Ain't no church bells ringing

Ain't no flags unfurled
It's just me and you and the love we're bringing
Into the real world
Into the real world

As some of you already I know, I attended a Bruce Springsteen concert in Albany last night with my brother. We purchased a couple of cigars for the ride across the state and settled into a great conversation about what we're doing with our lives. We tend to have good conversations once in a while that help us refocus and get stuff out of our heads. Simply put, it was a good way to clear one's head before a concert so you can go in feeling upbeat.

The set for this tour is fairly stark except for some curtains, a couple of chandeliers and a candle on the piano. There's a pump organ to the left and a piano on the right with a mic center-stage. Like I said, fairly stark, but cozy.

So the lights go down and the stage lights up and Bruce steps to the mic. He tells everyone that he basically needs as much quiet as he can get, and other than that to enjoy ourselves. Lights go down and the next thing you know he's playing the pump organ. He opens with "Into the Fire" which helps set the contemplative nature of the show. Hearing familiar songs in a new setting and style makes all the difference too. I went to 8 shows on The Rising Tour so I had heard Into the Fire several times. It felt like the first time again last night. That theme seemed to run throughout the show.

The next song he played was way out of the ordinary. He started playing a harmonica with some sort of distortion. He was holding something over the mic so I'm not sure what it was exactly, but it sounded throaty and raw. Then he started singing and playing intermittently with a real honky tonk blues feel. The only percussion was the pounding of his foot and he sang and played the harp. The song was "Reason to Believe." I thought it could have been better if you could understand what he was singing better, but the presentation was once again unique.

Here's where "Devils & Dust" popped up. That was a treat to hear live. I just like being in the moment at concerts and trying to absorb as much of the songs as possible. I know people talk about the Iraq war when they mention this song, but I seldom think about that. That's never referenced directly, and I appreciate the fact that I can relate to it in my own way.

"Lonesome Day" was next on the set-list. As I mentioned to my brother on the way to the show, The Rising as an album, lends itself nicely to acoustic arangements. I always cling to words, "Let kingdom come I'm gonna find my way/Through this lonesome day." Sometimes it just fits.

Before starting his next song Bruce mentioned that his son was at the show, "Putting up with the boredom of his dad's job for a night." Then he said he was dedicating the next song to his son, and he started playing "Pony Boy." After a few bars and a couple lines in he says, "Just kidding, he'd kill me if I played that thing." So we all laugh, and then he starts into "Long Time Comin'." Now, I was always under the impression that this song was being sung to the woman. http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/LongTimeComin.html
That changed. When he sings the stanza about his "daddy" being a stranger you could see a pain in his eyes. The next stanza he's talking to his kid in the song. On stage he turns slightly towards his son who can't be seen off-stage and sings:

Now down below and pullin' on my shirt
I got some kids of my own
Well if I had one wish in this god forsaken world, kids
It'd be that your mistakes would be your own
Yea your sins would be your own

I wish you could have seen the expression on his face. A look of honesty and frustration knowing that the world will teach his kids lessons that he simply can't prepare them for or prevent. You could just feel the connection being made there. Like I said, the song changed for me tonight. After he played it he said jokingly, "My son will tell you, I ain't gonna fuck it up too bad this time." Check the lyrics to see what he's talking about.

Once again he dedicated a song, this time to his son's friend. I'm not sure, but this song might have been written for him in the first place. It was "Silver Palomino" and I have yet to wrap my head around it. If you can shed any light on it for me, or just want to share your thoughts, please do. Regardless of how much I understand, it was presented beautifully in concert.

At this point Bruce meandered over to the piano. For those of you unfamiliar with Bruce tunes this won't mean much, but he played "The Promise." I like to think of it as the sequel to "Thunder Road." It's where you wind up when you take that chance and end up losing.

Bruce's intro for "Tougher Than the Rest" was hilarious. His dad told him that all love songs were government propaganda to get people to marry and have kids and work and suffer. His mom said love songs were designed so you would get married, have kids, suffer, and transcend. Anyway, he cracked us up and then reinvented a twenty year old song on the ivories.

"Part Man, Part Monkey" is a weird tune. He did a good job with it, but I never really understood why he wrote it or why he is playing it so much on this tour, but he does. Bruce is quirky. Although, judging by his intro it's his dig at the religious right. God bless him.

"All The Way Home" was brilliantly executed. In fact it surpassed the album version.

"Cautious Man" It's like looking in a mirror. I mean, how the hell does he know what I'm thinking? Notice the last line though. That is the first time the road was nothing more than a method of conveyance in a Springsteen song.

"Reno" Hey now.

