Songs Played in L.A. on The River Tour

My uncle John asked me about the setlist over the three nights of Springsteen at the Los Angeles Sports Arena last week, specifically, “What songs were played?” That’s a loaded question because the answer is, “A lot of them.” By my count, it was 45 different songs to be precise! I understand how obsessive this comes off to the non-fan, or even casual-fan, but here’s what was played. As mentioned in my previous post, 22 songs were a given: all 20 tracks on The River album as well as the opener, Meet Me In The City, and the encore, extended version with band intros of The Isley Bros’ Shout! That leaves 23 other tunes. Among those, there were 6 other songs that were staples, and also played all three nights. Those were:

Badlands

Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)

Dancing in the Dark

Thunder Road

Born To Run

And, no, despite the popularity of those 6 songs, none of those have been played at every single Bruce concert I’ve seen, but for this tour they are standards.

There were only 3 songs that were played two nights in L.A.:

Wrecking Ball (not played on night 2)

Because The Night (not played on night 2)

The Rising (not played on night 3, the first time it has been dropped on this tour)

This brings us down to the “special songs” that I’m sure my uncle really wanted to know about. These are the ones that really changed things up from night to night. There were 14 of this variety as follows:

Night 1 (Tues.)

Lonesome Day

Human Touch

She’s The One

No Surrender

Night 2 (Thurs.)

Death To My Hometown (tour premiere)

The Promised Land

Backstreets

Brilliant Disguise

American Land (tour premiere)

[both premieres presumably for St. Patrick’s Day]

Night 3 (Sat.)

Prove It All Night

My Love Will Not Let You Down

Tougher Than The Rest

Jungleland

Bobby Jean (added as show closer for only the second time this tour)

Some other notable stats: Both night 1 and night 3 got 35 songs whereas night 2 got 34 songs. However, on night 2, it seemed like Bruce extended Shout longer than either of the other two nights, to the point where he and the audience were ready to drop, in fact, by where I was on the floor, several did. Time-wise though, night 3 was the longest show, 3 hours, 45 minutes, clocking in at the longest Springsteen show I have ever seen, and one of his longest ever!

Well, there you have it. Those are the song statistics for the historic 3-night run at The Dump That Jumps, the last shows at the Los Angeles Sports Arena ever. This was the first place I ever saw Springsteen. Notably, my uncle John Lynd, the guy I’m posting this for, took me to that show!