s only so much I can ask the Mrs. to allow.
I doubt you’ll see Bruce at YS. When U2 played there in the early 90s, the field was a wreck for weeks.
My “sources” tell me to expect a multi-week stand at Giants Stadium next summer.
Now that’s a reason to believe…
“I bet that was that last time anyone asked Bruce and the E-Streeters to open for them!”
Actually, the last time Springsteen opened for another act was Aug 3, 1974 at the Wollman Rink in Central Park, when he was the middle act in between Brewer & Shipley (ugh) and ANNE MURRAY (!!) as the main act.
I was there when a near riot broke out between the small pro-Murray crowd and Springsteen fans when Bruce played longer than expected.
It was also one of the last times I saw Springsteen as I was po’ed in the way drummer Vinny “Mad Dog” Lopez was canned by Bruce and his new anti-DIY management team.
And do yourself a favor, don’t get stuck in the past…get out and go see some new punk/indie bands.
My understanding is that Danny has the big C and has been treated at Sloan Kettering.
I had a chance to meet him as well, with Maya Stendhal. Great guy and she’s a beauty.