Devils & Dust Tour - The Show

The Show

Audience members at larger venues were often greeted by a paper handout, proclaiming that "Tonight's show is a solo acoustic performance, set in a theater style arrangement ... There will be no seating during each song ... All concession stands will close 10 minutes prior to the start of the show ..." The concert's stage set was sparse, with a few instrument stations laid out, a carpet and lamp, two reddish chandeliers, and darkish, subdued stage lighting.

But the instrument stations were indeed a break with the past, for Springsteen's 1995–1996 solo Ghost of Tom Joad Tour has seen him only playing acoustic guitar and harmonica. On the Devils & Dust Tour, by contrast, he would not only play those two, but add piano, electric piano, pump organ, autoharp, ukulele, banjo, electric guitar, and stomping board, thus adding considerable variety to the solo sound. Furthermore, his guitar tech Kevin Buell and a mysterious "Mr. Fitz" would on some songs contribute hidden, off-stage acoustic guitar, synthesizer, and percussion. This ran against Springsteen's purely solo performance claim, but provided welcome instrumental coloring (and there was a precedent, as offstage keyboards had been used a bit on the Ghost of Tom Joad Tour as well). And while the tour was officially billed as "Solo & Acoustic", there were in fact two electric instruments onstage and one offstage.

The tone of the performance was set at the start, when Springsteen would ask for quiet during the performance and humorously threaten audience members with mayhem if their cell phones went off. Then a "song" would be performed using only an amplified "stomping board" and an ultra-distorting vocal "bullet microphone", two devices designed to render any words or melody utterly incomprehensible to all but the sharpest of ears. The work most frequently presented in this slot was "Reason to Believe", Nebraska's most misanthropic selection. From there he would do a few recent songs on guitar and harmonica, usually from Devils & Dust or The Rising.

Then would come two batches of piano or electric piano performances. These were either emotional classic favorites such as "The River" or "Backstreets" or "Racing in the Street", or surprises from his back catalog, including intense tracks from The River such as "Stolen Car", "Wreck on the Highway", and "Drive All Night" that had not been played live for over two decades. Later in the tour more obscure selections were dug up, such as "The Iceman", "Santa Ana", and "Zero and Blind Terry", never released until appearing on the 1998 Tracks box set, as well as the truly obscure, such as "Song to the Orphans", never released at all and unplayed since the early 1970s. Such numbers were often humorously dedicated by Springsteen — "This is a song for the people who know more about me than I do about myself" — and indeed received many positive reactions from the die-hard fans who knew, or at least knew of, them.

Springsteen is, by his own admission, not a fully fluid or confident piano player. After playing piano some in concert during the early-mid 1970s, he had generally avoided it since, with the exception of a one-time benefit performance for the Christic Institute in 1990. But in the 2000s he had begun to give it a try again, a couple of times on the final leg of the Reunion Tour, then in the relaxed environment of Asbury Park holiday shows, and then in occasional spots on the 2002–2003 Rising Tour. His lack of skills had been illustrated in the Live in Barcelona DVD from that tour, when a solo piano "Spirit in the Night" had completely broken down. Now, for the first time, he was doing it on a steady basis, and with nowhere to hide if he made mistakes; indeed this challenge may have in part the motivation for doing the tour solo. Verdicts on his playing were mixed: fans downloading bootlegged MP3s from the shows could sometimes hear clear mistakes, especially during instrumental breaks; one reviewer found power in his playing and another proficiency; The Arizona Republic wrote that "Springsteen showed off improved piano skills"; Runaway American Dream mused that "During an impromptu electric-piano 'All That Heaven Will Allow', Springsteen seemed delighted during the solo when he hit the right notes"; while HARP Magazine said "Springsteen’s piano playing was perfectly imperfect." In any case, for the faithful the rarities and the frequent set list changes in the piano numbers seemed to more than make up for any technical deficiencies.

The end of the regular set would always contain four or five of the dourest Devils & Dust numbers played in succession, concluding to silence with the difficult "Matamoros Banks" (the illegal immigrant protagonist starts the song dead under a river with turtles gnawing at him). For artist who had built a reputation for rousing set closers such as "Rosalita" and "Light of Day", this draining and unpleasant finale was more than a bit of a departure.

The encore would first feature some up-tempo liveliness, with high-energy guitar run-throughs of fan favorites such as "Ramrod", "Land of Hope and Dreams", or "Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street?" But then would come an unearthly, distinctly non-anthemic rendition of his popular rallying cry "The Promised Land", built around a percussive vocalization and guitar slaps approach, somewhat similar to his Ghost of Tom Joad Tour version. And then the final selection would be one of his most unusual ever—a modified version of 1970s cult band Suicide's obscure "Dream Baby Dream". Played on pump organ with a reverberating drone, assisted by an offstage synthesizer, Springsteen cycled around and around, minute after minute, through pieces of the simple yet disjointed lyrics – "Dream baby dream, I just want to see you smile, come on, dream baby dream" – until eventually he would get up from the organ and walk around the stage, the offstage music still coming, he still repeating through the lyrics, looking out over the audience as if he were giving them a puzzled benediction, then finally walking off stage still singing and without further remarks, the end. Some "Dream Baby Dream"s lasted eight minutes, nine, ten or more.