Racing in The Street - Live Performance History

Live Performance History

"Racing in the Street" was a regular feature of the set list during Springsteen's 1978 Darkness Tour. This began the practice of the band playing a much longer coda part after the lyrical section concluded. With the music almost gone, Weinberg would start tapping his drumstick, and the band would slowly begin a long instrumental build-up with Bittan's piano leading. Subsequently, guitars enter almost unheard, with soft, high-pitched figures adding overtones against the keyboard parts. Listening to it live and on bootleg recordings of radio broadcasts the following year, writer Greil Marcus said the performance of "Racing in the Street" following the tour's famed elongated presentation of "Prove It All Night" had captivated his attention and was "the only music I've felt scared to play, and scared not to." The 1978 performances of the song typically segued into "Thunder Road".

The song was also a regular during the 1980–1981 River Tour. Now the song was a standalone piece, typically eight minutes in length, with a coda that neither faded out like the studio recording or segued into another song, but rather built to a series of climaxes. A live version of the song from the tour, recorded in 1981 at Meadowlands Arena in New Jersey, was included on the 1986 box set Live/1975–85. Rolling Stone noted that in concert the song "draws its power from a deeper well, palpably accelerating with pensive desperation as Danny Federici's sorrowful organ clouds over Roy Bittan's ballerina piano figure."

During the 1984–1985 Born in the U.S.A. Tour, "Racing in the Street" was first in set list rotation with "Backstreets". Then, once "Rosalita" was dropped as the standard second-half main set closer, "Racing in the Street" often served in its stead for a while, although by the 1985 U.S. stadium leg it was gone. During its time as a set closer, Springsteen began telling a softly spoken story about a summer romance gone bad, set against a wistful synthesizer backdrop by Bittan. Then the song was played, but the coda's ending was routed into Springsteen telling the conclusion of the story, with the couple packing their bags and leaving for an unknown destination, after which Springsteen walked off the stage while the coda resumed for one time around. This version was not included on the Live/1975–85 set because it had not been performed during any of the shows that were professionally recorded.

The song virtually disappeared from Springsteen's concert repertoire in the following years, appearing just a few times on the 1995–1997 solo Ghost of Tom Joad Tour played on acoustic guitar (and usually accompanied by future E Street Band violinist Soozie Tyrell).

Beginning in 1999 with the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Reunion Tour and the subsequent 2000s tours in the Reunion Era, "Racing in the Street" appeared intermittently, often rotating with "Backstreets", "Jungleland", and similarly long, intense songs in a late-in-main-set "epic" slot. These versions were often nine minutes long, with audiences cheering in anticipation of the coda. Tyrell's violin and sometimes Clarence Clemons' baritone sax were added to the mix, but the lead was still Bittan, playing coda sequences up to several crescendos, before playing a minor-key line that signalled the conclusion.

During the final Vote for Change concert in 2004, "Racing in the Street" was performed by Springsteen and the band with Jackson Browne sharing the vocals. Springsteen played it a number of times on solo piano during his 2005 Devils & Dust Tour. It returned in its full-band incarnation on subsequent tours beginning in 2007, including a lengthy 2009 version which appears on the DVD London Calling: Live in Hyde Park.