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Bruce Springsteen

  • Thread starter Thread starter Cruyff14
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I will be eager to hear your thoughts FF. If you love Bruce, you'll enjoy the read. There are some surprises in there, and what some would say glaring omissions.

The first entry is on page two. Enjoy! And keep me informed with your thoughts!
 
It's simply a magnificent effort. Sure I could quibble a few points. I would have to have Born to Run at no.1 - for me the greatest rock song ever written. But then as another poster mentioned earlier, maybe it lives on a plane of its own. I would have Thunder Road in the top 5. And I have to admit to loving the rockabilly of Cadillac Ranch, the grim starkness of Nebraska, the blue collar suburban desperation of Sherry Darling, heck even the heightened country extremism of Outlaw Pete. But the more you think the more you could include.

But this is your top 61 and it's a great eclectic mix of Bruce's catalogue. You've made me want to go back and revisit and rediscover a lot of these songs. It's been so long since I've listened to Tracks - you have a few contributions from that source and I'm going to have to listen again. And some great obscure stuff.

In the end like a Mike Sheahan top 50 that's what it's really about. You might not agree with the placings but it gets you thinking about the merits of a range of songs and you want to check out others to listen again to what you might have missed or rediscover what you loved in the first place.

I dips me lid. :thumbsu:

PS I saw the Boss at the Dome back in 03. Drove over from Adelaide leaving at 4am, arrived in Melbourne mid afternoon, grabbed a couple of hours sleep and went to the concert. It was a little flat crowd wise altho I was back in the silver section and we were up and rocking. I sang along to The Boss singing Born to Run. A great moment.

I still think Bruce and the E-Streeters gave it all they had - as I recall the US invaded Iraq around that date and I remember a photo of The Boss looking upset as he was told during rehearsals for the show. If fading memory serves me ...
 
I may not have looked closely enough, but didn't see this youtube of Jon Stewart's speech about The Boss when he received Kennedy Centre Honours in 2009. RussellEbertHandball sent me this some time ago and it's a great piece of work.

[YOUTUBE]3jqNXphenus[/YOUTUBE]
 
Ford Fairlane said:
It's simply a magnificent effort. Sure I could quibble a few points. I would have to have Born to Run at no.1 - for me the greatest rock song ever written. But then as another poster mentioned earlier, maybe it lives on a plane of its own. I would have Thunder Road in the top 5. And I have to admit to loving the rockabilly of Cadillac Ranch, the grim starkness of Nebraska, the blue collar suburban desperation of Sherry Darling, heck even the heightened country extremism of Outlaw Pete. But the more you think the more you could include.

But this is your top 61 and it's a great eclectic mix of Bruce's catalogue. You've made me want to go back and revisit and rediscover a lot of these songs. It's been so long since I've listened to Tracks - you have a few contributions from that source and I'm going to have to listen again. And some great obscure stuff.

In the end like a Mike Sheahan top 50 that's what it's really about. You might not agree with the placings but it gets you thinking about the merits of a range of songs and you want to check out others to listen again to what you might have missed or rediscover what you loved in the first place.

I dips me lid. :thumbsu:

PS I saw the Boss at the Dome back in 03. Drove over from Adelaide leaving at 4am, arrived in Melbourne mid afternoon, grabbed a couple of hours sleep and went to the concert. It was a little flat crowd wise altho I was back in the silver section and we were up and rocking. I sang along to The Boss singing Born to Run. A great moment.

I still think Bruce and the E-Streeters gave it all they had - as I recall the US invaded Iraq around that date and I remember a photo of The Boss looking upset as he was told during rehearsals for the show. If fading memory serves me ...
Click to expand...

So you've begun back reading, or just quickly browsed through?

Yeah, I was smashing BToR yesterday, ****ing epic track, but as much as I love it, I love the tracks I placed ahead of it more.

Anything that has really caught you by surprise so far?

Yes, quite a few made it on from Tracks. I think maybe five or six.
 

