Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - USA & Europe 2023 tour

Me too. IIRC the little rascals dog Petey is on the label.

 

Mine was a blank white label that I wrote on with a Sharpie (hey, I was 18 when I found the single!)

 

I loved those old boots. Weird labels, colored badly pressed vinyl. And they used to slip flyers in the sleeve for High Times magazine. Ah, the 1970s underground.

 

Yup. Steven actually recorded the track and released it as part of a sprawling live album last year called Summer of Sorcery Live! At the Beacon Theatre (3 CDs or 5 LPs).

 

Which may alienate the deep fanbase even more. At the end of the day, the fans are going to want a traditional E Street Band show. You can see the complaints already, they spent ungodly sums of money on concert tickets only to see Springsteen employ a schmaltzy big band. The fans generally want the cliché Springsteen show that they are used to.

From an artistic perspective, it could enhance the concert, by allowing Springsteen to present a section of the concert with some of his western music. Rod Stewart pulled it off very well in the early 2000s when he came out and did a spirited rock show, took a short intermission and then came out in a tuxedo with a big band and performed some of his standards that were an enormous hit at the time, and then closed the show with a rock set. Maybe Springsteen will do something like that, which could be lauded by the fans, presuming he keeps some of the concert intact as a traditional E Street Band show.

 

And Blu-ray too, which I review right here. . .

Steven Van Zandt (aka Little Steven) has to be one of the busiest people on earth. Not only is he the guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, he hosts his own Underground Garage radio show, has been an actor on television shows such as The Sopranos and Lilyhammer (he composed the score for the latter), and established TeachRock, which provides a free music education curriculum to schools across the US. He’s even got a memoir due out later this month. And while you’re at it, go online and purchase his own line of candles and herbal teas.

If all that activity isn’t enough, in 2017, Steven resurrected his solo music career with Soulfire, his first album since 1999, and toured extensively with his band the Disciples of Soul. He then released the Summer of Sorcery album and continued to tour throughout 2019. Soulfire features Steven’s own recordings of his songs that were primarily written for and performed by other artists over the years, while Summer of Sorcery is a more ambitious and eclectic collection of new material. Hearing Van Zandt revisit his past on Soulfire was a dream come true for me, yet I didn’t fully connect with the second album, although I admired its wild genre-hopping.

The latest Little Steven release on CD, LP and Blu-ray is Summer of Sorcery Live! At the Beacon Theater, which presents a 2019 concert recorded in New York City. While the 2017 shows featured fan favorites from earlier in his career, this show has a far more daring setlist that relies on the recent Sorcery material, as well as surprising deep cuts from the Little Steven catalog. The 15-piece Disciples of Soul, which includes a horn section and a trio of backup singers, seem more relaxed onstage than previously, with members stepping upfront to solo and often playfully interacting with each other.

The show blasts off with the Sorcery album opener “Communion,” which deftly combines R&B horn riffs with garage band guitars and even throws in some Beach Boys harmonies to top it all off. This pretty much lays out Steven’s M.O. for the whole evening. You never know what he’s going to musically serve up next. The full-tilt hard rock of “Camouflage of Righteousness” from his 1999 album Born Again Savage follows. This CD was a well-intentioned power trio effort with U2 bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Jason Bonham that somehow fell flat. The full band treatment from the Disciples brings out a depth and subtlety to the song not found in the studio version. The Latin flavored “Party Mambo” is lighthearted fun that echoes the dance craze singles that were hits in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Each band member takes turns announcing the principles of Little Steven’s manifesto for a worldwide “summer of sorcery” (“No war or technological distractions,” “No cell phones, computers, internet or video games,” “And no ****ing plastic!”), before launching into the soulful “Love Again,” a wistful, nostalgic journey back when summers seemed endless and magical. “Education” originally appeared on the 1989 funk and dance influenced album Revolution, which was only released in Europe, and rerecorded for Sorcery. Naturally, Little Steven dedicates it to all the teachers in the audience and the song once again benefits from the sweeping artistry of the Disciples. The band also shines on one of Steven’s finest songs, the powerful political rocker “Los Desaparecidos,” about the “disappeared” victims of South America in the 1970s and 1980s.

Van Zandt’s buddy Southside Johnny has been perhaps the best interpreter of Steven’s material and included many songs on his albums in the 1970s. A selection of three of them, all co-written by Bruce Springsteen, are performed in tribute to Southside. “Little Girl So Fine” is a heartfelt doo-wop style ballad, “Trapped Again” is a raging rock ‘n’ soul scorcher from the highly regarded, but often overlooked album Hearts of Stone, while “Love on the Wrong Side of Town” has a classic girl group feel, highlighted by Steven’s trademark heart-tugging chord progressions and choruses. Sorcery‘s “A World of Our Own” is up next and continues to display Steven’s wonderful melodic and stylistic talents in this Spectoresque vein.

Genre hopping resumes with the quiet samba jazz ballad “Suddenly You,” followed by the political reggae of “I Am a Patriot,” and moving into the pounding, freewheeling, soulful “Superfly Terraplane,” which effortlessly inserts a mariachi horn interlude into the works. The Latin American salsa-flavored “Bitter Fruit” provides the band a chance to stretch out for lengthy guitar, horn and percussion workouts. “Forever,” a love song from Steven’s first solo album, 1982’s Men Without Women, returns to the horn-driven soul of his early days.

