Personal Premieres at the Springsteen L.A. Shows

Coming into the three shows at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, there were 9 songs off The River album that I had NEVER seen performed live in person. These songs were: Sherry Darling, Jackson Cage, Crush On You, I Wanna Marry You, Fade Away, Stolen Car, The Price You Pay, Drive All Night, & Wreck On The Highway. If you throw in The River outtake, Meet Me In The City, as well as the cover of The Isley Brothers’ Shout!, then those are 11 songs I had never ever heard Bruce sing live before. It turns out that over the 3-night stand, that those 11 songs would be the “only” new songs for me. Obviously, I say that a bit tongue-in-cheek, because, for any Springsteen fan, having never-before-heard-live-TO-YOU-songs, is a huge feather in your Bruce cap. And, having 11 personal premieres is nothing to sneeze at! That my friends, is the beauty of this current tour, Bruce promised to play the entire The River album each and every night. Thus, to my uncle who asked to hear a bit more about the setlists from last week, I want to start with this post, letting you know that, for each of the three nights, the first 21 songs were exactly the same. He opened with Meet Me In The City and then played all four sides (20 songs) of The River album straight through. This part of the show took-up the first 2+ hours of each evening. He also closed his encores with Shout, except for night 3 when he added a bonus closer. That was only the second night on the current tour that he didn’t close with Shout, but more on that in the next post.