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So far a browse through ... time is the enemy Cruyff. Still I am going to try and work my way through properly.

Surprises? I'd have Born to Run, Badlands and Thunder Road higher, and a few songs in the top 10 lower. But as I said these are your rankings not mine.

Pleased to see Lost in the Flood ranked up there. A great track.
 
Ford Fairlane said:
So far a browse through ... time is the enemy Cruyff. Still I am going to try and work my way through properly.

Surprises? I'd have Born to Run, Badlands and Thunder Road higher, and a few songs in the top 10 lower. But as I said these are your rankings not mine.

Pleased to see Lost in the Flood ranked up there. A great track.
Click to expand...

Ah, so you have spoiled it for yourself :D

Yeah my top 10 is somewhat obscure, well a few of them anyway.

Lost In The Flood is well beyond brilliant. Amazing.
 
He rides head first into a hurricane and disappears into a point
And there's nothin' left but some blood where the body fell, that is, nothin' left that you could sell
Just junk all across the horizon, a real highwayman's farewell
Click to expand...

*sigh* Simply stunning ...
 
Amazing.

That and

And now the whiz-bang gang from uptown, they're shootin' up the street
And that cat from the Bronx starts lettin' loose
but he gets blown right off his feet
And some kid comes blastin' round the corner but a cop puts him right away
He lays on the street holding his leg screaming something in Spanish
Still breathing when I walked away
And somebody said "Hey man did you see that? His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud"

Are my favourite bits.
 
I'm heading to SXSW in Austin, Texas in March - Springsteen is the keynote speaker there so I'm hoping I'll get to see (and photograph) him perform as well.

I saw him at the Sydney Ent Cent on his Born in the USA tour in 85 and I'm definitely hoping he makes it back to Australia later this year.
 
Cruyff14 said:
Highlights?
Click to expand...

Back then it was Born in the USA (massive anthem with the crowd going nuts) and Born to Run - I'm sure my highlights would be different if I saw the same show today, I didn't know a lot about Springsteen back then.
 

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Cruyff14 said:
Thanks Russ, your words are appreciated. I'm more than happy to send you a disc of random songs I have downloaded from bootlegs if you're interested.
Click to expand...

Cruyff I will take you up on that bootleg compilation disc in the new year. Will send you a PM.

I have on a 2 hour tape about 3/4 of the following gig on 7 July 1978 at the Roxy in LA. I got the tape recording from my first year accounting lecturer at uni, who played about 80 games for North Adelaide in the SANFL in the 1960's and was the Adelaide Uni footy club secretary running 8 and 9 open age teams over the years. In 1983, during my first year at uni, I visited his Presley room for the first time, and it was like a record shop. He had about 1,000 albums, maybe 20% were bootlegs or promotion albums. He would go to USA on a teaching stint and come back with a couple of suitcases of albums. He continued on with videos and cds over the years. Here is the set list of that show at the Roxy.

http://www.brucespringsteen.it/DB/mn.aspx?yr=1978&mt=07#197807071

This was broadcast on FM radio live and I think it's before Paradise by the "c" the boss says, "for all you bootleggers out there, roll ya tapes," but on the cd's the producers have cut that out.

On the Live/1975-85 triple CD release, 8 of the first 11 songs come from this show, with only Thunder Road ( Roxy Oct '75) 4th of July Asbury Park and Fire coming from other shows.

I've been to 3 shows with the Boss in Oz.

The first was the following show in Brisbane when he did the solo tour in early 1997. It was pretty good, but it missed the magic of the band.

http://www.brucespringsteen.it/DB/mn.aspx?yr=1997&mt=02#199702051

And then his 2003 tour I saw his show in Sydney followed by his second show in Brisbane. He was supposed to play just one show in Brisbane at the QEII/ANZ/QSAC stadium at Mt Gravatt, but as it didn't sell out they changed it to two shows in the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, and took most of the gear direct from Sydney to Auckland and bypass the Brisbane outdoor gig.