The encores are also full of surprises, starting with the Sorcery title track, that begins with Van Zandt alone on acoustic guitar and builds into a passionate, majestic Byrds-like epic that is nearly orchestral in nature. More unexpected is an airing of Springsteen’s “Tucson Train” from his Americana pop album Western Stars. Horns take over for the strings found on Bruce’s version, making the Disciples rendition slant towards R&B rather than country. The seemingly ageless Peter Wolf joins the band for a spirited run through of his J. Geils Band hit “Freeze Frame,” propelled by some tasty organ work. Steven’s anti-apartheid anthem “Sun City” then brings the crowd to its feet as all the band members trade lines from the tune’s forceful lyrics.

Mid-show, Steven says summer is more a state of mind rather than a season. A place of endless possibilities and expectations. I certainly got lost in his dream for awhile watching the concert Blu-ray, and appreciated the Summer of Sorcery material much more in a live setting. This release is a summer worth visiting any time of year.

AUGUST 28, 2021

 

Agreed. Bruce is the last thing on Tom's mind. He wrote that song about meeting and falling in love with his wife of (eventually) 40 years. Bruce wishes he wrote that song.

Have you heard the version of them singing it together ?

 

I heard Tom’s version first too. It’s fantastic, but I thought it was an OBVIOUS Bruce put-on/pastiche/parody/ tribute/ homage. That’s why I was surprised when Bruce covered it.

 

I saw Rod around that time (Tim Pierce and Candy Dulfer in the band IIRC) but must have been a different tour. He started off pretty authentic, but ended up with an hour's big band schlock like Tina f***ing Turner playing a holiday camp.

I can absolutely see Bruce being that bad. Especially if he's here to TESTIFY.

 

Ridiculous. How on earth does anything about Bruce's live show compare with someone like Rod Stewart?

 

I think knowing anything about Tom, It's obviously not lol

 

I disagree

 

The point is, if Springsteen pulls about a big band with horns, strings, and backing vocalists, it could be comparable to those early 2000's Stewart shows.

That said, historically, Rod Stewart is one of rock's greatest showmen. At his best, he could hold his own with many, including Springsteen. The funny thing is, the Springsteen fanbase cannot fathom Springsteen not being considered the very best at his craft, but there are many great artists that have delivered at a high level, Springsteen does not have exclusivity in that area. Because Rod sold out a few times, because he performed with an orchestra with his Songbook projects, he is inferior to Springsteen?

 

I think the chances of Bruce taking a big band on tour are slim. The chances of the larger ESB with horn section an extra vocals from the Wrecking Ball tour are much greater.

 

I assume you leave before Shout, then.

 

I haven't caught Bruce in a decade but even in 2012, I was tired of his preacher shtick which started in earnest in 1999 on the reunion tour and seemed to get "worse" as the tours went on. It's no longer exciting for me to hear Bruce TESTIFY like he's a rocknroll minister... agree with Pacific Ocean Blue that he'll need to "do a little of everything" next year to please the crowd. So that could be good or it could be a burnin' trainwreck. But there will be something for everybody no doubt.

 

I have no doubt it will be a good entertaining show.
It’s Bruce Springsteen. Yes, there are elements of his show that can be annoying. But I have seen a grand total of 1 truly “bad” shows in 111. I would never bet against him live.

 

Genuinely curious what the 1 bad show was??? Early Rising show maybe?

 

Other band 1993 Madison square garden

 

I have not seen a "bad" Springsteen show, but I have seen a number of "average" Springsteen shows. I missed out, didn't see him in '75 or '78 or '81 when it may have been amongst the best I would have ever seen by any artist. But the full band, post-1999 shows have not been that great. They have had their moments, but a lot uninspired concert bloat as well.

 

Ha ha. That shouldn't really count. I saw them at the LA Sports Arena, and I thought they were OK. The drummer sat really low in the kit, which I thought was cool.

I also saw the Ghost of Tom Joad tour, and didn't particularly enjoy it. For me, everything great that Springsteen has done has been with the E Street Band. In my mind, they are very much a group, and they are probably among the best US rock bands of the rock era.

When I saw Springsteen in 2016, they came out and played "Meet Me in the City", and I was immediately swept away by the sound of the E Street Band. Nils, Steve, Max, Gary, Patti, the Professor, Soozie Tyrell. All so familiar and quite impactful.

 

His voice is kind of just blasted too. I LOVE Springsteen but hearing any post 1999 shows he's really just yelling. I think he can still sing well as shown in the live at Broadway shows and acoustic tours along the way. I just don't want to get yelled at for 4 hours.

 

I really enjoyed the "other band" on this tour. Saw them at the Nassau Coliseum in 92. The only other Springsteen concert I saw was Giants Stadium in the summer of 85. I wanted to see him again but wasn't high on my concert list. I think what was kinda of a turn off was back on the reunion tour, I had friends who were NYC Police at the time that were not too happy with him at the MSG shows because of that one song. Then the later albums I really wasn't into what he was doing. Being a New Yorker and all, I still am not keen on The Rising. But as I got older, I appreciate his earlier music a lot more and wish I was more into Bruce when I was younger. I have about 8 of the early shows from the Live Bruce / Nugs site, even upgraded and got the Album Collection Vol. 1 mini lp/CD set., a few boots (one of my favorite is the complete MTV plugged show) and the LT/HT CDs. And nothing from the last 30 years. . So I will take a pass for the tour like I have done since 92. Weirdly though I really like Little Steven's output the past decade and LOVED the tours he did.

 

Boston hands down the best.
Love the top 10 list

 

Spot on comment.
Saw him open with USA four times at the joint that jumps in 84 and although nothing posted here surprises me, unless you actually experienced that opening and rejected it, hard to see how one can say it didn’t “match” the studio. In what way? That opening was such a strong statement, in so many ways. Unlike The River, no emcee introduction, and at least one of the LA shows, if not all, Bruce just walked up to the mic and went straight into the song, as if to announce to the world no one is stopping us and here we go. Insane start to a show.