"Paradise" This was the, "If he was any more talented I would be forced to smack him" portion of the show. They wheeled out an electric piano or organ thing to start the song. It's a moving piece and is phenomenal in an intimate setting like last night, but it gets better. As he is approaching the end of the song a turn and starts playing the piano with his right hand, and keeps playing the electric piano with his left. Then he completely makes the switch and finishes the song on the piano. Come on.

This is where my jaw hit the floor. "Real World" http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/RealWorld.html did not get the attention it deserved on Human Touch. He played this at the piano with such soul and emotion I was blown away. There is no way I can describe it here and do it any justice, but I downloaded a bootleg when I got home. Just this one song, but it's worth a listen. This was probably the most appropriate song for me personally, of the evening.

That was it for the piano as he picked the guitar up again for "The Rising." It was hard to sit still for such an uplifting song. The lyrics are amazing when you hear them against the bare sound of the acoustic guitar. Check out Storytellers to get a taste of what I'm talking about.

"Spare Parts" was a solid selection. I was never a huge fan of this tune, but there was an edge to it today that got to me. Even if the story itself doesn't connect, the sneer did.

Here comes the Kleenex moment. "Jesus Was An Only Son" This song is moving enough, but he introduced it by talking about Catholicism and parenting. "I was raised Catholic. The brain washing works, it really does. I'm stuck with it. Jesus is my defacto homeboy." Seriously though, he said he wanted to write about being a parent and relating that to Jesus as a Son. So he sings the first stanza and stops to talk while he keeps playing the piano. He talked about the desire to protect your children from everything, and just keep them safe. He also said, "Daddy is a life sentence." After another stanza he talks about the sacrifices we make and how we measure how important someone is in our life based on the sacrifices we would make for them. Before he sang the stanza about the garden at Gethsemane he reflects on what Jesus might have thought about that night. I'm paraphrasing here, "There's a little place in Galilee. I could manage that. Mary Magdalene could tend bar. I could feel the sun on my face, and the air in my lungs. Then I could see the next day... and the next day... and the next day... and the next day... and the next day." Then he finished out the song. This paragraph is trite compared to what I felt.

His intro for "Leah" was fantastic. Both funny and dead-on. "We carry the power to build in one hand, and the power to destroy in the other. There's a whole mother-fucker of a battle going on in the middle. This song is about a guy who came down just on the right side of that line."

"This Hard Land" is one of those songs that I don't often listen to, but always enjoy. As he did for much of the night he would distance himself from the mic to create an echoey effect and it really worked when he sang parts of this song that way.

"The Hitter" was perfect. Again, better than the studio version. There was such angst in his voice while he sang that the character in the song was onstage, not Bruce. Pure talent.

Bruce introduced "Matamoros Banks" by referencing how many people die trying to cross the border into the US each year. As he said, we don't need a bunch of vigilantes we need a humane immigration policy. Short and to the point and a great context for the song.

(encore)
He came out with a microphone attached to a harmonica so he could play and sing while he played the guitar. The cool part was he could walk around the stage while he played "Ramrod." It sounded like no other version I'd ever heard and it livened everyone up for the end of the night.

"Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?" This is some oooooold material. First album material. Another up-beat tune. Probably to give the audience a little tast of the party-Bruce so they don't leave empty-handed.

His rendition of "Bobby Jean" was outstanding. I always feel this song for personal reasons, but the way he sang the final verse was perfect.
"And I'm just callin' one last time not to change your mind
But just to say I miss you baby, good-luck, goodbye, Bobby Jean"
It was a somewhat somber, but absolutely determined demeanor in his voice when he sang that. I love those two lines.

He played "The Promised Land" by tapping out a beat on his guitar with his hand. Not just a steady tap but a combination of thumb, palm, and fingertips to generate different sounds from the guitar. 7,000 people wer in a trance. My brother and I noted that the place was absolutely silent for this song. What this show lacked in rock'n'roll it made up for with intensity in the performance.

Bruce has been covering a song called, "Dream Baby Dream" to close out most of his shows. He returned to the pump organ for this one. Now, I don't know how it works exactly, but he started the song behind the organ, and towards the very end he stood up and walked away from it. I'm thinking he recorded a loop while he was playing and just kept it going so he could stand up. I know Howie Day does something similar so he can add different layers to a song while he's playing solo. Anyway, "Dream Baby Dream" is very repetitive and besides the title he keeps singing, "Keep on dreaming, I wanna see you smile, I just wanna see you smile, keep the light burning, keep the fire burning, open up your heart, come on baby open up your heart." That's almost the whole song, but it builds with the organ. He walks to the edge of the stage and the lights shine out to the crowd and for the first time he stares straight out at everyone. Just as the song gets to the highest point he walks right off stage. Perfect high note to end the evening.