Buying tickets for the Sydney show I got bumped from 20m from the stage when the net crashed to "A" grade seats 100m from the stage in Brewongle stands at the SCG. Luckily I was in the back row and could stand up. Don't understand how people could sit down for 3 hours. Saw Wayne Swann there a few rows in front of me. The electricity dropped out 4 times and the Boss said when I say I'm going to remember tonight, I really mean it this time. As our reward he played Rosalita as his second last song. It was the frst time since 1988 he played Rosalita outside of Asbury Park and Meadowlands and had only played it a dozen times between 1988 and 2003. Rosalita is in my top 3 song list, so it was a real treat. He started playing Rosalita again once he got back to the USA, playing it at most shows on the USA leg of the tour.

http://www.brucespringsteen.it/DB/mn.aspx?yr=2003&mt=03#200303221

The Brisbane show I got tickets in row D right up front and on the edge of the stage. We were allowed to stand up and move to the centre so I ended up right in front of Clarence, less than 10 metres away. It was magic. Bruce asked the crowd for requests and we got I'm a Rocker as someone had a banner. There was a girl's school on school vacation from New Jersey a couple of rows behind me. The school was only a few miles from Bruce's farm. He couldn't believe a New Jersey school would have a vacation in Australia He kept making references to them thru the show. Told them to stay off his front lawn when they get back home.

http://www.brucespringsteen.it/DB/mn.aspx?yr=2003&mt=03#200303261

If you want to check old set lists go to

http://www.brucespringsteen.it/

click on Setlists. There is also a bootleg section, click on Brucelegs.
 
Wow, detailed post Russ.

I go to this site for bootlegs

http://jungleland.dnsalias.com/torrents-browse.php

Found some tracks I've always wanted live from the era I've wanted too, very good site.

I see he played Does This Bus Stop at the solo show, I have three acoustic versions of that, such a great track.

If I was at a Springsteen concert and I could only manage seats, I would stand up regardless, couldn't give a shit who was behind me, there would be next to chance I would be sitting down.

That's awesome how he played Rosalita, I would have gone nuts. Pretty ironic that of all the places they went was to Australia when Bruce was here too.

I have the Bruce Fanatic app on my iPhone which gives me setlists, how many songs were played on each tour, how many times each song was played, when it debuted, which concert it's been played in and so on. I highly recommend it for five bucks.
 
Given the time of the year I had to embed the following video in a Bruce thread. From Christmas 2009.

[YOUTUBE]qEdUjihZ8F0&feature=related[/YOUTUBE]
 

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Great read mate. Bruce was my musical life from the first time I heard that opening riff of Born to Run when I was 16, until I was about 20 or so. Moved onto other stuff since but I'll always come back for a listen every now and again. Only surprise of your list was the lack of this song (unless I've missed it). Nothing will ever rock as hard as this performance:

[youtube]C3vUKBOJ5sU[/youtube]

Always thought this one was more fun than Rosie as well:

[youtube]ibvjG14Amwg[/youtube]
 
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/preorder/wrecking-ball-special-edition/id495024374

New track released today from the new album. I absolutely love it. If the whole album is this good, I think it will be awesome.

Cosmic Kid said:
Great read mate. Bruce was my musical life from the first time I heard that opening riff of Born to Run when I was 16, until I was about 20 or so. Moved onto other stuff since but I'll always come back for a listen every now and again. Only surprise of your list was the lack of this song (unless I've missed it). Nothing will ever rock as hard as this performance:

[youtube]C3vUKBOJ5sU[/youtube]

Always thought this one was more fun than Rosie as well:

[youtube]ibvjG14Amwg[/youtube]
Click to expand...

Didn't have Prove It in there, I like it, but I like other songs much more.

As for Thundercrack, I didn't really get into it after I made the countdown, I do agree it's a heap of fun, but I think Rosie is still more fun. Am a fan of Thundercrack now though.
 

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