Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band Reunion Tour - The Show

The Show

The E Street Band's sound changed with this tour. Originally different because of its inclusion of two keyboard instruments and a saxophone, it was now more guitar-oriented, as different-era second guitarists Steven Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren were both included in the line-up, and as wife Patti Scialfa's greater up-front visibility added a fourth guitar. The ability of the sound system to keep the instrumental mix clear varied from venue to venue and night to night.

Set lists were dynamic throughout the tour. For a while Tracks' "My Love Will Not Let You Down", a 1982 Born in the U.S.A. outtake, was the usual show opener. Although little known, "My Love" contained all the classic E Street Band elements, led by Danny Federici's trademark electronic glockenspiel sound. Later many other songs served the opener role as well, often equally unknown but less accessible ones that gave the audience pause at the start. The second slot however was usually given to "Prove It All Night" or "The Promised Land", 1970s classics that would pull the audience fully into the show, followed by "Two Hearts", emphasizing the bond between Springsteen and sidekick Van Zandt. Following those numbers, anything might appear.

Midway through the regular set, a fixed series of five songs always appeared: a loud, full-band "Youngstown", with a fiery guitar solo from Nils Lofgren; a loud, three-guitars-distorting "Murder Inc."; the reliably crowd-rousing anthem "Badlands"; a lengthy take on "Out in the Street" with plenty of Bruce stage antics; and a very elongated "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out", which served as this tour's band intro song.

It was in "Tenth Avenue" that the show's theme began to emerge. Springsteen used it to deliver one of his tall tales about the formation of the E Street Band, adopting a preacher persona to first sing sections of The Impressions' "It's All Right" and/or Al Green's "Take Me to the River", all the while describing a quasi-spiritual quest in the guise of band introductions: a journey to "the river of resurrection, where everyone can find salvation. But you can’t get there by yourself." The band were the people needed: Max Weinberg was introduced as star of Late Night with Conan O'Brien; Garry Tallent got to play the bass riff from "Fire"; Steven Van Zandt was introduced as star of The Sopranos tel-eee-vision show (to which Van Zandt responded with a bit of the theme from The Godfather on his guitar); Patti Scialfa got a build-up as "the first lady of love", after which she would play and sing a verse of her album's title song "Rumble Doll"; and Clarence Clemons would get the biggest build-up of all, leading to the part of "Tenth Avenue" in which "the Big Man joins the band."

From there the show would drop back into a serious mode, usually featuring a soft band rendition of the gloomy "The Ghost of Tom Joad" followed by a 1970s epic of loss rotated amongst "Backstreets", "Jungleland", and "Racing in the Street".

But then the second piece of the theme came, with the set closer "Light of Day". Now Springsteen was the backwoods preacher again, stretching out the song and in the middle giving a long sermon on what kind of salvation he was offering. First would be some local-site-specific glorifying or taunting, and then he would intone in time to band beats:

I'm here tonight - I'm here tonight -

To re-educate ya

To re-suscitate ya

To re-generate ya

To re-confiscate ya

To re-combabulate ya

To re-indoctrinate ya

To re-sex-u-late ya

To re-dedicate ya

To re-liberate ya

With the power, and the glory

With the power, and the glory

With the promise

With the majesty!

With the mystery!!

WITH THE MINISTRY! OF ROCK AND ROLL!!!

Now unlike my competitors,

I cannot ... I shall not ... I will not

Promise you life everlasting.

But I can promise you -

LIFE, RIGHT NOW!

This "Ministry of Rock and Roll" litany became the (long) catchphrase of the tour, and T-shirts were printed up with these words on the back.

Encores began with fan favorites such as "Born to Run" and "Thunder Road"; Springsteen would make increased use of turning the house lights on during some such songs, to increase the communal feeling of the concert.

Lights went back down, as the next-to-last song of the show typically began the third part of the concert's theme. This was a rendering of "If I Should Fall Behind", originally recorded during the E Street Band's dissolved period, but now cast as a slowly-played vow of togetherness: Springsteen, Van Zandt, Lofgren, Scialfa, and Clemons would each take turns singing a verse, promising to wait for each other. Last came "Land of Hope and Dreams", the one newly-written song to be featured on most of the tour. Musically based in part around The Impressions' "People Get Ready" but set to a loud guitar churn with a sometimes-heard mandolin riff from Van Zandt, 'Lohad' (as it soon became known to fans) was lyrically a deliberate inversion of Woody Guthrie's "This Train Is Bound For Glory". In Preacher Bruce's take, all are welcome on the train - "saints and sinners", "losers and winners", "whores and gamblers" - you just get on board. Stretched to eight or more minutes, with several false endings, 'Lohad' represented the culmination of the show's message of rock and roll revival.

Springsteen celebrated his 50th birthday with a sold-out show on September 24, 1999 at Philadelphia's Wachovia Spectrum, opening the show with praise for his strong Philadelphia fan base, then playing a voice mail recording that a friend of his mother left on her answering machine, singing to him "The Big 50". Springsteen then quoted W.C. Fields, saying that "All things being equal, I'd rather be in Philadelphia," and broke into his early favorite "Growin' Up".

During the tour's third leg in 2000, Springsteen began performing some additional newly-written songs, including a couple co-written by Joe Grushecky of Iron City Houserockers fame. But the new song that gained by far the most attention was "American Skin (41 Shots)".

Finally the Garden shows and the tour concluded with the sole performance of the 1995 temporary-reunion "Blood Brothers", augmented by an added verse; in the words of writer Robert Santelli, this was "the only song that could sum up what he was feeling Tears flowed, onstage and off, and when it was all over, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, had come full circle—blood brothers, one and all."